Day 5: Ariel and Gabe present the poet, Anne Carson.
Day 4: Please post a short but wonderful (concrete) poem on edmodo.
Friday: Come to the theatre at lunch to watch Dave Morris, Can. Slam Champ
Short Poems: We need to create two pieces each for the art class. They will create a piece of art inspired by your poem. The poems and the art work will be displayed at Eclectic Gallery in Oak Bay for a week in January. There will be an opening with writers and artists in attendance. Due Nov. 1. Make sure you get me to edit them before we submit them to the art class.
Homework:
Read poetry every day. Train your eye and your ear. Read poems you love. Read poems that startle, challenge, enliven you. Read poems that you do not understand. Ask yourself--what is the poet doing? Why are the lines broken here?
Focus on being more specific in your writing. There is no room in poetry for abstract, vague lines such as despair and hostility or anguish or sad etc. How can you show sad? What does despair eat for dinner? Who loves anguish? Where do you take anguish on a first date?
Push yourself to use language in fresh ways. Cut hot sun, loyal dog, tears rolling etc as we've heard these expressions a thousand times.
Stay with each word as you write. Don't get ahead of yourself. When you are thinking about the next line, you make a mess of the line you are on because you lose focus.
It's a good idea to build on an idea from the first line of the poem. If you describe the bus stop as a glass jar, the way Gabe did today, you can have images throughout the poem that come from glass, or jars. Try it. See what happens.
PATRICK LANE RESPONSES DUE TONIGHT BY 9. EMAIL ONLY, PLEASE.
