CRW 5365: FORMS & TECHNIQUES OF POETRY/Transformations:

Approaches to Poetic Form in the 20th & 21st Centuries

Professor Rosa Alcalá
Spring 2011: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 10:30-11:50 HUDS 313

Office Hours: Wed. 11-2:30

Office: Liberal Arts 212/Office Phone: 915-747-7020/Email:
ralcala1@utep.edu

INTRODUCTION
At the dawn of the 20th century, Ezra Pound demanded that poets "make it
new" —in other words, that they question conventional form, genre, and
language, as well as invent knew modes and methods with which poetry
could look forward rather than back. While poets throughout time have
always questioned and invented new methods and forms, the 20th century
was an especially and explosively creative time for literature and the arts, as
it was for technology, science, industrialization, world war, urbanization, and
migration. The most notable poetic change of the 20th century, of course,
was the emergence of free verse or open form, and the break from meter
and traditional form, such as the sonnet or sestina. Of course, not all poets
embraced these changes—Robert Frost once said that free verse was like
"playing tennis without a net." Poets were also questioning what kind of
language should be used. Marianne Moore, for example, admired poems "in
plain American which dogs and cats could read," and Vicente Huidobro and
Nicolás Guillén were creating "jitanjáforas" or invented words that
emphasized sound rather than sense. With all of this was the questioning of
genre—what's poetry, what's prose? What's art, what's a book? And since
the dawn of modern poetry (which we can say began in the late 19th
century, but gained momentum in the 20th), it's been pretty much the same:
a continuum of questioning, recovering, inventing, rejecting.

The texts I include here are only a small part of this exploration of content
and form, and are meant to help you explore your own approach to poetry.
In order to aid in this exploration, I will assign questions and exercises based
on your readings. Although this isn't a workshop class, we will occasionally
share each other's work.

GRADING/REQUIREMENTS

Assignments: See syllabus for the specifics of each assignment. There will
be a total of four assignments, some of which will be critical, others creative.
Please submit all assignments via Blackboard. There will be threads created
on the Discussion Board. 30%
Participation: I expect you to come prepared to discuss the readings. This
means that you must read the work carefully and prepare questions and
comments you will share in class. More than one absence or habitual
tardiness will affect final grade for the course. 30%
Final: (more on this later) 40%
 REQUIRED READING
Books
An Exaltation of Forms, Finch & Varnes: 0472067257
The Marvelous Bones of Time by Brenda Coultas/ 9781566892049
Neighbor by Rachel Levitsky/ 101933254491
Altazor, V. Huidobro: 0819566780
Collected Poems, Stepháne Mallarmé/ 0520207114
The Complete Posthumous Poetry, César Vallejo/ 0520040996
Dictee, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha/ 0520231120

(If you decide to use other editions or translations of the required books, it is
your responsibility to check against the assigned versions to make sure you
are reading the same poems and/or sections).

Other Readings:
Some of these are on Blackboard, in the "Handouts" section, others are on
line (see schedule for online location).

• Julio Cortázar, Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry, ed. Stephen

Tapscott (BB)
• On Ekphrastic poetry (online)
• "Alfonsina Storni: Aquel micromundo poético," Gwen Kirkpatrick (BB)
• A Bernadette Mayer Reader (a selection), Bernadette Mayer (BB)
• "If We Must Die," Claude McKay (online)
• Harryette Mullen, poem & interview with Daniel Kane (BB)
• Nuñez Ang, "Creacionismo" (BB)
• Selections from ¿Aguila o Sol?, Octavio Paz (Spanish & English trans.)
(BB)
• Petrarch, sonnets (BB)
• ...te daré de comer como a los pájaros, Reina María Rodriguez (BB)
• "Sonnet # 131," William Shakespeare (online)
• "There is No Way of Speaking English," Juliana Spahr on Gertrude Stein
from Everybody's Autonomy: Connective Reading and Collective
Identity (BB)
• "Love Scattered, Not Concentrated Love": Bernadette Mayer's
Sonnets," Juliana Spahr (BB)
• Tender Buttons, Gertrude Stein (online)
• Mascarilla y trébol, Alfonsina Storni (BB)

Note: For the readings on BB: You needn't print out all of the essays related
to the poetry (you can read them as a computer file), but please print out the
poems so we can discuss them in class.
WEKKLY SCHEDULE

WEEK 1/ Jan 18-20 /INTRODUCTION

Open discussion

WEEK 2 / Jan 25-27/APPROACHES TO FREE VERSE

• An Exaltation of Forms: Free Verse (pp 73-85)
• From Sermón de la barbarie, César Vallejo (in The Complete
Posthumous, pp 95-219); also read Eshelman's introduction to the
Posthumous Poems.

WEEK 3/ Feb 1-3/ APPROACHES TO FREE VERSE

• The Marvelous Bones of Time, Brenda Coultas
• "Writing Is Never by Itself Alone," Kristen Prevallet:
http://fence.fenceportal.org/v6n1/text/prevallet.html
• Assignment #1 due: Two page response to either Vallejo or
Coultas. Send via Blackboard.

WEEK 4/ Feb 8-10 /PROSE POETRY/

• "Strange Tales and Bitter Emergencies: A Few Notes on the Prose
Poem," Delville & Chernoff, in An Exaltation of Forms (pp. 262-271)
• Read "Objects," Tender Buttons, Gertrude Stein:
http://www.bartleby.com/140/
• "There is No Way of Speaking English," Juliana Spahr on Gertrude Stein
from Everybody's Autonomy: Connective Reading and Collective
Identity (Blackboard)

WEEK 5/ Feb 15-17/ PROSE POETRY, cont.

• Cortázar (Blackboard)
• Vallejo, Nómina de huesos (in the Complete Posthumous Poems)
• Octavio Paz, from ¿Aguila o Sol? (You can choose to read the Spanish,
the English, or both); and Rachel Galvin's "Neither Heads nor Tails"
(Blackboard)
Thurs.: Assignment #2 due: On the Prose Poem

Delville recognizes two general categories into which prose

poems fall. Considering prose poems by Stein, Cortázar, Vallejo,
and Paz, ask yourself the following questions: Do you agree that
only two categories exist? Would you create more? What
qualities do you identify in each poet's approach? Are there
similarities between them? What are the differences? You might
consider also how each employs poetic devices related to form,
even in the absence of line breaks. For example: How is prosody
employed? Is there something equivalent to a line break present
in these poems? Etc.
 To hand in: Choose one of the approaches you've identified and
write a prose poem that attempts to replicate its devices. Don't
aim, however, for a parody or imitation. Don't indicate on your
poem whose approach you were trying to emulate. Send via
Blackboard.

WEEK 6/ Feb 22-24 / TRADITIONAL FORMS, TRANSFORMED: THE

SONNET
• From An Exaltation of Forms: "The Sonnet" by Marilyn Hacker (pp. 297-
30)
• Sonnet variations: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-
term.html?term=Sonnet
• Shakespeare, Sonnet #130:
http://hudsonshakespeare.org/Shakespeare
%20Library/sonnets/sonnets127thru154.htm
• Bernadette Mayer, selected sonnets (Blackboard)
• "Love Scattered, Not Concentrated Love": Bernadette Mayer's
Sonnets," Juliana Spahr: http://jacketmagazine.com/07/spahr-
mayer.html
• "Breve Explicación," "Una oreja," "Un lapiz," (pp. 3-4; 19-20), Alfonsina
Storni, from Mascarilla y Trébol (Blackboard)
• Harryette Mullen, poem & interview (Blackboard)
• Claude McKay, "If We Must Die"
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15250

WEEK 7/ Mar. 1-3 / TRADITIONAL FORMS: VARIOUS

• In An Exaltation of Forms: Pantoum (254-261); Ghazal (210-216);
Sestina (290-296)

WEEK 8/ Mar 8-10/ TRADITIONAL FORMS: VARIOUS, cont.

• Tues.: Assignment #3 due: Choose from the following traditional
form: sonnet, pantoum, ghazal, or sestina. Write a traditional (following
the form's strictures) and non-traditional (or free verse) version of the
form. Send via Blackboard.

**** Mar 15-17/SPRING BREAK

WEEK 9/ Mar. 22/ EKPHRASIS

• Tues. Meeting at the El Paso Museum of Art. Bring a notebook or
sketchpad.
• Tues.: Ekphrasis, definition & examples:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5918
 • Tues.: "Landscape with Fall of Icarus," William Carlos Williams:
http://wcwbrueghelpoetry.blogspot.com/2007/05/landscape-with-fall-
of-icarus.html

WEEK 10/ Mar 29-31/ VISUAL POETRY (Course Drop Deadline: April
1)
• Exaltation of Forms: "Taking Shape" (198-205)
• Mallarmé, "Un Coup de Dés"(121-145 in The Collected Poems)
• Assignment #4 due (last assignment): Ekphrastic poem started last
week. Submit via BB.

WEEK 11/ OULIPO/PROCEDURAL POETRY

Exaltation: "Predetermined Avant-Garde Forms" (400-412); "Procedural
Poetry" (366-378); and "Oulipian Poetry" (385-390)

WEEK 12/ Apr 12-14/ CONTEMPORARY POET: LEVITSKY

• Neighbor, Rachel Levitsky
• Poetry reading and possible class visit

WEEK 13/ Apr 19-21 / PERFORMANCE

• Exaltation of Forms: "Performance Poetry": 341-351
• In-class audiovisual presentation

WEEK 15/ Apr 26-28/ THE MODERN EPIC or LONG POEM

• Altazor , Vicente Huidobro (also read introduction by Weinberger)
• Manifesto, "El Creacionismo":
http://www.vicentehuidobro.uchile.cl/manifiesto1.htm
• Supplemental Reading: "Creacionismo," notas por Núñez Ang en
Literatura del siglo XX (poesía): Algunos autores y movimientos
representativos (Blackboard)

WEEK 16/ May 3-5/ DISCUSSION OF FINAL PROJECTS