Introduction to Poetry: Generating Through Experiment

LITR 0100B S01 Spring 2019. Friday 3-5:30pm Office Hours: By Appointment.
Instructor: Emma Post emma_post@brown.edu Office 304.

Course Description
This course aims to introduce the new writer to the practice of continuous poetic production.
Each week will be about pushing ourselves to write more, and write more weirder! We will focus
on contemporary experimental poets, visual artists and performers who generate work through a
series of interventions, experiments or structures. Inspired by these writers we will also create
our own prompts and complete writing assignments inside and outside of class. Our goal is to
excess, not perfection, and will culminate in a series of revisions to contain all that we have
produced. Our responses to each other’s work will also be experimental and changing in nature.
How can we respond differently to a text than through analytic writing and/or critical discussion?
Might there be experiments and devices that lead us to new forms of the writing “workshop”?
Through these questions and more we will aim to create a “lab” of poetic experimentation and a
community of writers demanding more from language and text.

Time Requirement
Weekly Reading: 4hrs/week = 52hrs
Weekly Poetry Writing: 4hrs/week = 52hrs
Two Creative Responses: 21hrs
Final Portfolio: 24 hrs
Class Meeting: 2.5hrs x 13 weeks = 32.5hrs
TOTAL: ~181.5hrs

Academic Support
Brown University is committed to full inclusion of all students. Please inform me early in the
term if you have a disability or other conditions that might require accommodations or
modification of any of these course procedures. You may speak with me after class or during
office hours. For more information, please contact Student and Employee Accessibility
Services at 401-863-9588 or SEAS@brown.edu. Students in need of short-term academic advice
or support can contact one of the deans in the Dean of the College office here: https://
www.brown.edu/academics/college/open-hours

Course Materials
All materials will be available at the bookstore or online. Also required to buy is a notebook for
in-class writing and a folder for poems.

Midwinter’s Day, Bernadette Mayer

The Bridegroom Was a Dog Yoko Tawada
Descent of Alette Alice Notley
Of Being Dispersed Simone White
Assessment/Assignments
1. Poems: Weekly writing assignments are due at the beginning of class, printed, with your name
on them. It is important you bring this printed as we will use much of the material during
class! A total of ten poems will be expected in a final portfolio at the end of the semester,
revised or experimented on from their original form. Three or more of these poems will be
workshopped in class in small groups or by the whole class. You will meet with me twice
during the semester (but are welcome to meet with me more) to go over and discuss your
poems, revisions and your participation in class.
2. Two Critical/Creative Responses: To encourage full engagements with poetic texts, you will be
expected to complete two 2-page written responses throughout the semester. One will be on a
poetry book of your choosing, which you will read and do a short presentation on, in-class.
You will also lead us in a short writing prompt (of your own creation) based on that book. The
other response will be on a single poem from a reading we have done.
3. Workshop Participation: To create a successful writing/creative environment we must fully
and respectfully engage with each others work. This might mean printing each others poems
and writing responses on them, it might mean writing a poem in response, or creating a prompt
based on others work. It also means coming to class ready to speak and participate in a
developed discussion of the creative work you are each brave enough to put forth.

30% Participation
20% Written Assignments
30% Poems
20% Final Portfolio

Expectations of Students
Attendance and Lateness: Attendance is key. After two absences I will send you an email. After
three (unexcused) absences I will have to give you a N/C for the course. If you are late more than
30 minutes it will count as an absence.
Guidelines for Discussion: We will be discussing some difficult materials in class as well as
allowing for vulnerable writing to be brought into workshop by participants. I have previous
experience leading discussions around race, gender and identity on college campuses, and I hope
this work can help me facilitate an open and vulnerable place of learning. That being said, if you
feel unheard in class, or want to discuss further something difficult that happened or was said,
please feel free to come talk to me, or leave me a note in my mailbox. My hope is to create a
learning environment that is open to a diversity of voices and opinions and that honors the
identities and experiences of authors that we bring in and of each of the students taking the
course. Please feel free to talk to me if I am not satisfactorily achieving that goal.
COURSE CALENDAR

Week 1: Introduction of syllabus; in-class writing exercise.

1/25 HW: Bernadette Mayer Midwinter Day Parts 1-2. Write couplets on in-class theme.
Introduction

Week 2: HW: Bernadette Mayer Midwinter Day Parts 3-4. Write 2 more pages of couplets
2/1 and add one line in between each old couplet. Include an aspect/theme taken from
The Daily
Warmup Mayer.
*Reading @ McCormack: 2/7 Orlando White 5:30*

Week 3: In-class read through of Midwinter Day Parts 5-6

2/8 HW: Go to a place you would not usually write and do another 30min of couplets.
The Daily
Sonnet Distill some lines for your workshop piece to a “sonnet” form of 12 lines. Read
Farnoosh Fathi’s Sonnet Terrance Hayes American Sonnet for My Past & Future
Assassin
*Send your workshop piece by 5pm Wednesday*

Week 4: In-class Listening Exercise. FIRST WORKSHOP: ~5min each.

2/15 HW: Choose the book you will present on. Object description assignment. Selections
Listening
from Eduardo C. Corral Slow Lightning.

Week 5: ~~Meet in the RISD Museum (Pearl Cafe entrance)~~

2/22 HW: Ekphrastic Poem assignment. Presentations Prep!
Looking

Week 6: Presentations SMALL GROUP WORKSHOPS

3/1 HW: Distracted Poem assignment. Yoko Tawada The Bridegroom Was a Dog
Distraction

Week 7: ~~Attend “Interrupt V” as a class~~

3/8 HW: Fictionalize life/strange logics assignment. Selections from Cecilia Vicuña Spit
Short
Fiction Temple
*Reading @ McCormack: 3/14 Cecilia Vicuña 5:30pm*
*Send your workshop piece by 5pm Monday*

Week 8: Presentations. WORKSHOP GROUP 1

3/15 HW: Simone White Of Being Dispersed
Shaping
*Send your workshop piece by 5pm Monday*

Week 9: Presentations WORKSHOP GROUP 2

3/22 HW: Simone White Of Being Dispersed
Essay

Week 10: HW: Alice Notley Descent of Alette

4/5 *Reading @McCormack: 4/11 Dawn Lundy Martin 5:30pm*
Spoken Text
 Week 11: Revision Workshop GROUP 1
4/12 HW: Finish Descent of Alette
Performance
* Must Attend!: 4/18 Alice Notley Reading. McCormack Family Theater 5:30pm*

Week 12: Revision Workshop GROUP 2

4/19 HW: Revisions
Revision

Week 13: Final reading/party!

4/26 *Final DUE*
Party

*Syllabus subject to change*