Modern American Poetry: the Imagists and Harlem Renaissance Studies in Poetry EN 340 / United States Studies IN 250 Dr. Randy Brooks, Ph.D. Directory of the Writing Major Millikin University January 3-9 Immersion Course 2006 Classroom: Media Arts Center 9:00 am - 3:00 pm description || videos || textbooks || web sites || assignments || schedule student poetry 2000 || student poetry 2002 || student poetry 2005 || student poetry 2006 Bethany Tabb Chuck Trabaris Crystal McAdam Diedra Cobb Kay Combs Todd Jernigan   Course Description: Modern American Poetry: the Imagists and Harlem Renaissance is a study of early Twentieth Century poets and their attempts to search for new sources and approaches to writing poetry. Both the Imagists and Harlem Renaissance poets turn away from Victorian models of poetry, seeking a new basis for the art of poetry. For the Imagists, the new approach derives from the power of images based on perception and related experiments by exploring various forms of consciousness through poetry, including Chinese, Japanese, Greek and other traditions of expression. Imagist Poets featured include: Adelaide Crapsey, E.E. Cummings, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams. For the Harlem Renaissance poets, this is an age of celebration of the black community in Harlem, New York with a new source of their work being the shared black experience and related explosion of expressive arts in song, fine arts and literary arts. In this course we explore how these poets respond to the new milieu through their poetry and poetics. Harlem Renaissance Poets featured in this study include: Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Esther Popel, Anne Spencer and Jean Toomer. Several days will include a video from the Annenberg/CPB Project: Ezra Pound: American Odyssey. New York Center for Visual History. Washington DC: Annenberg/CPB Project, 1988. A-V. PS3531.O82 E91988 Wallace Stevens: Man Made Out of Words. New York Center for Visual History. Washington DC: Annenberg/CPB Project, 1988. A-V. PS3537.T4753 W31988 Langston Hughes. New York Center for Visual History. Washington DC: Annenberg/CPB Project, 1988. A-V. PS3515.U274 L351988 William Carlos Williams. New York Center for Visual History. Washington DC: Annenberg/CPB Project, 1988. A-V. PS3545.I544 W61988 TEXTS REQUIRED: Robert Blaisdell, Editor. Imagist Poetry : An Anthology. Dover Thrift Editions, 1999. ISBN: 0486408752 Nikki Giovanni, Editor. Shimmy Shimmy Shimmy Like My Sister Kate : Looking at the Harlem Renaissance Through Poems. New York: Henry Holt & Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN: 0805034943 John Sherman, Editor. African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1930 . Dover Thrift Editions. ISBN: 048629604-0 Ezra Pound. Ezra Pound: Early Poems. Dover Thrift Editions, 1996. ISBN: 0486287459 Carl Sandburg. Carl Sandburg: Chicago Poems. Dover Thrift Editions, 1994. ISBN: 0486280578 Wallace Stevens. The Emperor of Ice Cream and Other Poems. Dover Thrift Editions, 1999. ISBN: 0486408779 William Carlos Williams. Early Poems: William Carlos Williams. Dover Thrift Editions, 1997. ISBN: 0486292940 Web Resources located at: http://faculty.millikin.edu/~rbrooks/MApoetry/index.html Imagist & Modernist Poets e.e. cummings Adelaide Crapsey H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) T.S. Eliot Ezra Pound Carl Sandburg  Wallace Stevens William Carlos Williams Harlem Renaisssance Poets Gwendolyn Brooks W.E.B. DuBois Paul Laurence Dunbar Langston Hughes Attendance Policy & Grades You will not be able to complete this immersion course within the immersion schedule unless you attend all seven days. Types of Assignments Informal Quick-Writes, Quizzes, Exercises & Planning Work Quick, informal assignments will be graded with a simple check-system (+) () or (­) indicating completion of the assignment. These grades indicate that 100% (plus) you have done an excellent, thoughtful writing, 50% (check) you have completed the assignment adequately, or 0% (minus) you have not fulfilled the assignment. Formal Documents The other assignments are considered formal which means that they should be printed, carefully edited, revised and designed for maximum effectiveness with the intended audience. (A+=100, A=95, A-=90, B+=88, B=85, B-=80, C+=78, C=75, C-=70, D+=68, D=65, F=1) Major Assignments Informal Assignments Author Biographical/Poetics Annotated Author Webography Seminar Book Report Original Imagistic Poetry Critical Interpretation Paper 10% 20% 20% 20% 10% 20% Schedule Tuesday       9am-11:45 o introduction to course goals o video--Modernist time period overview o reading Imagist Anthology (web site & books) o introduction to authors projects • write me an email each evening indicating favorite poems by authors we are reading for next day & write a paragraph or two of response why these are your favorites. • First evening response paragraphs: 1 poem by Ezra Pound and 2 poems by African American poets Tuesday       12:30pm-3pm o video--conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks o readings from Harlem Renaissance collection • write a poem celebrating your ancestors & heritage Wednesday        9am-11:45 o Ezra Pound (readings & video) Wednesday       12:30pm-3pm o video--History of Jazz o W.E.B. DuBois o James Weldon Johnson o Paul Laurence Dunbar o Claude McKay o Melvin B. Tolson • write a Sandburg-like poem celebrating the working man or pride of place (despite problems) Thursday       9am-11:45 o Carl Sandburg o Adelaide Crapsey o Amy Lowell o video--New Visions (immigration & modern art) Thursday        12:30pm-3pm o Arna Bontemps o Countee Cullen o Helen Johnson o Waring Cuney • write 2 imagistic poems: (1) a sense of place & related emotion (2) a dramatic monologue Friday       9am-11:45 o Langston Hughes (readings & video) Friday       12:30pm-3pm o webography & biography research workshop • write competing voices (dialogic) poem Saturday       9am-11:45 o Richard Aldington o H.D. o John Gould Fletcher o T.E. Hulme o F.S. Flint o Alfred Kreymborg o Wallace Stevens (reading & video) Saturday     12:30pm-3pm o Richard Wright o Robert Hayden o Margaret Walker o Samuel Allen • email me the title of the critical book you're reading for the book report • write Snowman like poem from imagined being inside something (like the Bronze man) Sunday      9am-11:45 o William Carlos Williams (readings & video) Sunday         12:30pm-3pm o Gwendolyn Brooks o biographical overviews & webographies • write a note poem (like WCW's "this is just to say") Monday      9am-11:45 o seminar book reports due & presented Monday      1pm-3pm o critical analysis presentations