English
443/543 Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry – Spring 2010
Dr. Steve Klepetar
Centennial Hall 209 (Advising Center) 308-5642 -- by appointment.
Email: sfklepetar@stcloudstate.edu
Queen Katherine's Dream -- Wm. Blake
Return to Steve Klepetar's Home Page
Text: Guth, Hans P. and Gabrielle
Rico. Discovering Poetry. Blair Press: Boston, 1993.
Please Read the Syllabus Carefully; most questions about the course,
including emailing work, not using attachments, number of drafts per email, due
dates, grading procedures, the portfolio, etc. are answered below. If you do not find the information you need,
feel free to email me.
English 443/543 is an advanced poetry
course; therefore I make the following assumptions:
a. That you have either
taken English 343 Creative Writing: Poetry or its equivalent in course work or
writing on your own.
b. That you want very much to continue writing poems,
and that you will write regularly and turn in work every week.
Student
Learning Outcomes:
1. Students will
develop the ability to create poems based on careful observation, using
precise, specific sensory language (exercises 1 – 5, 7, 8, 17 and 18).
2. Students will learn to use observation and of strong,
sensory images to create characters in their poems (exercises 3, 4, and 14).
3. Students will learn to use “trigger lines,” which are
suggestive phrases engaging the imagination, to create fully developed,
coherent poems (exercises 9, 10, 11, 12, 15 and 16).
4. Students will learn to work with memory in terms of
image, narrative and various perspectives to create poems based on personal
experience (exercises 6, 10, 13, and 14).
5. Students will learn to create specific voices for
particular poems and create character through voice (exercises 19 and 20).
6. Students will learn to develop poems around an
extended metaphor (exercise 20).
7. Students will learn to write regularly to deadlines,
as professional writers do (exercises 1 – 20).
8. Students will learn to assemble and edit a collection
of poetry to demonstrate their best work (portfolio project).
Coursework and Grading
1. Weekly Writing
– Please submit your work by email directly to me at
sfklepetar@stcloudstate.edu. Include 443
in the subject line. Please do not send
attachments; you should include all poems (and later, the portfolio, in the
body of your email). I will respond
within a few days. If you do not hear
back from me within three days, please inquire to make sure I received your work. I expect each student to turn in work every
week during the semester. Expect this to be a demanding and difficult
course with a good deal of writing. Exercises are listed below. I recommend doing them in sequence. I will
not grade individual poems; grading for weekly writing is based on submissions:
20 = A; 19 = A-; 18 = B+; 17 = B; 16 = B-; 15 = C; 14 = D; Fewer than 14 =
F.
· Note that
the penalty for not submitting work increases rapidly; success for this course
depends on regular writing and submission.
a. These exercises exist to provide a stimulus, a
starting point. Don't be afraid to play with what I give you, to take
risks, try things out. You may adapt my assignment to your needs or
interests by changing it in any way that suits you. Sometimes we won't
even be able to guess the original trigger which lead to the poem, and that
doesn't matter.
b. If my writing idea doesn't work for you, forget it
and write whatever you like. The point is to write poems.
Please avoid colors and fancy (often hard to
read) fonts. I recommend Times New Roman
or Ariel, 10 or 12 point.
· Portfolio –
The final project for the course will be a portfolio, a collection of ten poems
selected from those done for the class, and arranged, revised, and edited with
an appropriate and interesting title.
· Final Grades
– Grades for this course will be based on weekly writing (two-thirds) and on a
final project or portfolio (one-third).
Here are the deadlines.
You need to meet the deadlines, but you can, of
course, submit work ahead of the deadline. Please do not submit attachments;
your poems and portfolio should appear in the body of your email.
If you are unwilling or unable to meet the deadlines,
please do not take this course.
Submit two poems by email on or before each of the
following dates:
· Tuesday, January 19:
Ex. 1 Imagery
and Sense
Ex. 2 Vignettes
·
Tuesday, January
26:
Ex. 3 Portrait Sketches
Ex. 4 Portraits
·
Tuesday, February
2:
Ex 5 Public Sketch
Ex 6 Wisdom Poems
·
Tuesday, February
9:
Ex 7 Mirror Poems
Ex 8 Postcard Poems
Some things to consider in your writing:
1. Many student writers work
with end-stopped lines pretty much exclusively. That means you break your
lines at natural syntactic pauses: sentences, clauses or phrases. (ex.
"Whose woods these are I think I know;/His house is in the village
though/etc."). Nothing wrong with that, but you might try breaking
against expectation sometimes, especially in poems using short lines (ex.
"the back wings/of the/hospital where/nothing/etc."). Such line
breaks, called "enjambed" or "run on" lines, can add
variety to your work, and movement.
2. Don't hesitate to trim weak words, such as articles, to gain
compression, rhythm, movement.
3. Don't be afraid to develop your poems. Let yourself howl a
bit. Take risks, use details, expand.
·
Tuesday, February
16: No Poems Due
·
Tuesday, February
23:
Ex 9 & 10 “I give up…” and “My home is…”
· Tuesday, March 2:
Ex. 11 & 12 It takes more than haunted houses
·
Tuesday, March 9:
Spring Break
·
Tuesday, March
16:
Ex. 13 Memory Poems
Ex. 14 Mother/Father Poems
·
Tuesday, March 23:
Ex. 15 & 16 “Sometimes in winter…” and “I asked the rocks…”
·
Tuesday, March
30: No Poems Due
·
Tuesday, April 6
Ex. 17 & 18 Poetry and the visual arts
·
Tuesday, April 13:
Ex. 19 Lie Poems
Ex. 20 Wish Poems and Abstractions
·
Friday, April 23:
Portfolio due Late work will not be accepted – you must
submit work on or before the date listed to have it count.
Q: Why deadlines?
We’re poets, free spirits who write when inspiration hits! Why can’t we turn in work whenever?
A: All writers have to meet deadlines. In the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens
wrote many of his novels for magazine publication, a few chapters each
month. Often he was finishing just as
the magazine was ready to go to press.
The printer would send a messenger (affectionately known as a “printer’s
devil”) to get the last sheets from the frantic writer. More importantly, this class is designed to
encourage development over the semester.
That requires regular writing and response. Turning in a large portion of the work at the
end defeats this essential component of the course.
If you are unwilling or unable to meet these
deadlines, please do not take this class.
2. Final Project – Portfolio Project
Description: 10 poems, representing your best work; arranged in the
order you want them read; title for the collection (Portfolios without a title
will lose ½ a letter grade); submit
via email – no attachments. Please follow these directions; your portfolio should be
submitted in the body of an email, just like the weekly work. Do not send your portfolio to Continuing Studies.
The portfolio should contain
your ten best poems in their final, polished version.
Portfolio Grading:
A = Outstanding, work that is
sharp, polished, filled with image, action, strong word choices,
imagination. This grade is for
publishable work. A- = Excellent, nearly
publishable work. A and A- will be
reserved for the best work.
B+ = Very Good, with perhaps
some development needed. B = Good,
appealing work. Some poems are not quite
there yet in terms of image, action, word choices, and imaginative energy. B- = Solid, but at this point there still
needs to be considerable development.
Much good work will fall into this category.
C range = Ok, but needs
considerable work in terms of creating images and action, selecting the right
words, developing ideas, imaginative thrust.
Work that lacks extra effort will fall into this category.
D = Flawed work, looks hasty,
slapped together. This is rare for
students who bother to turn in a portfolio.
A Word about computers and
web access: In order to take an online
class, you must have access to a reliable computer and to the web. This is your responsibility. If your computer or web access fails, you
must deal with it immediately. If you
come to campus, there are hundreds of computers you can use; if not, you can
use a public library, internet café, or a friend’s computer. You are still responsible for meeting
deadlines.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Writer's Block?
You may substitute any of these
for the exercises above.
”Words don’t tell…”
and “How to…”
Need more options? Try
some of these exercises. .