Personal
Mythology of Organic Poetry Workshop
Tuesday, April 28, 2009:
Week Four (Smell)
Week One (with links!)
Week Two
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
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Robin Blaser – (from the introduction to The Holy Forest, pg xx, on Open Form,) Quitting a Job (pg 26,) Golden Poem (108,) The Truth is Laughter I, II & 6 (204, 205, 209.) The Truth is Laughter 15 and Occasional Thought (224.)
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Discussion
of previous week. How’re the sonnets coming? Anyone want to read one or two?
Questions on Personal Myth grid? Didja get a Father Poem? Was that too hard? Who did a ritual? Any questions? Questions
on Levertov Some Notes on Organic Form essay?
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Postcard poem exercise. Write to Pop, Mom, Sis, Bro, an old
friend, or someone else you know well. You don’t have to mail it. You can fill
out the address later. (Handout).
- Cinquains
(from postcard,
or extended from that, or from your Tribe poem.) Father an enigma that may take us decades to begin to understand well. He waits.
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Blaser poems: One
Word of Wisdom (pg
410,) poems from 480, 481, 492, his
father poem Tumble Weed pg 200 and
finally 503. Then play sound of What
Would You Do?
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Anne Waldman Interview poem Exercise. (Handout.)
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Write
16 words that correspond to your notion of smell. Things you like to smell, or
that represent your past, present and future; your good side as well as your
shadow side. These are concrete words that you think smell good and it might be
weird. Dryer sheets. Compost. Dairy Farm. The sound of this word, and
especially the smell of it, brings up a memory, good or bad.
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Exercise: Mother Poem. (Read Homero Aridjis The Amazement of
Time.) A short poem, a cinquain or other small poem as an outline for a
longer piece, or just go for it, writing part one of the poem that could be
continued after class.
Assignment:
1. Come back with finished Mother poem. 2. Finish SMELL
words if not done already. 3. Browse http://www.earthvision.info/archetypes
COME BACK WITH THE MATERIAL ON THREE TO FIVE ARCHETYPES THAT RESONATE WITH YOUR
NOTION OF YOUR SELF. 4. Rothenberg essays, Revolutionary Propositions
and Offering
Flowers. Ideas for long-term projects, ie: Bowering’s a chapbook a
month, Three Guys from Albany (have
toured the United States since 1993 and so far they have read in 11 of the 18
Albanys in the USA.) Bowering’s chapbook based on Lorine N’s work and life, Postcard Project.