The Poetry of Earth

and the Songs of Florida

English 190 – Literature and Experience

Spring 2007

Steve Phelan

 

 

TEXTS:

            Di Yanni, Robert: Modern American Poets: Their Voices and Visions (MAP)

            cummings, e. e.: Selected Poems

            Ammons, A. R.: The Selected Poems: Expanded Edition

            Swenson, May: Nature: Poems Old and New

            Jones and O’Sullivan: Florida in Poetry (FIP)

 


Week

Date

Reading Assignment and Classroom Activity

 

 

 

1

Jan. 18

Introduction to the course and each other

 

 

How to Read a Poem (MAP 1-18): emphasis on Robert Frost

 

 

 

2

J. 23

Aspects of Poetry (MAP 19-102); campus ecotour

 

J. 25

Walt Whitman: The Genesis of an American Poetry

"Song of Myself" (complete)

 

 

 

3

J. 30

The rest of the Whitman selections in MAP, plus "Sleepers," "This Compost," and "As I Ebbed with the Ocean of Life"

In class: video presentation of Voices and Visions: Walt Whitman

 

Feb. 1

* = poetry workshop in the Whitman tradition. Bring a poem of your own on your project topic in the free verse style of Whitman

 

 

FINAL DATE TO DECLARE THE THEME or MOTIF FOR THE ANTHOLOGY PROJECT

 

 

 

4

Feb. 6

Wallace Stevens (read all MAP selections): Professor Jean West

 

Feb. 8

Workshop #2 to talk about topics, read your own original poems

* =  272, 273, 280, 288, 290

 

 

 

5

F. 13

William Carlos Williams (read all MAP selections)

 

F. 15

* = 305, 307, 319, 321, 330

 

 

 

6

F. 20

Elizabeth Bishop (read all MAP selections)

***

F. 22

* = 553, 557, 562, 564, 574; review for midterm-fox class

 

 

 

7

F. 27

Midterm test.

***

Mar. 1

Setting up the Genius project – at the Preserve fox class

 

 

 

8

Mar. 6

A. R. Ammons - see list etc

***

Mar. 8

* = TBA fox class

 

 

 

9

M. 10-18

Spring Break

 

 

 

10

M.20

May Swenson

***

M.22

* = TBA fox class

 

 

 

11

M. 27

Rollins College Colloquy: Panel #2 Laron Lanier and Steven Pinker

 

 

Attend one of the sessions on Tues. or Wed. with E. O. Wilson

 

 

 

12

Apr. 3

America’s major poets on Florida (FIP: see names above plus Ginsberg, Hughes, Crane, and Merrill)

***

Apr. 5

Other poets: Lanier, Kumin, Justice, Wilbur, Eberhart, Tennessee Williams, and Zora Neale Hurston fox class

 

 

 

13

A. 10

Florida poets: list to be provided

***

A. 12

Plant and animal poems of Florida fox class

 

 

 

14

A. 17

Workshop #3 for project construction, ideas for arrangement, layout, etc.

 

A. 19

Fieldtrip: bring one poem to read aloud from a poet we have not studied (a signup list will be provided in advance)

 

 

 

15

A. 24

Cont. of A. 19 class

 

A. 26

Anthology Projects Due: workshop #4 for original poetry

 

 

 

16

May 1

Genius bioacoustical projects due:  

 

 

Last class: preparations for the final

 

 

 

 

takehome

Final Examination: How does the Genius Preserve Project and the Poetry of Florida help fulfill the mission of the college and the liberal arts curriculum?

 



 

GOALS OF THE COURSE:

1)      A charging of the imagination through poetry and nature, a love of lyric.

2)      An introduction to the modes of literary analysis, especially as applied to poetry (L).

3)      A knowledge of the major American nature poets and the ecology of their work.

4)      An ability to edit a collection of poems that will stimulate an audience.

5)      An ability to write critical analysis of a poet, a poem, or a group of poems. (L)

6)      An appreciation of the music of Florida’s natives through field trips and bioacoustic technology.

7)      An understanding of the ecological community of  the campus, Genius Preserve, and Winter Park.

8)      An opportunity to do the work of restoration and be engaged in the long-term planning of such a community.

 

 

GRADE FORMULA:  

 

1)      40% anthology project

2)      15% Genius Preserve project

3)      20% tests: midterm and final (1:3 ratio)  

4)      25% written responses, class participation, and attendance (see particulars below)

credit for the course requires satisfactory completion of all four parts

hence, a failure in the course can result from failure to complete any of the parts

 

ANTHOLOGY PROJECT:

The core responsibility of the course will be to create an anthology of 20-25 poems representing a single theme of yours about nature or earthkind. Some of the poems may be your own and the rest, the majority to be sure, will come from the poets in the course or others you encounter through research.

 

The set of poems should be handsomely presented with colorful pictures, photos, drawings, sound tracks, and decoration. The arrangement of these 25-35 pages should be conducive to an understanding of the subject of your anthology.  This organization should break up the reading into manageable portions and should be represented in page headings and your table of contents.

 

Each poem should be properly titled and attributed to its rightful author; and a bibliography at the end should indicate the sources of your texts.  To represent the texts of the poems you may use copy machines, your own fair handwriting, or the elegant types of a word processor.

 

As the editor of this anthology you are to provide a preface or introduction which gives your rationale for making the book and shares your discoveries with your readers. Your organization of the project into sections will be a part of that editorial perspective. It is up to you to choose the emphasis of the anthology: creative, biographical, historical, critical, etc. However, no matter what your mode of presentation, you are responsible to help the reader along the way, for instance, to provide head/footnotes or inserts at the beginning of each new section of poems.  See Professor O'Sullivan's Florida in Poetry for an example of an excellent layout with informative marginal and head notes. The total number of pages of writing belonging to you as editor should be at a minimum 8-10.

 

GENIUS PRESERVE PROJECT:

When it suits the tasks of our syllabus and the weather is conducive, we will meet in the Genius Preserve. Our task will be to evaluate and record the songs of the place with a view to making a cd collection created by the class for the enjoyment of local residents, current and future students using the Genius Preserve, and perhaps for the web site. Each student will choose a topic of interest, most likely a bird or animal species or group of  species, but also possibly some other natural phenomenon in the songscape of the preserve. These sounds may be used in the anthology projects, but each student should bring at least one unit to the creation of the Songs of Florida class project.

Special equipment for the recording, including the Raven software to analyze the sounds we capture, will be available shortly before or just after the midterm. A short explanation of how the project was carried out, with a sample of the results, will be due at the last class.

 

DUE: April 26 at class. Late projects will receive one whole grade lower (A = B)

         

TESTS:  identifications + a choice of essay questions

        

RESPONSES:   Each student should bring one written response to one of the focus poems (the ones we agree to do in common) on the days marked * = . These personal responses may be poems in their own right (which derive from, parody, or extend the poem) or a one-page essay to show through the techniques of literary analysis how you interpret the poem. The responses will be used to generate class discussion.

         

ATTENDANCE:  Students are expected to attend every class for the sake of continuity. It is the absent student's responsibility to find out from a classmate what has been covered and what adjustments have been made to the schedule. Less than 90% attendance is grounds for failure; so kindly keep me advised, preferably beforehand, if you must miss class.

 

 

 

Professor Steve Phelan

Office: Carnegie 103

407-646-2409 (office + voicemail)

phelan@rollins.edu (email)

 

http://web.rollins.edu/~sphelan/

(web site: includes cv, spring schedule, and syllabi)