Saturday, September 12, 2009

Can you tell which one is which?

Professor James Meetze taught LTWR8B in Spring 2009 at UCSD. He assigned for his students to write 7 poems in 7 weeks. We had to write them according to the topic of the week.

Poem 1: Write a poem that depends on one striking image. Avoid abstraction and rhetoric. Let the poem convey a feeling or idea it never directly states.

Poem 2: Write a poem which incorporates musical or rhythmic devices to propel that poem forward (anaphora, meter, etc.). Listen to your favorite song and try to recreate the musical elements in language.

Poem 3: Write a sonnet, sestina, villanelle, or ghazal. Though I recommend learning the traditional form, you may re-interpret the form a la Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett.

Poem 4: Write an ekphrastic poem (a poem based on/or influenced by another work of art).

Poem 5: Write a poem that engages with your environment (La Jolla/San Diego).

Poem 6: Write a serial poem of at least 5 sections. The subject/theme of the poem should be carried throughout each section.

Poem 7: Write a found poem, in which your text is taken entirely from sources outside yourself. This can be a “flarf” poem (using google as your source), a poem taken from overheard language, a poem from television dialogue, or even a poem composed from text messages or twitter.


TA Steve Wilard, wanted his students to do an additional 7 poems for fun. For the portfolio, we had to edit our 7 poems. Also, Steve Willard wanted us students to put them in an order that we felt would give the most sense to our portfolio. Can you tell which poem is which topic and which poem (s) are extra?


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