Professor Susan McCabe



Professor Susan McCabe

mccabe@usc.edu

ARLT 100

How to Read a Poem:: From Shakespeare to Hip Hop (35234)

AKA Poetry Boot Camp

12:30 – 1:50 TTH VKC 203

Office Hours: Thursday 2:30-3:30, and by appointment

Description:

This course is designed to train students in the close reading of poems and in the understanding of genre as an aesthetic, aural and historical phenomenon. It aims to introduce students to poetry’s multiple forms and traditions. We will listen to recordings as well as have in-class readings of the poems under discussion. Pertinent visual material will be introduced where possible. The course format combines lecture and discussion as we carefully unravel each poem under scrutiny. We will cover a range of texts, from Shakespeare through Romantic poetry to the present, including contemporary multicultural and popular forms. We will examine the crossover between lyric poetry and more popular forms, including the use of poems in DJ sampling.

The class is ambitious, demanding, and tries to be semi-comprehensive, but we cannot hope to cover all materials, even those required in your reading. It is absolutely necessary that you attend all classes for the sake of continuity and material. It is also absolutely necessary to read all materials before the class they are assigned (except the first day of the course). In fact, the course relies upon you reading poems repeatedly and actively in order to follow lectures and to contribute. There are small building block assignments, creative and critical, that hinge one upon the other so the workload is moderate and steady. Finally, in connection with your mandatory preparation, please bring texts to class so that you can take notes and read aloud in class when asked.

Don’t worry if you are unfamiliar with the discipline of poetry; the purpose of this course is to introduce you to this diverse field—spark and train your interest. All work assigned will be due on the date indicated at the start of class, unless other arrangements are made in advance; and such arrangements will be made only in extreme and documented circumstances (see attached contract).

Required Texts (material rather than virtual mandated):

--Shakespeare’s SONNETS (Signet edition)

--O'Clair, Ramazani, Ellman, editors

The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry (2 VOLUMES PACKAGE; 3RD EDITION)

--DJ Spooky, Rhythm Science, MIT Press

In addition, there will some handouts of poems not in anthologies, including Andrew Dubois’Anthology of Rap, as well as sound recordings played in class.

--Requirements/ due dates/ and Grade Breakdown:

I require attendance and participation in both lecture and breakout sessions; close attention to the sounds of poems as well as their visual presentation on the page. You are responsible for keeping good lecture notes; there are no make-up assignments.

More than two unauthorized absences (not notifying of legitimate medical or other excuse in advance by email) will result in lowering of grade. No cell phone, texting, surfing, or email activity allowed in class. Part of “how to read a poem” is about learning to focus your attention.

--6 Short writing assignments (double-spaced typed); Week 2; Week 3, Week 5; Week 6; Week 9; Week 15

These brief responses should be thoughtful, edited, and substantive and remain between 200 and 300 words. Part of the assignment is to write something snappy, short, within the limits. Keep your best insights, and toss out the less useful observations…. 30%

--Applied glossary test (Week 7) 10%

--Memorized and performed Shakespeare Sonnet (Week 8) 10%

--Four Poems (and drafts)—“You’re the Top” (Week 1); Sonnet (Week 12),

Memory Poem (Week 1r), final poem- (dialogue/sampling/ rap) (Week 16) 15%

--Paper: Close Reading / Explication (5 pages) (Week 11) 15%

-Cumulative Final---mini-essay identifications / in-class exercises 20%

NOTE: In drawing up your final grade, attendance and participation will be taken into account for either raising or lowering your grade. Your investment in the class should be visible. SHOW UP!

Plagiarism Warning: All your work must be original, with proper citation for use of outside sources; there are high penalties for plagiarism. {see note below on Academic Integrity]

Schedule of Meetings & Readings

Week One

Introductions: The Lyric/Song

T January 11

*--Mathew Arnold “Dover Beach” (xerox)

*--Brenda Hillman “Sediments of Santa Monica” (xerox)

*--William Butler Yeats “The Stolen Child” (xerox)/ Waterboys audio interpretation

*-- “You’re the Top” (lyrics handout) see);

-*--Gertrude Stein, “If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso” (photocopy; audio); Stein and DJ Wally “If I Told Him” (audio; see week 15)

*recommended: Lauryn Hill “Lost Ones”: “Mystery of Iniquity,” audio

R January 13

“Vers Libre” or Free Verse /Sight / Metaphor

--Ezra Pound, “In a Station of the Metro” (Norton I)

--William Carlos Williams, “This is Just to Say,” “The Red Wheelbarrow”(Norton I; audio)

--Kenneth Koch, “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams” (Norton II)

--e.e. cummings, [in Just-], [Buffalo Bill’s]. [my father moved through dooms of love]; [next to of course god America ], [as freedom is a breakfastfood], [anyone lived in a pretty how town] (Norton I, audio)

-- “We Real Cool” (Norton II; audio)

[Creeley: “I know a Man Exercise”]

DUE: Poem One--Rewrite “You’re the Top” using contemporary references, and new and off-rhymes

Week Two Poetic Form & Ars Poetica

T January 18

--Frost, “Road Not Taken” (Norton I, audio)

--“Stopping by the Woods on A Snowy Evening” (Norton I, audio)

--Thylias Moss, “Interpretation of a Poem by Frost” (Norton II)

--Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz” (Norton II; audio)

INTRODUCTION TO SCANSION

R January 20

*--John Keats, “Ode to a Grecian Urn” (xerox); “Ode to a Nightingale” (xerox; audio)

--from Keats Letters (audio; xerox) “Negative Capability” (Keats’ term)

*--Brenda Hillman, “Styrofoam Cup” (xerox)

[Recommendation: See Jane Campion’s Bright Star 2009]

*--Brenda Hillman, “Styrofoam Cup” (xerox)

--Archibald MacLeish, “Ars Poetica” (Norton I)

--Marianne Moore, “Poetry” (Norton I)

--W.H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts” (Norton I; audio)

--Frank O’Hara, “Why I am not a Painter” (Norton II) /* “Having a Coke with You”

--Wallace Stevens, “The Idea of Order at Key West” (Norton I; audio)

--DUE: SHORT WRITING ASSIGNMENT #1:

SELECT ONE of the NORTON POEMS and describe in 200-300 words (double-spaced, typed) what the poem indicates in its methods/form/sounds/diction about the art of poetry. In short, what clues does the poem give you about its attitude towards what poetry can or might accomplish? Does it offer a model for the writing of poems?

Week Three Description & the parts of the metaphor

T January 25

--Thomas Hardy, “Darkling Thrush” (Norton I)

--Elizabeth Bishop, “The Fish” (Norton II); Marianne Moore, “The Fish” (Norton I)-

--Wallace Stevens, “Disillusionment of 10 O’clock”

--Sylvia Plath, “Tulips”; “Poppies in October” (Norton II)

--From “Hamlet” (essay; Norton I) “Objective Correlative” (Eliot’s term)

R January 27

*--Whitman, “A Noiseless Patient Spider” (xerox)

--Dickinson, “My Life—Had Stood A Loaded Gun” (Norton I)

SHORT WRITING ASSIGNMENT #2 DUE: Describe how Dickinson’s central implicit comparison of two seemingly unrelated elements “My Life” and “loaded gun” operates in the poem as a whole. What makes this an expressive, effective and complex metaphor? How does it develop across the poem, from stanza to stanza? Focus only on the operation of the metaphor.

Week Four Historical Memory & The Personal

T February 1

--Whitman, “When Lilacs: Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (Norton I)

--Lowell, “Memories of West Street and Lepke” (Norton II)

--Frank O’Hara, “The Day Lady Died” (Norton II)

--watch Billy Holiday singing “Strange Fruit” on

[Recommendation Lady Sings the Blues with Diana Ross (1972)]

--Jorie Graham, “Fission” (Norton II)

R February 3 Blues & Memory

--Bessie Smith (audio): “Baby Doll”; “Backwater Blues” (xerox); “Reckless Blues”; “Cake Walkin’ Blues”

--Ma Rainey, “See See Rider” (xerox)

--Langston Hughes, “Weary Blues,” “Negro Speaks of Rivers” (Norton I, audio)

*--Blackalicious, “Ego Trip by Nicki Giovanni” (audio)

Week Five THE SONNETS

T February 8

--Read first half of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

*HANDOUT ON THE SONNET

R February 10

--Shakespeare Sonnets continued

--SHORT ASSIGNMENT #3 DUE: Select a Shakespeare Sonnet, type it up double-spaced, and “Scan” showing “foot” breaks and short/long syllables, and diagnose the overall pattern and breaks from the pattern

Week Six THE SONNETS continued

T February 15

--Read second half of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, looking for interconnecting themes and images

R February 17

--discussion of Sonnets continued

SHORT ASSIGNMENT #4 DUE: ANNOTATION: Using the same poem you scanned in Week Five (or if not, scan the new one), retype it, underline, diagram, and comment in the margins upon its various techniques; below it, write a brief analysis (200 words) of the connecting metaphor(s) or imagery in it, and how its structure builds and turns

Week Seven

T February 22

Other Sonnets

*--Keats, “When I have fears that I will cease to be”

*--Terrance Hayes, “Sonnet” (xerox)

--Frost, “Design” (Norton I)

--Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Love Is Not All: It is Not Meat nor Drink”; “I Shall Forget You Presently,” (Norton I, audio)

--Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (Norton I)

R February 24 More Sonnets/Ballads and other forms

--Claude McKay, “America”: “If We Must Die”; “Harlem Dancer” (Norton I)

--Jean Toomer, “Her Lips are Copper Wire” (Norton I)

--Coutee Cullen, “Yet Do I Marvel” (Norton I)

--Keats, “When I have fears that I may cease to be”; “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”

--Shelley, “Ozymandias”

*APPLIED GLOSSARY QUIZ based on one of this week’s poems

Week Eight Performing the Sonnet

T March 1

First half of the students in class will recite (random numbers drawn the week before)

R March 3

Second half of the students in class will recite

Week Nine

T March 8

Dramatic Structure: Subjectivity, Story-Telling, and its Re-orderings

--Emily Dickinson, #s 214, 258, 280, 328, 341, 435, 465, 754, 986 (Norton I)

Reread “The Road Not Taken”

R March 10

--Hardy, “A Broken Appointment” (Norton I)

--Stevie Smith, “Not Waving But Drowning” (Norton II)

--Gwendolyn Brooks, “Boy Breaking Glass”

*--Bishop, “The Drunkard” (unpublished poem; xerox)

--Millay, Recuerdo” (Norton I, audio)

SHORT WRITING ASSIGNMENT # 5 DUE: Select a Dickinson poem and discuss the use of rhyme, off-rhyme, word choice, and dashes at significant junctures

Week Ten SPRING BREAK no classes or meetings for this course March 11-21

Week Eleven Personas & More Intertextuality

T March 22

*--Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress” (xerox)

--T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (Norton I; audio)

R March 24

-Bishop, “Man-Moth”; “Crusoe in England” (Norton II, audio)

*--Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud” (xerox)

-Plath, “The Applicant,” “Lady Lazurus”; “Daddy” (Norton II, audio)

*PAPER DUE: CLOSE READING/Explication 5 pages/ with annotated poem attached)

Week Twelve Villanelles/ Other forms

T March 29

--Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” and drafts; “Sestina”; *Villanelle Handout

--Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” (Norton 926-7, audio);

--Roethke, “The Waking” (Norton II, audio)

*--Hayes, “Broken Dangerfield Newby Villanelle” (xerox)

R March 31 Memory, Self and Place

--Elizabeth Bishop, “In the Waiting Room” (Norton II)

--Marilyn Chin, “How I Got That Name” (Norton II)

*--Lorna Dee Cervantes, “In the Waiting Room: (xerox)

----David St. John, “Iris” (xerox)

--James Merrill, “Broken Home” (Norton II)

--Li-Young Lee, “Persimmons,” “Eating Alone,” “Eating Together” (Norton II)

Poem #2 Due (Sonnet, Villanelle, Ballad or Sestina)

Week Thirteen

T April 5

Losses & Elegy: Personal and Social

--Lowell, “Skunk Hour”, “Grandparents,” “Commander Lowell,” “Waking in the Blue,

--Anne Sexton, “The Truth the Dead Know”; “All My Pretty Ones” (Norton II, audio)

--O’Hara, “The Day Lady Died”; “A Step Away from Them” (Norton II)

R April 7 Week Fourteen Nation & Counter-Culture

--Frost, “The Gift Outright” (Norton I, audio); Pete Seeger, “Guantanamera” (audio)

--Yeats, “Second Coming” (Norton I)

--Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est”; “Strange Meeting”; “Mental Cases,” “Disabled”(Norton I)

--Ginsberg, “America” (Norton II, audio)

Week Fourteen

T April 12

--Ginsberg, Howl and “Footnote to Howl”(Norton II, audio)

--Carol Ann Duffy, “Mrs. Lazurus” (Norton II)

R April 14

--Adrienne Rich, “Power”; “Diving into the Wreck” (Norton II, audio)

--Xeroxed Rap lyrics distributed on Tuesday for discussion

*--Excerpt from “Rap Anthology”: “Raps Poetic Form” (xerox); selected rap lyrics: Lauryn Hill (“Lost Ones”); Jay-Z; 50 Cent; Ice Cube; 2Pac (“Changes”; “Dear Mother”); Missy Elliot; Mystic (“Fatherless Child”)

Poem Assignment #3 Memory Poem Due

Week Fifteen The Poetry of Rap

T April 19

--Start reading Miller’s, Rhythm Science

*--discuss and hear selected rap lyrics: Lauryn Hill; Jay-Z; 50 Cent; Ice Cube; 2Pac; Missy Elliot; Mystic

R April 21

-finish Rhythm Science

--Focus on tracks 1-4. 9. 10, 16, 27 on CD

--“Rekonstruction” and “A Conversation,” D,J Spooky (audio)

--*--Gertrude Stein, “If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso” (xerox; audio); Stein and DJ Wally “If I Told Him” (audio)

--Stein, “Valentine for Sherwood Anderson” (Norton I)

--Mikhail/Gertrude Stein: "Untitled in F Minor” (audio)

--April [remix] + Anna Livia Plurbelle (Finnegan's wake) (audio)

--Dj mix on Ginsberg (Bates/ Allen Ginsberg/ 'Once Loved, audio)

SHORT WRITING ASSIGNMENT # 6 DUE: Summarize Miller’s overall “aesthetic”: how do poetry and sound interact? What are his key terms? What are your questions?

Week Sixteen

T April 26

Sampling & Intertextuality revisited

*--Pound, “Lake Isle” (xerox); read Yeats, “Lake Isle of Innisfree” again

--Stevie Smith’s “Person from Porlock” (Norton II) with *Coleridge’s “Kubla Kahn” (xerox)

*--Carolyn Bergvall, “Via” (xerox)

R April 28

--James Merrill, “b o d y” (Norton II)

--John Ashbery, “The Instruction Manual,” “As One Put Drunk in the Packet Boat” (Norton II)

*--Harryette Mullen. “All She Wrote,” “Kristenography”

Poem Four: Write a poem that attempts a dialogue with one (or more) of the poems we have read in the last TWO weeks, especially engaging in sound, allusion and/or sampling

Final Exam May 11 2-4 p.m.

Selected Required Xeroxed Poems

Arnold, Mathew. “Dover Beach”

Bergvall, Caroline. “Via”

Bishop, Elizabeth. “A Drunkard”

Cervantes, Lorna Dee, “In the Waiting Room”

Coleridge, William. “Kubla Kahn”

Hayes, Terrance. “Sonnet”; “Dangerfield Newby Villanelle”

Hillman, Brenda. “Sediments of Santa Monica”; “Styrofoam Cup”

Keats, John. “Ode to a Grecian Urn”; “Ode to a Nightingale”; “When I have fears that I may cease to be”; “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”

Marvell, Andrew. “To His Coy Mistress”

Mullen, Harryette. “All She Wrote,” “Kristenography”

O’Hara, Frank. “Having a Coke with You”

Porter, Cole. “You’re the Top”

Pound, Ezra. “Lake Isle”

Rainey, Ma. “See See Rider”

Shelley, “Ozymandias”

Smith, Bessie. “Backwater Blues”

St. John, David. “Iris”

Stein, Gertrude. “If I Told Him If Napoleon”

Whitman, Walt. “A Noiseless Patient Spider”

Wordsworth, William. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

Yeats, William Butler. “Stolen Child”

Excerpts from Anthology of Rap

RECOMMENDED AUDIO WEBSITES

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Important information

Statement for Students with Disabilities

Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to TA) as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776.

Statement on Academic Integrity

USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are expected to understand and abide by these principles. Scampus, the Student Guidebook, contains the Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A: . Students will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further review, should there be any suspicion of academic dishonesty. The Review process can be found at: .

Due Dates (to be turned in beginning of class) See Syllabus for Prompt

Week One Poem Exercise (“You’re the Top” Imitation) January 13

Week Two Short Assignment One (Ars Poetica) January 20

Week Three Short Assignment Two (Metaphor) January 7

Week Five Short Assignment Three (Scansion) February 10

Week Six Short Assignment Four (Annotation) February 17

Week Seven Glossary Quiz (part of class) February 24

Week Eight Memorized and Recited/Performed Sonnets Due March 1 & 3

Week Nine Short Assignment Five (Dickinson analysis) March 10

Week Eleven Paper Due (Explication) 5 pages double-spaced Maarch 31

Week Twelve Poem 2 with drafts (Sonnet, Villanelle, Ballad or Sestina) March 31

Week Fourteen Poem 3 (Memory poem; pivotal experience—see “In the Waiting Room”) April 14

Week Fifteen Short Assignment Six (Response to DJ Spooky’s book) April 21

Week Sixteen Poem 4 (intertextuality or sampling) April 28

Final Exam May 11 2-4 (bring blue book)

In order to obtain a passing grade, I hereby promise to complete all the above assignments for the due dates unless I can provide substantial proof of exceptional circumstances:

Name._________________________________________________________

Signature X--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Students who participate and attend every class meeting and complete the above assignments will most likely do exceptionally (based on my experience).

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