Monday, October 23rd

Monday, October 23rd: 

Class is canceled today, Monday, October 23rd, due to an unforeseen circumstance (check your emails for this). In lieu of our class meeting today, please do the following:

• Read: The Poetry Workshop FAQ! If you have any additional workshop-related questions, come prepared to ask them on Wednesday
• Read: Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “Pied Beauty,” Rita Dove’s poem “American Smooth” and W.B. Yeats’ famous poem “The Lake Isle at Innisfree“. Pay special attention to the sounds in each poem, particularly assonance (repetition of vowel sounds), consonance (repetition of consonant sounds) and alliteration (repetition of sounds at the beginning of a word).
• Post: I’ve put up another discussion board post and would like each of you to post a draft of a poem that you’re currently working on, along with a little reflection about your process with this poem so far.
• Write: Continue to work on your poems for workshop! Here’s another prompt, based on the readings we’ll be talking about on Wednesday:

Write a poem that, like the Hopkins, Yeats, or Dove poem, pays particular attention to sound. Make sure that you choose a sound (not a letter, but a sound) and from your first line and repeat that same sound in the next two lines, then choose another sound and scatter it through the next few lines, and so on. Pay attention, also, to alliteration, which is the word-initial repetition of sounds, and employ that a few times in the poem as well.