I have provided the course descriptions and expectations for the courses I will be teaching the Fall 2005 semester. The other descriptions are classes I have previously taught. If you have any questions, contact me via email or during my office hours.
ENGL 3351 Creative Nonfiction: The Art of MemorySpring Semester 2005
Even when I am in darkness and in silence I can, if I wish, picture colours in my memory….Yet my memory holds sounds as well, though it stores them separately. If I wish I can summon them too….In the same way I can recall at will all the other things which my other senses brought into my memory….I can distinguish the scent of lilies from that of violets…simply by using my memory I recognize that I like honey better than wine and smooth things better than rough ones….All this goes on inside me, in the vast cloisters of my memory. In it are the sky, the earth, and the sea, ready at my summons, together with everything that I have ever perceived in them by my senses…In [memory] I meet myself as well.
— St. Augustine , Confessions
Sound and sight seem to make equal parts of these first impressions. When I think of the early morning in bed I also hear the caw of rooks falling from a great height….The rooks cawing is part of the waves breaking—one, two, one, two—and the splash as the wave drew back and then it gathered again, and I lay there half awake, half asleep, drawing in such ecstasy as I cannot describe….Those moments—in the nursery, on the road to the beach—can still be more real than the present moment. —Virginia Woolf, “A Sketch of the Past”
I am forced to admit that memoir is not a matter of transcription, that memory itself is not a warehouse of finished stories, not a static gallery of framed pictures. I must admit that I invented. But why? —Patricia Hampl, “Memory and Imagination”
The first, and perhaps the least important [difference between human and animal memory] is that…humans are the only speaking animals, we must presume that we are the only ones to possess a verbal memory….What does much more to distinguish our specific human from non-human memory is our social existence, and the technological facility which has created a world in which memories are transcribed onto papyrus…or electronic screens; that is, a world of artificial memory. It is artificial memory which means that whereas all living species have a past, only humans have a history.
—Stephen Rose, The Making of Memory
Course Overview and Expectations: As the passages quoted above make manifestly clear (passages from the assigned reading), this is reading and writing intensive course about the nature and the art of memory. As human beings, we are always what we were, and we come to know ourselves—to the extent that self-knowledge is possible—through our past. Reading and writing assignments will concentrate on the following aspects of memory:
1. The Nature of Memory Including Memories of Nature
2. Memory and Imagination
3. Memory, Culture, and Identity.
This includes individual, familial, and other forms of collective memory, including cultural and historical.
The forms the readings and the writings will take is creative nonfiction, which is all about turning real life into art using many of the techniques involved in fiction (including dialogue and description) and poetry (such as charged imagery and a strong sense compression).
During the first nine weeks of the course, reading assignments focused on memory will be accompanied by short creative nonfiction assignments (500-1,500 words). The class will workshop one of each student’s short writing assignments. During the final five weeks, each student will develop a form of creative nonfiction called the lyric essay (Chapter #10 in Tell It Slant). By definition, a lyric essay implies: “a poetic sensibility concerned more with language, imagery, sound and rhythm over the more linear demands of narrative….Lyric essays favor fragmentation and imagery….Such a stance leads to a diversity of forms and styles that defy neat categorizations….The writer of the lyric essay brings the reader into an arena where the questions are asked; it’s up to the reader to piece together possible answers and interpretations.” (146-147) The class will workshop the lyric essay-in-progress, and the final weeks will be spent on development and revision. Throughout the semester, there will be quizzes over the reading. This is a course for students prepared to commit themselves 100% to a reading and writing-intensive semester in which participation and close-to-flawless attendance are essential. The length of the final essay will be about 2,500 words. For students taking the course for 4000-level credit, the length of the final essay will be 4,000 words.
Required Texts: * Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfction. Ed. Brenda Miller & Suzanne Paola * In Brief: Short Takes on the Personal. Ed. Judith Kitchen & Mary Paumier Jones. * A Blessing by Gregory Orr * Xeroxed Packets 1 & 2 from CopyTech
ENGL 4321 Special Topics/American Literature: Life and Genre:
Autobiographical Experience in Poetry and Nonfiction (Memoir and the Lyric Esssay) 20th Century-Present
Overview:
The course will be an intensive exploration of the impact of genre in the handling of autobiographical material. Wherever possible, we will look at writers who have used both poetry and nonfiction to explore their life experience. In addition to analyzing the possibilities of both forms, as well as the ways in which writers have pushed the boundaries of genre that much farther in their work—often with important consequences for the future—we will study the life experience itself. Here, it is important to note that autobiography is often a variation on the Bildungsroman or the Künstlerroman, and it frequently treats traumatic or extraordinary experience. That said, depending upon the gifts of the author, even the most “ordinary” experience can become extraordinary, as in Elizabeth Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room,” a poem about the vertigo involved in the speaker’s awakening to her own subjectivity.
Chronology:
ONE: We will begin with Bishop, focusing on the way her poems explore and at times mask (as in “Sestina”) her history. We will then turn to her auto-biographical sketches. We may also look at her portrait of Marianne Moore.
TWO: Although Nabokov is not strictly an American writer, we will turn next to an excerpt from the opening of Speak, Memory to study the ways in which Nabokov fractures the telling of his own history and foregrounds the lyric elements. Nabokov will be a valuable bridge into the lyric poets who intensely focus on, not just moments from a life history, but memory itself—its unreliability, its elusiveness, its disorienting yet hypnotic power. In this context, we will explore the aesthetic value of memory’s slippery nature, and we will read essays on the nature of memory, including Diane Ackerman’s work on sensory memory. Poets to be read in this section will include some of the following: Stanley Kunitz, Theodore Roethke, Robert Lowell, William Meredith, Mona van Duyn, James Merrill, Sylvia Plath.
THREE: We will turn to writers working in both poetry and nonfiction. We will read selections from Gregory Orr’s poetry and his memoir, The Blessing. Orr’s life work focuses on the defining incident of his childhood—when he was 12, he shot and killed his younger brother in a hunting accident. The shame and silence Orr experienced ultimately led him to poetry, where he found a place to give voice to his history. After 30+ years of handling this material in poetry, he turned to memoir, bringing a poet’s sensibility to the writing, especially to the lyric chapters that exist outside of narrative time and refract or refocus the story. If time allows, we will look at excerpts from one additional writer who has worked in both forms. (An ideal choice would be Li-Young Lee whose Winged Seed takes us back to Maoist China while focusing on the nuclear family. Li-Young Lee’s poetry explores family history and, in a poem like “Braiding,” strives to find the continuity between generations. Other choices here would be Mark Doty whose poetry and whose memoir, Heaven’s Coast, looks at gay culture, specifically at the way he dealt with the loss of his life partner, then moved on.
FOUR: We will read Stanley Plumly’s essay, “Autobiography and Archetype,” in order to understand how writers can transcend the limitations (and possible melodrama) of autobiographical writing by harnessing it to archetype/myth. Here, we will look at Rita Dove’s Thomas and Beulah, a history of her grandparents that taps into 20th c. events in African American culture OR at B.H. Fairchild’s mythic treatment of his working class father in The Art of the Lathe. Both of these works are book-length poetic sequences. A central question will inevitably focus on the possibilities and opportunities involved in creating a life in poems.
FIVE: In the final weeks, we will focus on the lyric essay, a form of nonfiction that draws its spirit and its energy from the imagistic, non-chronological, fragmentary possibilities of lyric poetry. Readings will include Brenda Miller’s essay on the form as well as examples of several forms including the braided essay, the hermit crab, and collage.
*Over the course of the semester, you will keep a Page-a-Day Journal
*You will write 2 short stories.
*You will collaborate on 2 group stories to be presented to the class.
*You will memorize 3 passages of fiction or poetry and recite these to the class. Group 1: A-H; Group 2: I-R; Group 3: S-Z
*You will review 2 stories in a brief essay of some 300 words. Guidelines to be found on p. 21 of A Writer’s Workbook. These essays are due before the 12th week of the semester.
*You will participate actively in discussion and workshops.
*Attendance: You are allowed 3 absences. After that, I will deduct 2 points from your final grade—without exception. A student with 7 absences will receive an automatic F in the course.
Required Texts: 1. Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, 6 th Edition
2. The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories, Ed. Daniel Halpern.
3. Caroline Sharp’s A Writer’s Workbook Texts are available at Barnes & Noble.
Recommended Texts: A good dictionary and a good thesaurus.
Course Objectives and Course Design: This course provides an intensive introduction to the craft of writing fiction and is designed for students who are passionate about exploring craft as a process. Craft provides the tools. In addition to learning to closely read short stories as a writer, which means concentrating on the writer’s strategies and techniques, you will learn how to draft, revise, and revise your stories.
An essential tool in this process is the Page-A-Day-Notebook. Here you will concentrate on observation and feeling and description of what you see in your travels. As a writer, you will learn to look at the world as material. Beg, borrow, and steal for your stories, but make sure it’s fiction. Carry this notebook with you at all times. I may ask to see your notebooks over the course of the semester. Another essential starting point is memorization: committing prose and poetry to heart. Why? To instill an appreciation for language than can only be achieved by committing language to heart. You will have to commit three pieces to heart during the course of the term.
All of this is the crucial background to writing short stories, and there are many, many exercises—individual, collaborative, and revision-oriented—that you will write during the next 15 weeks. Formally, you’ll need to hand in 2 short stories and perform 2 pieces collaboratively. You’ll also need to open up your work for group discussion in at least one workshop. So too, you’ll need to be an active member of all discussions and workshops. Here is where the process comes in. Basically, “process” focuses on the day-to-day engagement with writing as an extension of the self.
Specific aspects of craft to be explored as process, include: story form, plot, and structure; showing and telling; various methods of characterization, including dialogue, appearance, action; setting and atmosphere; distinctions between summary and scene; point of view; the elusive magic of ‘style’; and of course—theme. Exercises will focus on each of (or on a combination of) these elements.
Requirements in Brief:
*Midterm Portfolio of 4 poems (1 poem must be in form)
*10 minute presentation on a particular poet’s work
*1 Review (500 words) of a book of poetry
*4 poetry recitations (you will commit 4 poems to heart over the course of the term)
*Final Portfolio of 8-10 poems (the final portfolio must include a translation and 3 poems in form)
*Active participation in workshops and discussions.
*Be sure your cell phone is turned off before you come to class.
*There will be several readings on campus this semester. You will need to attend 3. If you attend more than 3, you can use up to 2 additional readings to make up absences.
*Attendance: You are allowed 3 absences (for illness, family emergency, life issues). Beyond that, I will deduct 5% from your final grade for each additional absence. The absence policy starts day 1. 7 absences is an automatic F.
Required Texts: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Poetry, Ed. J. D. McClatchy, 2nd Edition
The Voice of Authority by Carl Dennis An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art,
Ed. Annie Finch & Kathrine Varnes
Xeroxed Packet, available at CopyTech after January 21, 2004
Course Objectives & Course Design: This course is for the student who has taken both sections of 3351 and remains ravenous for more—poetry. Simply, 4351 is for the chosen few who contemplate poetry in the shower and at the coffee shop, as well as on dates and football games. It will be an inspired, intense course. Class workshops and dialogues with me will be foundational to building a portfolio of poems during the semester. One component of the portfolio will be a poetic sequence (a group of 3 poems on a related theme, or poems that “dialogue” with each other). We will work with free verse and with form. Reading poets, past and present, and recitation, are part of the program. Curious Perks: Each student will embark upon a translation of a poem from another language. I will place several books of contemporary poetry on reserve. These books can be the source of the reviews and the presentation.
Grading:
1. Midterm Portfolio 20%
2. Presentation 10%
3. Participation, including 1 review, recitations 30%
4. Final Portfolio 40%
=100% Further Guidelines for Writing, Reading & Participation
* Poems must be typed, single or double-spaced. Poems must be punctuated. Any that are not will be handed back unread.
* Poems must average 12 lines in length, unless you can write with the masterful brevity evident in Simic’s “Watermelons” or Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro.”
* You should plan to spend at least 5 hours a week closely reading poetry from the anthologies and related texts.
* Participation in discussion is essential. You should read each poem several times. Look up every word you don’t understand. Be able to identify the most effective passages in the poem. Identify the weak points—and be prepared to discuss why they’re not working.
* I MAY give quizzes over the reading material. I am wont to do this when students aren’t doing the reading.
