Friday, October 1, 2010

Segue Poems & Diversions

Please work on your segue poems today in class. When you get stuck or need more inspiration, take a look at these poets reading their poems. Pay attention to the sound of the poem. How do the words build and connect or create an overall tone?:

Mary Oliver's Wild Geese read by a woman in a car.
Mary Oliver's Something read by a busy woman.
Mary Oliver's Sunflowers read by a woman whose battery is low.
Mary Oliver's God at Work read by a woman who is worried about her ovaries.

Draft and revise your character poem and your poetry cycle.

POETS: some advice about your poetry:

--Many of you overuse participial phrases and gerund phrases. You add adjective clauses to almost every sentence. Please don't. Poetry often sounds better when you state ideas clearly.
--Present tense is stronger than past tense.
--Choose interesting and active verbs over blah, passive, or neutral verbs. (looking is a weak verb as opposed to stare, peep, glance, or inspecting for example.)
--Again, you need to use punctuation in your poetry. You are not e.e. cummings. Fragments are NOT okay in poetry. They are confusing.

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About this course!

This course stresses understanding the characteristics & techniques in the literary genres of fiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. This course will continue to build on students’ reading and writing skills begun in previous creative writing classes. Readings and discussions of works by major writers in the field will be examined as inspiration and models of fine writing. This educational blog is designed for the use of the students at the School of the Arts in Rochester, NY.