Personal
Mythology of Organic Poetry Workshop
Tuesday, April 21, 2009:
Week Three (Touch)
Week One (with links!)
Week Two
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
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Amalio Madueño – Lost
in the Chamiso
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Discussion
of previous week. Personal Myth grid pointers. Any questions? Questions on
questionnaire? Short body-part poems? American Sonnets? Questions on End of New
England essay?
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Read Allen Ginsberg – Sphincter. Play his
reading of Autumn
Leaves.
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Ritual poem exercise. (From Handbook of Poetic Forms.)
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Ted Berrigan Sonnets. Read some, play some.
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Berrigan Sonnet Exercise. (Handout.)
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Jack Spicer's poetics. (Handout.)
…Prose invents - poetry discloses… A poet is a time mechanic not an embalmer…
…Muses do exist, but now I know that they are not afraid to dirty their hands with explication – that they are patient with truth and commentary as long as it doesn’t get into the poem…
…The trick naturally is what Duncan learned years ago and tried to teach us – not to search for the perfect poem but to let your way of writing of the moment go along its own paths, explore and retreat but never be fully realized (confined) within the boundaries of one poem. This is where we were wrong and he was right, but he complicated things for us by saying that there is no such thing as good or bad poetry. There is – but not in relation to the single poem. There is really no single poem…
…Poems should echo and reecho against each other. They should create resonances. They cannot live alone any more than we can…
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Write
16 words that correspond to your notion of touch. Things you like to touch, or
that represent your past, present and future; your good side as well as your
shadow side. These are concrete words that you think feel good on your skin, or
fur. You like saying and hearing these words.
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Read
Michael S. Harper – Grandfather
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Play
Video of Allen Ginsberg – Father Death Blues.
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Exercise: Father Poem. (Read Nine Sonnets for Pop.)
Assignment: 1. Complete
additional American Sonnets to have at least nine total. 2. Finish TOUCH words if not done already. 3. Conduct a ritual for something in your life you need by a body of
water (I think rivers are best) and then write a poem about what you did,
remembering you do not have to share it
if you don’t want to and come next week with questions/comments on Denise
Levertov’s 4.
Some Notes
on Organic Form essay. Ideas for long-term projects, ie: Kyger’s
Blavatsky poem, George Stanley’s