ENG 303 Creative Writing Poetry Fall 2010, Online Dr. Roberta Clipper (Robbie Clipper Sethi)

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1 ENG 303 Creative Writing Poetry Fall 2010, Online Dr. Roberta Clipper (Robbie Clipper Sethi) Office: Fine Arts 326 Hours: online between 11:00 & 12:00 & 4:30-5:00 M & W & by appointment Phone and voice mail: (609) sethi@rider.edu This section of ENG 303 will be conducted entirely online. On Blackboard ( which requires your Easypass user name and password to enter the course), you will be required to take quizzes and post assignments and drafts and respond to them by the dates indicated on the schedule of assignments below. Please note in the schedule of assignments below that you will have an assignment due nearly every day of the week (except for Saturdays). The regular assignments due in my face to face section, taught in the same semester are spread out in order to enable you and me to pace yourselves throughout the course of the semester. Some of these assignments (like the Sunday ones) are small: reading and responding to a poem on Poetry Daily by midnight. We will not meet on campus. You must have access to a computer and a reliable Internet connection to take this course. Computer labs are available on campus; students at a distance have found public libraries (before New Jersey s budget cuts) useful in case of emergencies. A crashed computer or Internet connection will not excuse you from keeping up with the course. Goals: This course will teach you how to draft and revise poems by reading about the writing of poetry and models in the text, at Poetry Daily and in at least one current issue of a literary magazine (details below), by workshopping your drafts online, and by considering the comments of the instructor. We will use a text Boisseau, Michelle, Robert Wallace & Randall Mann. Writing Poems. Seventh Edition (NY: Longman, 2007). Make sure you buy the 7 th edition. The text is available from Rider's bookstore ( as background reading, on which you will take reading quizzes to reinforce the most important points. You will respond to model poems on Forums set up on Blackboard for that purpose. You will also be required to read a poem from Poetry Daily every Sunday & Tuesday (parallel with my face to face section, which meets Mondays and Wednesdays) and post a response to that poem on a Blackboard forum set up for that purpose.

2 2 In addition we will subscribe to a literary magazine about which you will write and which we will discuss after copies arrive through the mail. To subscribe to the Beloit Poetry Review please go to and click on the link after the word Students at the bottom of the page. The adoption code you need is This text will cost $12.00 a $6 discount. If you have questions, you can contact CLMP Programs Director Jamie Schwartz at jschwartz@clmp.org. This syllabus may be modified to make time to discuss BPR after it arrives in the mail. This extensive reading is important for learning to write. Poets are well read. I do not know a poet who does not find the reading of other poets poetry inspirational, not to say essential. Many poets stimulate their own poetry by reading other people s poetry, and working on a particular kind of poem, they might check out how did it. We read literary magazines to see what kinds of poems our fellow poets are writing and to identify places that might publish our poems. Most contemporary poets place their poems in literary magazines first (before anthologies and collections). Reading improves your writing, both actively and passively. So we will read, in this course, probably more than we write. I also hope you will be able to accompany me and other students to the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark on October 7 th, 8 th, 9 th and/or 10 th. Poetry also retains some of its history as an oral art, and poets always read their work. The festival occurs every other year, and this is its first year in a city accessible by public transportation. This is an extra credit opportunity worth multiple points, depending upon how long you go for and what you see there. The meat of the course, however, will consist of assignments that you will revise into drafts some of which we will workshop online. The most extensive feedback you get will be from me creating a mentor-mentee relationship that should help you to revise effectively essential to the writing of good poetry. These drafts will be revised again for a portfolio that will constitute your final for the course. At the end of the semester, you will have a portfolio of poems in various states of revision (ongoing work) as well as an understanding of the way poems are written. Reading quizzes and writing assignments will be due by midnight on the dates listed below. (However, unless I am seriously insomniac, I will not be reading your work until 6:00 the morning after it is due. So you have a grace period: if it s in before 5:00 AM, I will consider it on time.) Quizzes, however, cannot be taken late. If you have trouble on a quiz, me immediately. And when you take a quiz, do it all in one sitting and without getting up to answer the phone or cook dinner! Blackboard will crash on you if you do that. Writing assignments will be docked 1 point for every day they're late. Inspiration can and must be jump-started in creative as well as any other kind of writing, and deadlines are as important, especially in publishing, as in any walk of life. You will be required to

3 3 write responses to each other's drafts by the dates indicated. A late response will receive half credit within a week of its due date; after that it will not receive any credit. Please use consideration in responding to each other s writing: be generous with your comments, and keep in mind that if you are receiving generous comments from other members of the class, it is your duty to share generous comments with them. A workshop in which people hold back is a poor workshop; and receiving comments without offering them yourself is selfish. (In the beginning of the semester, I might bug you if your comments are not generous or late. After mid-semester, though, you are on your own, and your performance will determine what kind of grade you get.) Though 1 or 2 points here and there may not seem like much, they add up. You need only 5 to slip down a grade. Through Extra Credit you can make up missed points (1 per Extra Credit assignment). There are any number of poetry readings and workshop in the area, as well as a few per semester on campus. If you are not close to Rider, please let me know; you can get extra credit for events similar to the ones I post. To get extra credit, you have to go to an event that is cleared with me first a poetry reading or a poetry workshop write about it on the Forum for Extra Credit what went on there, what did you think of it? and at the beginning of the next class, tell the class about it. You must take the initiative in raising your hand at the beginning of class and announcing you went to an extra credit event because I will not always remember to ask. If you want extra credit, do it early in the semesters. After December 6 th, you will not be able to include an extra credit assignment in your final grade. The course will be dependent on a consistent flow of information so that you will be able to revise your poems for the final. I m counting on you to keep up with the syllabus so that everyone in the course will be able to accomplish course goals by the end of the semester as well as, for each of you, a body of work you can be proud of. Revised poems should be submitted to Venture, Rider s literary magazine, On Fire! (Rider s magazine of the African-American diaspora), Herstory (Rider s women s magazine if it s still being published), LoFidelity (a magazine founded by alumni), and The Kelsey Review, a local magazine for Mercer County residents, employees and/or students, among others, its deadline not until May 1 st, 2011, and if you write a really good poem and it s finished, the Beloit Poetry Review. Faculty: I made my reputation as a writer of fiction with two books and a slew of stories. My PhD was in comparative literature, in which I studied both poetry and fiction, culminating in a dissertation that explores the influence of drama on the development of the novel. Most of the drama was written in verse, as well as one of the novels I analyzed. I love the poetry of Alexander Pushkin and Fyodor Ivanovich Tiutchev (Russian) of Virgil and Horace (Latin) and many of the English poets from the 16 th to 20 th century. Among contemporaries my current favorites are Billy Collins, Philip Levine, Rita Dove, and Sharon Olds. You will see from Poetry Daily what my tastes are, as I will see yours. I have recently returned to writing poetry, having published two poems early on in my career in international literary magazines. My current projects include a cycle of poems

4 4 inspired by my Fulbright-Nehru fellowship in India (Monsoon Semester) and another informed by Lowell George s song, Fat Man in the Bathtub with the Blues, which gives it its title. Your grade will be determined by: Reading quizzes: 12; 1 point per quiz. You may miss two quizzes. Points totaling over 10 will count towards your final grade (a kind of extra credit). No quizzes may be made up. 10% Responses to poems in text, including the scansion exercise 1 point per response. One response may be missed. Responses turned in late will lose a point per day. All points accumulated will count toward your final grade 9% Responses to the Beloit Poetry Review 2% Responses to poems.com: 24;.5 (1/2) points per response. 2 may be missed without losing points; Points totaling over 12 will count towards your final grade (a kind of extra credit). 11% Drafts: 10; 2 points each; includes 2 revisions and blank verse assignment. All drafts must be in on time. Late drafts will lose a point per day. 20% Responses to each other's drafts: # of points each depends upon the number of people I the course and whether your response is detailed and original enough. 17% Portfolio (final) 31% Extra credit (attend poetry readings & post your responses on the forum for extra credit) (each time) 1% Disclaimer: I may find it necessary, throughout the semester, to revise this syllabus, including the schedule below, to reflect the differences between theory and practice, imagination and reality, paper and flesh and blood. I hope you enjoy the course! Schedule of assignments. All assignments are due by midnight of the due date indicated on this schedule. Due after you've registered for the course, before Wednesday, September 8 th (first day of the semester): 1. Buy the text Writing Poems by Boisseau, Wallace and Mann, 7 th edition. 2. Order your subscription to the Beloit Poetry Review by going to and clicking on the link after the word Students at the bottom of the page. The adoption code you need is On Forum #1 for "The Class," post an introduction of yourself: who are you and where are you from; what is your experience writing (need not be poetry); who is your favorite poet at the moment or what is the most memorable poem you have read; what do you expect to get out of this course? The first post will be me answering the questions. Please post a picture if you have one electronically. 4. Please try the practice quiz on course information in order to see if you have any trouble taking the quiz. If you do, please me immediately. Remember that you need to enable pop-ups in order to take the quizzes.

5 5 For Wednesday 9/8: Read Chapter One, Starting Out and take Quiz #1: Starting Out. For Thursday 9/9: On Forum #3 for "Starting Out," post a response to one of the Poems to Consider in the chapter. If someone before you posts a response to the poem you've chosen, respond to that response and post a substantially different observation of the poem. I'll post the first response as an example and a response you can react to if you choose the same poem. For Friday 9/10: do exercise #1 on page 14 and post it on Forum #4 for first poem. Week 1 (technically; Thanksgiving week completes the previous one): Beginning Sunday 9/12: Every Sunday and Tuesday go on and read the poem posted as well as the link on the name of the poet and the magazine or book in which it was published. (This is a stretching exercise for poets.) If you register on poems.com, you will receive an every week with a link to the poem of the day. Every day a new poem is posted on the site. On Forum #2: Poem of the day post a reaction to the poem for each day. (This will become a very long forum.) I ll post a reaction to a poem from one of the days before the start of the semester as an example of the kind of reaction you might post. I ll cut and paste the poem so you can read it right on the forum, but once the semester starts, you will all be reading the poems, so there will be no need to cut and paste. You ll all be familiar with each poem of the day on Sundays and Tuesdays. I will post my response to the poem after you all have finished posting yours. For Monday 9/13: do exercise #4 on page 15 and post it as a reply to yourself on Forum #4. For Tuesday 9/14: poem of the day By Wednesday, 9/15: Read all of the replies posted on Forum #4. Which strikes you as the strongest revision and why? Post your response as a reply to that favorite revision on the forum. By Friday 9/17: read Chapter 2 Verse and take Quiz #2: Verse Week 2 For Sunday 9/19: poem of the day For Monday 9/20: On Forum #5 for "Verse," post a response to one of the Poems to Consider in the Verse chapter. If someone before you posts a response to the poem you've chosen, respond to that response and post a substantially different observation of the poem. For Tuesday 9/21: poem of the day For Wednesday 9/22: do exercise 3 on p 37 and post it on Forum #6 for second poem. By Friday, 9/24: read Chapter 3 Making the Line I and take Quiz #3: Line I. Week 3 Sunday 9/26: poem of the day

6 6 Monday, 9/27 do #5 on pp and post it on Forum #7 for scansion. Tuesday 9/28: poem of the day Wednesday, 9/29: Do #1 on p. 60 and post your answer on Forum #8 for blank verse. By Friday, 10/1: Read Chapter 4 Making the Line II and take Quiz #4: Line II. Week 4 Sunday 10/3: poem of the day Monday, 10/4: Choose a poem from the "Poems to consider" on pp and for one of them answer the questions in #5 on p 81. Post your answer on Forum #8 for Form. If someone before you has chosen the poem you chose, either choose another poem or offer an alternative to your classmate s answers. Tuesday 10/5: poem of the day Wednesday, 10/6: do #1 on pp and post it on Forum #9 for Lines (third poem) Thursday 10/7 through Sunday 10/10: Thursday 10/7 through Sunday 10/10: Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. I will be attending the festival from Thursday through Sunday. It costs. For info: Ο By Friday, 10/8: among your classmates' poems on Forum #9 choose one you find particularly successful and reply to it, explaining what works about it. Week 5 Sunday 10/10: poem of the day Monday, 10/11: Read Chapter 5 The Sound of Sense and take Quiz #5: sound. Tuesday 10/12: poem of the day Wednesday 10/13: Choose a poem from the Poems to Consider in the chapter and explain how it does sound: what sound effects does it use and what effect do they have relative to the meaning of the poem. Post your answer on Forum #10 for sound. If someone before you has chosen the poem you choose, add to what they have said by expanding on the detail they noticed or their explanation of how the sound works in the poem. By Friday 10/15: Choose between #1 and #2 on pp Post it on Forum #11 for fourth poem. Week 6 Sunday 10/17: poem of the day By Monday 10/18: Read the first 6 poems on Forum #11 and post a response, answering the following questions: What does the poem seem to be about? What does it do best? What could make it stronger?

7 7 Tuesday 10/19: poem of the day By Wednesday 10/20: read the rest of the poems on Forum #11 and post a response, answering the above questions. Friday 10/22: Read chapter 6 Subject Matter and take Quiz #6: subject Week 7 Sunday 10/24: poem of the day Monday 10/25: For one of the poems in Poems to Consider, post your reaction on Forum #12 for Subject. Tuesday 10/26: poem of the day Wednesday 10/27: Do #1 or #2 or #4 on pages and post it on Forum # 13 for Fifth poem. By Friday 10/29: Read Chapter 7 Metaphor and take Quiz #7: Metaphor Week 8 Sunday 10/31: Poem of the Day Monday 11/1: Choose one of the poems from Poems to Consider and explain on Forum #14 for metaphor how it uses metaphor in order to get at a deeper truth than it might get at literally. Tuesday 11/2: poem of the day Wednesday 11/3: Do either #1 or #4 on page 152 and post the poem on Forum #15 for sixth poem. By Friday 11/5: Read Chapter 8: Tale, Teller, and Tone and take Quiz #8: persona Week 9 Sunday 11/7: Poem of the day Monday 11/8: Choose one of the poems in Poems to Consider in Chapter 8 and on Forum #16 for persona explain who is speaking in this poem, what the poem is about, and how the speaker enhances that subject matter. Tuesday 11/9: poem of the day Wednesday 11/10: do #5 on page 175 and post it on Forum #17 along with a post of the original poem you chose to revise. By Thursday 11/11: Read half the revisions on Forum #17 and post your preference: the original draft or the revision. And why? By Friday 11/12: Read the rest of the revision on Forum #17 and post your preference and why. Week 10 Sunday 11/14: Poem of the day Monday 11/15: Read chapter 9 The Mysteries of Language and take Quiz #9: language Tuesday 11/16: Poem of the day

8 8 Wednesday 11/17: Choose one of the Poems to Consider in Chapter 9 and on Forum #18 for language explain what is strange about the poem you chose and how the poem achieves that strangeness. For Thursday 11/18: Read Chapter 10 Finding the Poem and take quiz # 10 Finding the Poem Friday 11/18: Read Chapter 11 Devising and Revising and take quiz #11 Devising and revising. Week 11 Sunday 11/21: Poem of the day Monday 11/22: Read Chapter 12: Becoming a Poet and take quiz #12 Becoming a Poet Tuesday 11/23: poem of the day Thanksgiving Week 12 Sunday 11/28 Poem of the day Monday 11/29: Choose any one of the poems in the Process unit and post on Forum #19 for Process seventh poem what you like about it, how you think it achieves that effect on you, and write a poem responding to it. Tuesday 11/30: poem of the day Friday 12/3 Choose one of the 7 poems you drafted and write a revision of it, changing it radically by using only your strongest line from the poem or applying one of the techniques you have read about or seen in your reading of the text or by approaching the poem from an entirely different direction. Post it on Forum #20: Revision Week 13 Sunday 12/5: Poem of the day Monday 12/6: Read the first 4 poems on Forum #20 and reply to each answering the following questions: o What does this poem seem to be trying to do? o What is it about? o What works best to convey that meaning in the poem? o What seems to be standing in the way of the meaning? o What could be added, taken away, or changed to make it a better poem? Tuesday 12/7: Poem of the day Wednesday 12/8: Read the next 4 poems on Forum #20 and reply to each answering the above questions. Thursday 12/9: Read the next 4 poems on Forum #20 and reply to each answering the above questions. Friday 12/10 Last day of classes, Fall Semester. Please fill out the evaluation and post it anonymously on Forum # 21: evaluation

9 Final: By Friday 12/17 (earlier if you would prefer/can): revise each of your poems and put them together in order of your own preference, the poem you like best first. In addition write an essay that details your revision of each poem: what did you do to it? Why did you do it? What did you discover in the process? How did feedback on the poem help? How did it hinder? What particular problems did you encounter with this poem? What else would you do to it if you had time? And finally what kinds of poems do you write? What do you think is unique about your poems? What is your biggest problem as a poet? This is your portfolio for the course. Send it to me on the Digital Drop Box on Blackboard, it to me, or, if you don t mind everyone else in the class reading your revisions and essay, post it on Forum #21: Portfolio. 9