Public Writing Project

Public Writing Project

To meet this requirement, you can go to a reading. Here are some listings:

http://www.bookforum.com/events/

And check out the Center for Fiction in Midtown:

http://www.centerforfiction.org/

They have frequent readings and even a literary magazine that you can submit to.

There's also the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in the East Village:

http://www.nuyorican.org/

Bowery Poetry:

http://www.bowerypoetry.com/

And the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church:

https://www.poetryproject.org/

 If you'd rather submit your writing to a publication, I'd suggest Newpages.com:

http://www.newpages.com/magazines/literary-magazines

or Poets &Writers:

http://www.pw.org/literary_magazines

Nowadays, many mags will allow you to submit your writing via the internet. We'll talk more about submitting your work, and I'd be happy to speak one-on-one w/ you about this too.

If you'd like to start a lit journal and publish yourself and your friends (inside or outside the class), I can show you how to set up your own blog on blogger (though there's a lot of free platforms like Weebly and Wordpress).

If you know of any other resources that aren't listed here, then please recommend them on the blog.

Collective and the Creative Writing Club

I want to bring your attention to the following opportunities to meet your required Public Writing Project. You may do one or more of the following:

1) Submit writing to Collective (note deadline and special theme on "work"--see below).
2) Attend either of the writing workshops listed below.
3) Join the Creative Writing club (write Ben Miller or simply show up at one of the meetings below).


Details:

 

Soft drink poem

Hi everyone,
I wrote my poem on soda which is first activity we done in class.  Now I finished the poem and wanted to see your thoughts on it.

                      Lemon and Lime

A castle of wonder,

built above the vast sea.

A translucent body of seltzer,

with an abundance of foam.

Familiar crackles and pops,

A home to inhabitants of effervesce

A garden surrounds the castle,

A prosperous sector of trees.

Trees of lemon and lime,

Each with its own personality.

The zing of lime,

An everlasting liveliness.

The sweetness of lemon,

A necessary comfort.

Both composed to bring a sense of escape,

An escape to the endless nights of adherence.

I relish that feeling of contentedness,

As I take flight

To that garden of lemon and lime 

Week of 2/04: Poetry

In class we'll do some freewriting on the blog about this week's reading. Outside, I would like you to also do some writing on the poems. It can be about anything that strikes your fancy, but one question I have:

How are these poems? They don't rhyme so it must be for another reason. Is it simply because it's broken up into lines? How would the poems be different if they were written in prose? Here is the first "sentence" of Ben Lerner's poem:

"Tonight I can't remember why everything is permitted or, what amounts tot he same thing, forbidden..." Why didn't he write this in prose? Also, why did Youn use numbers in her poem?

Monica Youn's "Hanged Men" poems

Many poets will write multiple poems on the same theme. Here is Monica Youn's "Interrogation of the Hanged Man":

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/interrogation-hanged-man

Is the hanged man a metaphor? What is she doing w/ this image?

Reading Poetry

I know that reading poetry is new for many of you. Here are legendary poet, John Ciardi's rule for reading poetry:

 

1)  The poem is not to be confused w/ a paraphrase.

2)  Avoid speed-reading. Discover the natural rhythm of the work.

3)  Read it aloud.

Ben Lerner and "No Art"

I think that this is one of the most challenging of the four poems we're reading tomorrow, mainly for what Lerner doesn't say, than what he does say. This is something he's said about the poem, and the book which it comes from:

Your poetry collection is called No Art – an inviting no entry sign…
It is the title of a poem at the end of the book, which is a defence of feeling in poetry, and talks about love being more avant garde than shame. The poem is an argument against detachment. It is also about the way the title changes as you read, and the book changes in the light of that poem.

This comes from an interview he did w/ The Guardian. You can read the whole thing here. He says a lot of interesting and useful things about poetry.