UPDATE: 16 JAN 2014

For next Tuesday's class session (i.e. Tuesday, 21 Jan), please read the two excerpts from the poet and critic Stephen Burt's Close Calls with Nonsense, which you can find on Blackboard. These two excerpts are the introduction and conclusion to his book and provide his general assessments of how one engages contemporary poetry.

As with our last class session, there will be a brief quiz on this material at the beginning of the period. Moreover, please come prepared to discuss the excerpts. You all did a fine job during our last session, so keep up the good work.

UPDATE: 15 JAN 2014

For tomorrow's class session (i.e. Thursday, 16 January), please read the Preface and Introduction to James Longenbach's The Resistance to Poetry; likewise, please read Robert Archambeau's "The Discursive Situation of Poetry." Both of these selections can be found on our Blackboard site underneath the "Course Documents" section.

There will be a quiz on this material at the outset of the session, so please come prepared to answer a couple questions about the readings, as well as be able to speak about them to the rest of your peers.

See you tomorrow.

SYLLABUS

USSY 289E: POETS OF OHIO

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Spring Semester 2014
Instructor: Joshua Ware, Ph.D.
Email: jaw233@case.edu
T/R: 6PM-7:15PM
Room: Clarke Hall 205

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Course Description:

More often than not, contemporary society views poetry as a strange and dated art form. When the genre actually does receive recognition, it is usually under the guise of Hip-Hop or Slam Poetry. While both of those offshoots contain their own poetic and artistic merits, this course intends to familiarize you with contemporary literary poetry. But more than just acquainting you with this style of writing, our course will highlight the large and dynamic poetry community of Ohio. Luckily for us, many of the poets we will read during the course agreed to visit our class this semester to talk about their work and read their poems.

But in addition to demonstrating that poetry is alive, well, and thriving in the world today, we will attempt to answer some of the following questions: Why do poetic texts, both of the present and the past, seem so difficult to read and understand? What writing techniques, strategies, and styles do poets use that make comprehending their work such a challenge? More importantly, why would anyone choose to write in this manner? Through close reading of our primary texts, researching the historical and literary contexts surrounding contemporary poetry, and discussing the art form with each other (as well as with the poets themselves), we will come to a better understanding of how these texts function.

To this extent, our course will explore the local and national poetry communities, noting how writers found relationships upon geography, aesthetics, and demographics (just to name a few), using written texts to express emotion, thought, or identity. In order to accomplish these goals, we will read, participate in class discussions, and write extensively about poetry composed by contemporary Ohio poets. Therefore, you will be expected to engage our course texts critically, thinking through the manner in which language operates as a tool for generating and sustaining, as well as undermining, community formation.

Course Texts:

Before we read books of contemporary poetry, it is important for us to read books about poetry so as to give us a sense of what is poetry, what linguistic tools contemporary poems use to achieve their goals, and how poetry functions within the context of contemporary culture. As such, our first readings for this course should provide us, to some extent, with a few answers. I will provide you with a variety of handouts and reading packets that will supplement our core readings; these will be uploaded to Blackboard, so you will need to have computer access and minimal competency with CWRU’s content management system. If I assign handouts, please print them up and bring them to the class session in which we will be using them.

Once we gain some understanding of the discourse, its aesthetic trends, and the context surrounding both, we will read recent books by poets living and writing in Ohio. They are as follows:

Christle, Heather. The Trees The Trees. Portland, OR: Octopus Books, 2011. (Yellow Springs)

Hart, Matt. Debacle Debacle. Rochester, NY: H_NGM_N Books, 2013. (Cincinnati)

Lucas, Dave. Weather. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2011. (Cleveland)

Szporluk, Larissa. Traffic With MacBeth. North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press, 2011. (Bowling Green)

Williams, Tyrone. Adventures in Pi. Loveland, OH: Dos Madres Press, 2011. (Cincinnati)

Wing, Catherine. Gin & Bleach. Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, 2012. (Cleveland)

Finally, everyone should purchase a writer's handbook that contains an updated version of the current MLA citation standards. As there are a plethora of such handbooks available, I will leave the selection of what text you choose up to you. The most thorough and complete guide is cited below:

Modern Language Association. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York, NY: Modern Language Association of America, 2009.

Assignments:

As with all courses in the SAGES program, our seminar will be writing intensive. Our discussions, readings, and in-class visits from poets will all contribute directly to your final 10-12 page research essay due at the end of the semester. Along the way, you will compose eight, two-page response papers to our course texts, as well as a thorough, five-page research proposal that clearly demonstrates the topic, trajectory, and goals of your research for your final essay. I will provide specific guidelines for each assignment a few weeks before they are due, but the list below contains individual point distributions and due dates:

Response Papers (6): 30 points, assigned weekly.

Author Questions (written and asked) (6): 10 points, assigned per reading
Quizzes (5): 5 points

Abstract and Annotated Bibliography: 20 points, 03 April 2014.

Final Research Paper: 35 points, 01 May 2014.

Additionally, you will create three questions for each author after reading their collection. You will be expected to ask the authors at least two questions over the course of the semester during the Q&A segments that follow the readings. Attendance at all readings is mandatory.

Plagiarism:

You must do your own original work in this course and appropriately identify that portion of your work which you collaborated on or borrowed from others. Whenever you quote passages or use ideas from others, you are legally and ethically obligated to acknowledge that use, following appropriate conventions for documenting sources. If you have doubts about whether or not you are using writing ethically and legally, ask me. Follow this primary principle: Be up front and honest about what you are doing and about what you have contributed to a project. If I suspect plagiarism, I will discuss the incident privately with the student before issuing any penalties. Penalties for plagiarism will depend on the nature of the assignment. The list below more fully describes what constitutes plagiarism:

1) Word-for-word copying of another person’s ideas or words.

2) The mosaic: interspersing one’s own words here and there while copying another’s work.

3) The paraphrase: rewriting of another’s work, yet still using their fundamental idea or theory.

4) Fabrication: inventing or counterfeiting sources.

5) Submission of another’s work as one’s own.

6) Neglecting quotation marks on material that is otherwise acknowledged.

Acknowledgment is not necessary when the material used is common knowledge.

Code of Conduct:

All members of the course must commit to creating a place of study where everyone is treated with respect and courtesy. Everyone must share in the commitment to protect the integrity, rights, and personal safety of each member of the classroom and virtual community. This includes helpful, yet courteous, discussion of individual and group writing projects. Additionally, make sure cell phones, pagers, and any other similar electronic instruments are turned off when in class. These devices are not conducive to a learning environment and will be treated as such.

Class Schedule:

What follows is a tentative schedule for our class sessions this semester. Please prepare accordingly, but be aware that details are subject to change based upon how the semester proceeds.

	HOMEWORK	IN-CLASS
Tuesday, 14 January 2013	N/A	Syllabus and Introductions
Thursday, 16 January 2013	Reading: TBA	Discuss readings & quiz
Tuesday, 21 January 2013	Reading: TBA	Discuss readings & quiz
Thursday, 23 January 2013	Reading: TBA	Discuss readings & quiz
Tuesday, 28 January 2013	Wing Response / Book	Discuss Gin & Bleach
Thursday, 30 January 2013	Wing Questions	Wing Reading
Tuesday, 04 February 2013	Hart Response / Book	Discuss Debacle Debacle
Thursday, 06 February 2013	Hart Questions	Hart Reading
Tuesday, 11 February 2013	Christle Response / Book	Discuss The Trees The Trees
Thursday, 13 February 2013	Christle Questions	Christle Reading
Tuesday, 19 February 2013	Reading: TBA	Discuss readings & quiz
Thursday, 21 February 2013	Reading: TBA	Discuss readings & quiz
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Thursday, 28 February 2013
Tuesday, 05 March 2013
Thursday, 07 March 2013
Tuesday, 11 March 2013	SPRING BREAK
Thursday, 13 March 2013	SPRING BREAK
Tuesday, 18 March 2013	Lucas Questions	Lucas Reading
Thursday, 20 March 2013	Lucas Response / Book	Discuss Weather
Tuesday, 25 March 2013	Williams Response / Book	Discuss Adventures
Thursday, 27 March 2013	Williams Questions	Williams Reading
Tuesday, 01 April 2013
Thursday, 03 April 2013	Abstract & Bibliography
Tuesday, 08 April 2013	Szporluk Response / Book	Discuss Traffic
Thursday, 10 April 2013	Szporluk Questions	Szporluk Reading
Tuesday, 15 April 2013
Thursday, 17 April 2013
Tuesday, 22 April 2013
Thursday, 24 April 2013		Evaluations

2014 READING SERIES SCHEDULE

After a successful inaugural year for the Poets of Ohio course and reading series--which brought Mary Biddinger, Frank Giampietro, Sarah Gridley, Cathy Wagner, and Dana Ward to Case Western Reserve University's campus--we have another wonderful line-up scheduled for the upcoming semester.

I would encourage you to attend as many events as possible and spread the word to anyone in the northeast Ohio area that might have an interest in poetry, literature, or cultural events.

All readings--which are followed by lively Q-an-A sessions--will run from 6:00pm to 7:15pm on Thursday evenings (with the exception of the Lucas reading). Please note that events will take place in one of two different locations this year: the readings on 06 Feb, 18 Mar, and 27 Mar will take place in the Guilford Hall Parlor, while the readings on 30 Jan, 13 Feb, and 10 Apr will be held in Room 206 of Clarke Hall. Below is the detailed schedule with poet bios.

Thursday, January 30: Catherine Wing 

Thursday, February 06: Matt Hart 

Thursday, February 13: Heather Christle 

Tuesday, March 18: Dave Lucas 

Thursday, March 27: Tyrone Williams 

Thursday April 10: Larissa Szporluk

Poet Catherine Wing was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended Brown University before earning her MFA from the University of Washington. Her collections of poetry include Enter Invisible (2005), nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Gin & Bleach (2012). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Poetry, the Nation, and the Chicago Review and has been featured in a number of anthologies, including Best American Poetry (2010). Wing has received fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and teaches poetry at Kent State.

Matt Hart is the author of five books of poems, Who's Who Vivid (Slope Editions, 2006), Wolf Face (H_NGM_N Books, 2010), Light-Headed (BlazeVOX, 2011), Sermons and Lectures Both Blank and Relentless (Typecast Publishing, 2012), and Debacle Debacle (H_NGM_N Books, 2013), as well as several chapbooks. Additionally, his poems, reviews, and essays have appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Big Bell, Cincinnati Review, Coldfront, Columbia Poetry Review, H_NGM_N, Harvard Review, jubilat, Lungfull!, and Post Road, among others. His awards include a Pushcart Prize, a 2013 individual artist grant from The Shifting Foundation, and fellowships from both the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. A co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety, he lives in Cincinnati where he teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and plays in the band TRAVEL.

Heather Christle is the author of What Is Amazing (Wesleyan University Press, 2012), The Difficult Farm (Octopus Books, 2009), and The Trees The Trees (Octopus Books, 2011), which won the 2012 Believer Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in publications including Boston Review, Gulf Coast, The New Yorker, and The Best American Poetry. She has taught poetry at Antioch College, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Emory University, where she was the 2009-2011 Poetry Writing Fellow. She is the Web Editor for jubilat and frequently a writer in residence at the Juniper Summer Writing Institute. A native of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, she lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Dave Lucas is the author of Weather (Georgia, 2011), which received the 2012 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry, and is a co-founder and co-curator of the Brews + Prose literary series at Market Garden Brewery. Recently Rita Dove selected him to be featured on BillMoyers.com as a “young poet to watch.” A PhD candidate in English at the University of Michigan, he lives in Cleveland, where he was born and raised.

Tyrone Williams teaches literature and theory at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of five books of poetry, c.c. (Krupskaya Books, 2002), On Spec (Omnidawn Publishing, 2008), The Hero Project of the Century (The Backwaters Press, 2009), Adventures of Pi (Dos Madres Press, 2011) and Howell (Atelos Books, 2011). He is also the author of several chapbooks, including a prose eulogy, Pink Tie (Hooke Press, 2011). His website is at http://home.earthlink.net/~suspend/

Larissa Szporluk was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan and earned degrees at the University of Michigan, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns fellow. Her books of poetry include Dark Sky Question (1998), which won the Barnard Poetry Prize; Isolato (2000), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize; The Wind, Master Cherry, the Wind (2003); Embryos and Idiots (2007); and Traffic with Macbeth (2011). She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and currently teaches at Bowling Green State University.

COURSE OVERVIEW

This site contains all the course documentation, materials, and assignments for USSY 289E: Poets of Ohio taught by Joshua Ware, Ph.D. during Spring semester 2013 at Case Western Reserve University. Due to the blog format, all information reads in reverse chronological order.

The course, generally speaking, sought to familiarize students with the genre of poetry, first by establishing stylistic, aesthetic, and conceptualize foundations common to contemporary poetry. To do so, we read James Longenbach's The Resistance to Poetry, coupled with individual poems written by a wide variety of Ohio poets.

For the next phase of the course, we read full-length collections by six different Ohio poets. Once they read each collection, students wrote a 2-page response paper that developed connections between the primary text and Longenbach's book. During our class sessions, we discussed their thoughts and ideas about the text. The following session, the poet would come to campus for a reading and a question-and-answer segment. To this end, we attempted to answer the following questions, which the syllabus' course description posed:

Why do poetic texts, both of the present and the past, seem so difficult to read and understand? What writing techniques, strategies, and styles do poets use that make comprehending their work such a challenge? More importantly, why would anyone choose to write in this manner? Through close reading of our primary texts, researching the historical and literary contexts surrounding contemporary poetry, and discussing the art form with each other (as well as with the poets themselves), we will come to a better understanding of how these texts function.

Ultimately, these writing assignments, discussions, readings, and q-&-a sessions offered students several different learning environments in which to engage, think about, and understand contemporary poetry.

This class was also designed to explore and develop the idea of community, specifically local and regional communities that thrive outside of mainstream culture. As the course description in the syllabus also states that:

But more than just acquainting you with this style of writing, our course will highlight the large and dynamic poetry community of Ohio. Luckily for us, many of the poets we will read during the course agreed to visit our class this semester to talk about their work and read their poems. 

To this extent, our course will explore the local and national poetry communities, noting how writers found relationships upon geography, aesthetics, and demographics (just to name a few), using written texts to express emotion, thought, or identity. In order to accomplish these goals, we will read, participate in class discussions, and write extensively about poetry composed by contemporary Ohio poets. Therefore, you will be expected to engage our course texts critically, thinking through the manner in which language operates as a tool for generating and sustaining, as well as undermining, community formation.

It was a goal of this course, then, not just to acquaint students with contemporary poetry, but challenge them to consider about how we can become proactive leaders and supportive members within marginalized communities.

For more information on this course, please explore this blog. You can also check out videos of and commentary by the poets on Vouched Books website by clicking on their names: Mary Biddinger, Phil Metres, Frank Giampietro, Dana Ward, Cathy Wagner, and Sarah Gridley.

FINAL RESEARCH ESSAY

DUE: 02 MAY 2012

OVERVIEW:

Your final project presents you with an opportunity to explore a topic you find interesting that relates to contemporary poetry being composed by poets living and writing in Ohio. The essay should provide you the chance to consider different the perspectives, arguments, and contexts that shape your subject matter, tell a certain history, or persuade an audience in a certain way.Your task will be to write a research essay in your own academic voice, integrating primary and secondary source material, and employing argumentative strategies. The paper should be a persuasive argument, but you are free to take whatever angle you choose. That is, you are free to develop your own position and solutions, etc. As you are already well aware, you need to conduct research and rely upon a significant body of source material in the form of articles, books, interviews, field research, surveys, and other secondary sources.

LENGTH & FORMAT:

The paper should be 10-12 double-spaced pages that are typed in 12-point Times New Roman font and formatted according to proper academic conventions. You will use MLA style in order to learn the standard documentation convention for writing in academic world. The first page of your document should have a heading that is properly formatted and include a relevant title. Each subsequent page should have your last name and the page number in the upper right corner (in the header), and you should include a separate Works Cited in which you identify all referenced texts.

SUBJECT SPECIFICS:

Your paper must be an argument, not a report. In other words, the entire essay should be designed to support a thesis statement through strategic use of your research and through effective use of argumentative strategies. To this extent, you should consider how to integrate effectively the multiple sources, perspectives, arguments you have been researching. I will meet with each one of you in one-on-one session to help you further refine your topic so that it is both relevant for this course and manageable for a project of this scope. Also, look to see that you have incorporated the following in the paper itself: 

A strong, unique, specific, and compelling thesis 

A fully developed introduction, body, and conclusion 

Strategic use of argumentation 

Strategic incorporation of your research as a means to support your claims through evidence (primary and secondary sources, interviews, statistics, analogies, examples, etc.) 

If pertinent to your subject: Visual rhetoric, or how visual mediate, shape, create a particular controversy, situation, issue, or phenomenon. Visual rhetoric should be both the lens of analysis and the key primary source focus 

An articulation of the context and significance of this problem

Development of your persona and a strong statement of your purpose 

The proposal of some kind of solution to the problem at hand or the delineation of a new way of looking at the issue 

Organization of your writing with attention to overall coherence, transitions, balance between parts, and the relationship of part to whole 

Understanding of the conventions of academic discourse (correct usage, diction, syntax, grammar, and documentation format) 

Documentation of sources cited using MLA style (or APA) in the body and the Works Cited page 

Insertion of images according to academic convention (Figure 1, etc.) and printed in clear ink, clean paper, in color 

No typos, careless errors, or proofreading mistakes that decrease credibility and destroy ethos

UPDATE: 04/14/13

For our Tuesday, April 16 class session, please read Sarah Gridley’s book Loom (Omnidawn Publishing, 2013). While reading, think about how both the book and individual poems therein engage the concepts we’ve covered in James Longenbach’s The Resistance to Poetry. Make sure you’re annotating the poems and taking notes as you read.

After finishing the collection, you will need to write a response essay that addresses how Gridley’s poems and Longenbach’s ideas relate to one another. Choose one concept from Longenbach and focus on how it manifests itself in Loom. The choice of what concept you select is up to you, but make sure it’s one that appears with some frequency (and, also, one you have not yet written about). I would suggest returning to Longenbach not just as a reference, but to examine how he engages, analyzes, and writes about poems on a formal level. When engaging a poem or poems from Wagner’s collection, make sure to be explicit about how that concept operates in the excerpt you’ve selected.

Responses will be 2 full pages, double spaced, and typed in 12-point Times New Roman font with one inch margins. You should properly cite from both Loom and The Resistance to Poetry, using MLA-format. All essays will be due at the beginning of our class session. No late assignments will be accepted.

For Wednessday, April 17 (the day after our Tuesday class session and before the reading during our Thursday session), you will need to send me an email that contains three questions for Gridley based upon her book or our in-class discussions. Not only are writing these questions part of your grade, so is asking them after the reading. If you haven’t asked three questions yet this semester, make sure you ask one at Thursday’s reading.

Please email me if you have any questions. Also, please spread the word about Thursday’s reading and invite friends if you would like, as it is open to the public.