| The following projects are designed for students who would like to
take a more creative approach to the course. Each project is designed to result in
an original poem by the student. Some of the projects require you to interact in a
meaningful way with one of the poets we are reading this semester; others simply begin
with creative methods to help stimulate your imagination. All the projects are
designed to help expand your current style and method in writing. You will complete
six projects after approving with me which track you intend to take for the course. Complete instructions for each project will be provided.
Basic Description of the Projects
- Write a poem that imitates closely the style and form of a poem by
one of the authors we are reading this semester. This will require that you closely
study the original poem for its formal and thematic qualities.
- Write a parody of a poem by one of the authors we are reading this
semester.
- "Not-So-Automatic Writing Exercise" (Thomas Lux)--Requires
you to generate a large amount of stream-of-conscious material and then locate the seed of
a good poem in it.
- Write a dramatic monologue that responds loosely to a poem we will
read this semester.
- Write new lyrics set to the music of a popular song.
- Write two versions of the same subject--one using short lines, the
other using long lines. This will require you to gain a sense of rhythm and meter.
- Write one of the following: ghazal, pantoum, villanelle.
- Write a crown of sonnets (several sonnets that link together their
first and last lines).
- Write a poem using a formal meter-iambic, anapestic, trochaic,
sapphics, etc.
- Write a surreal poem that seeks to achieve certain affects through
mysterious or unusual language.
- Write an informal letter poem. (Auden has some great examples of
this.)
- Write a poem that invokes two opposing views of the same
subject/event.
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