Due Thursday-

Remember you have a rhythm and meter quiz today that covers information presented in class as well as the chapter in your book on rhythm and meter.

For Friday, you will need to have read the section on sound devices. Red book (472-480). Black book: (523-531).

I also recommend that you are done with two prospectuses before the weekend.

Here is Coleridge being silly:

Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactylic trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long-
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.

Prospectus Due Date!

Please make sure that you are making progress on your prospectus assignment. Your due date will be October 7th! You should have at least one done by this point.

Due Dates

Due Wednesday, 9/21: Rough draft of Paper
Due Thursday, 9/22: Symbolism and Allegory reading: red book (457-464) black book (509-523)

Due Friday, 9/23: Syntax Reading: red book (465-472), black book (516-523)

Due Monday, 9/26: FINAL COPY OF POETRY PAPER!!!

9/19

Today in class we took notes on quotation incorporation, discussed "My Papa's Waltz" and talked about the paper: remember, rough draft due on Wednesday.

Due Wednesday 9/21

Bring a rough draft of your first poetry paper to class to peer edit. Remember, this paper is based on the cummings poem, "when serpents bargain for the right to squirm." (see previous posts for text.)

Due 9/16

Remember to have your diction reading completed for tomorrow. Today we took notes on diction, and began discussing the following poem. We will continue our discussion of it on Friday, so you may want to give it some more thought tonight, focusing on diction, imagery, and figurative language.

Living in Sin

She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman's tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night's cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf among the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own---
envoy from some village in the moldings . . .
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the minor demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.

Adrienne Rich

Due Friday, 9/16

Have the following passages read and be prepared to discuss on Friday:

Red Book:

Diction (436-444), Voice (427-436)

Black Book:

Diction ( 488-496), Voice ( 479-488)

The poem for your first poetry paper (remember, do not consult any resources online or otherwise) but begin thinking about possible interpretations/devices to analyze. Due date, TBD.

when serpents bargain for the right to squirm
and the sun strikes to gain a living wage-
when thorns regard their roses with alarm
and rainbows are insured against old age

when every thrush may sing no new moon in
if all screech-owls have not okayed his voice
-and any wave signs on the dotted line
or else an ocean is compelled to close

when the oak begs permission of the birch
to make an acorn-valleys accuse their
mountains of having altitude-and march
denounces april as a saboteur

then we'll believe in that incredible
unanimal mankind(and not until)

e e cummings

I will post information about the prospectus assignment as soon as possible.

Due 9/14

Read, highlight and think about the information presented to you in the "Manifesto" reading packet. You should have the entire document read for our discussion on Wednesday.

Due Thursday, 9/8

Here is a bit more specific of a prompt than I said in class:

Read and think about the poem "Design" by Robert Frost. Then, time between 40-50 minutes during which you will write as much as you can analyzing the poem. The prompt you are using for your essay is:

Explain how Frost uses literary devices such as diction, figurative language, imagery, and structure to convey the meaning of the poem, "Design."

You may type the essay if you wish, but DO NOT consult outside sources or other people.

THIS IS A PRETEST/COMPLETION POINTS ASSIGNMENT!!! As long as you produce a reasonable product in 40 minutes, you will receive full credit.

Text of Poem:

Design


I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all*, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

* A type of flower that is typically blue, but in this case, white.


Reading Due Friday:

451-456
444-450