Weeks 4-5: The Page and Beyond

Composite image of recording poets: The Last Poets, Dylan Thomas, Ursula Rucker, and Tracie Morris
Featured: Ursula Rucker, Tracie Morris, The Last Poets, Dylan Thomas

Tuesday, September 12

  • In class:
  • Assignment:
    • Visit the PennSound Authors page, identify one author you’d like to explore, and listen to 2-3 recordings of their poetry.
    • Transcribe the first 30 or so seconds from one of the poems. (DON’T LOOK UP THE POEM…yet). The goal is to capture the poem in verse, intuiting where to place line breaks.
    • Once that is ready, look up the poem and write a post in which you compare/contrast your transcription and the published poem. Reflect on the information that is lost from the reading when writing down the poem.
    • Post in our forum before class.

Wednesday, September 14

  • In class:
    • Lecture and discussion on poetry off the page:
  • Assignment
    • Listen to Tracie Morris:
      • Discussion of Sound Poetry (1:07): MP3
      • My Great Grand Aunt Meets a Bush Supporter (2:01): MP3
    • Read “Sound Poetry” in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
    • Explore UbuWeb: Sound
    • Write a brief analysis of 2 sound poems from UbuWeb Sound (1-2 paragraphs per poem) in which you discuss how the poet is using the materiality of sound in meaningful ways. Post before our normally scheduled class period on Monday, September 19.

Monday, September 19

  • Asynchronous online class. We do not meet in person or via Zoom. Class activities defined below.
    • Post your analysis of sound poetry before the class period (description above).
    • Read the posts made by two classmates, and listen to the sound poems they linked to. Respond to them substantively by noting other bits of expressive use of sound.
  • Assignment:
    • Read “Performance” in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
    • Watch Shane Koyczan “To This Day”
    • Watch this performance by Sherrie Silver and Amanda Gorman
    • Write a 1-2 paragraph discussion of the materials poets have available to them when crafting a live performance and the impact this has on the poem. Offer examples from the assigned performances. Post in our forum before class.

Wednesday, September 21

  • In class
  • Assignment:
    • Read “Avant Garde Poetics” “Metaphor” and “Simile” in the Princeton Encyclopedia.
    • Read “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll
    • Post a 1-2 paragraph interpretation of the poem you are writing your essay #1 about. Include a link to the poem or the poem itself in the post. Post in our forum before class.
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By Leonardo Flores

Professor Leonardo Flores is Chair of the English Department at Appalachian State University. He taught at the English Department at University of Puerto Rico: Mayagüez Campus from 1994 to 2019. He is President of the Electronic Literature Organization. He was the 2012-2013 Fulbright Scholar in Digital Culture at the University of Bergen in Norway. His research areas are electronic literature and its preservation via criticism, documentation, and digital archives. He is the creator of a scholarly blogging project titled I ♥ E-Poetry, co-editor of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 3, and has a Spanish language e-lit column in 80 Grados. He is currently co-editing the first Anthology of Latin American Electronic Literature. For more information on his current work, visit leonardoflores.net.