Writers' Studies in Literature (403-0-20)
Topic
The First Book of Poetry
Instructors
Charif Shanahan
Meeting Info
University Hall 018 English: Mon 2:00PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
Over the last eighty or so years, the proliferation of MFA programs and first-book contests has come to mean that more first books are being published now than ever. This development has generated both cultural and aesthetic questions—and a fair amount of skepticism—about the nature of first books and their inception. Surveying a sample of recent first books, in 2015, William Doreski, for example, argued that the first book (and indeed the poetry) of our era too often depends on "an autobiographical mode that has evolved from what was once called confessional poetry…[and] underscores a particular social allegiance," wherein "identity is the issue," rather than poetic experimentation and imaginative discovery.
In this hybrid literature-creative writing course, we will study four first books by contemporary poets, exploring the ways in which these collections have announced themselves as "first books" and/or resisted the above cultural expectations of first books. Together we will consider these questions: What is the "concept" of the book (e.g., is it a "project" book or an arrangement of discrete poems?)? Which formal and aesthetic strategies are deployed in it, both at the poem-level and across the collection? To what end? And how might you bring those conceptual, aesthetic and formal strategies to your own first-book projects? Deep and engaged close reading will be at the center of our discussions. In all cases, the poets will have gone on to publish at least a second book. In alternate weeks, students will present an excerpt of the poet's second (or later) book to the class, focusing on the ways in which that book serves as a departure from and/or an extension of the first. After each presentation, we will have a class visit from the poet.
Weekly assignments will include critical responses to each of the books, including close-readings of individual poems, presentations, and the drafting of original poetry (or in another genre), using the tools provided by the collections we read. The final project will consist of original creative work, accompanied by a critical statement about your book project, informed by your study of the four first books we will read together.
Teaching Method
A mixture of discussion of assigned reading and presentations.
Evaluation Method
Written critical responses to readings/poem assignments - 20%
Ability to Critique/Class Participation - 20%
Presentations - 20%
Final Portfolio: Poems (15 pages), critical statement (5-7 pages) - 40%
(Poems/creative work - 20%)
(Critical essay to accompany creative work - 20%)
Class Materials (Required)
Catherine Barnett, Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced; Chen Chen, When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities; Eduardo Corral, Slow Lightning; Robin Coste Lewis, Voyage of the Sable Venus; Richard Siken, Crush
Class Notes
Note: While this course is designed for poets, organized around first books of poetry, creative writers of other genres are welcome to attend. For those students, modified assignments will be discussed and determined at the beginning of and throughout the quarter.