I teach creative writing at Colorado Christian University. On this page, I’ve created links and downloads specifically relevant to the students enrolled in my classes. But anyone can enjoy poetry, so feel free to peruse the resources here if you wish!
celebrating poetry for life
ENGLISH 230: INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING
Required Texts: Nick Bantock The Forgetting Room, Bob Blaisdell ed. Imagist Poetry, Patricia Donegan Haiku Mind, Robert Hass ed. The Essential Haiku, Patricia A. McKillip The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, John Murray A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies, Marilyn Nelson The Fields of Praise, thepoetryplace.wordpress.com
Recommended Texts: Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook
Expectations: Read. Feel. Think. Write. Share. Listen. Learn. Remember.
Week 1 – listen to your life
How does memory work? How can memory become poetry? (lyric)
- Seamus Heaney “Digging,” Madeline DeFrees “Stages of Family Life,” Jane Beal “1154 Hillside Drive,”
Galway Kinnell “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps”
- Marilyn Nelson The Fields of Praise
Week 2 – listen to your senses
How do sight, sound, touch, taste & smell inspire us? How do we evoke sensual experience in poetry? (haiku)
- Basho in The Essential Haiku trans. Robert Hass (w/ Sting “I was brought to my senses”)
- Buson in The Essential Haiku trans. Robert Hass
Week 3 – listen to Japanese poetic tradition
How can we experiment with a traditional form? (humor, haiku, sequences, haibun, translations)
- Issa in The Essential Haiku trans. Robert Hass
- Patricia Donegan Haiku Mind
Week 4 – listen to artists
How can artwork inspire us? What poetic forms and strategies help us respond to art? (ekphrasis)
- Marilyn Chandler McEntyre The Color of Light
- Marilyn Chandler McEntyre The Color of Light
Week 5 – listen to one another
How can we learn from one another and support one another as growing poets? (sharing)
- students share poems in progress
- students share poems in progress
Week 6 – listen to the Imagist poets
How can the philosophies of poetic schools and individual poets help us to mature as poets? (imagists)
- Blaisdell ed Imagist Poetry
- Pablo Neruda Odas elementales; cf. Kim Johnson‘s Odes & “Catapult”
Week 7 – listen to your life (again & always)
How does the artist discover his life-story? (our {favorite} stories)
- Nick Bantock The Forgetting Room (magical realism)
- Patricia A. McKillip The Forgotten Beasts of Eld Ch 1-4 (young adult fantasy)
Week 8 – listen to your imagination
How is a good story structured? (conflict and character development)
- Patricia A. McKillip The Forgotten Beasts of Eld Ch 5-8 (young adult fantasy)
- Patricia A. McKillip The Forgotten Beasts of Eld Ch 9-12 (young adult fantasy)
Week 9 – listen to real life
How do we (learn to) write realistically? (setting – time, place, culture)
- John Murray “Hill Station”
- John Murray “A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies”
Week 10
How can psychological realism be employed to create surprises? (plot twists)
- John Murray “The Carpenter who Looked Like a Boxer”
- John Murray “Blue” or “Acts of Memory, Wisdom of Man”
Week 11 – listen to one another
How can we learn from one another and support one another as growing short fiction writers? (sharing)
- students share story ideas & elements in progress
- students share story ideas & elements in progress
Week 12
- small group workshops
- small group workshops
Week 13
- individual conferences
- individual conferences
Week 14
- individual conferences
- individual conferences
Week 15 – portfolios due
- poetry readings
- short story readings
Finals Week
- short story readings
- poetry readings
Grading:
10% sharing poetry or short fiction
10% student workshop & conference
10% poetry or short story reading
70% creative portfolio
Assignments:
Workshop: bring 4 copies of the draft of your portfolio for in-class workshop
Assessment: share the draft of your portfolio & give constructive feedback to others
Conference: bring 2 copies of your revised portfolio for review with Dr.B
Assessment: bring complete portfolio with originals and revisions, ask thoughtful questions and bring up relevant discussion points
Performance: share a memorized poem and read your own work (prof & peer reviewed)
Assessment: audible voice / intonation, rhythm / pacing, eye contact, body language, correct memorization
Portfolio: turn in 7-10 pp of poems or one story with a reflective introductory paragraph and earlier drafts
Assessment: use specific and accurate language, employ literary devices effectively, master three poetic forms, understand and imitate another poet, improve upon revision, and make a cognitive and emotional impact on the reader
ENGLISH 305: POETRY SEMINAR
Required Texts: 250 Poems ed. Peter Schakel, Pearl ed. Sarah Stanbury, thepoetryplace.wordpress.com
Recommended Texts: The Essential Haiku ed. Robert Hass & Haiku Mind ed. Patricia Donegan
Expectations: Read. Feel. Think. Write. Share. Listen. Learn. Remember.
Week 1
- Caedmon’s Hymn, Seamus Heaney “Whitby-sur-Moyola,” & Denise Levertov “Caedmon”
- “Pearl” trans. Marie Borroff
Ex: alliteration and rhyme
Week 2
- Petrarch, Wyatt & Surrey, Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, Donne (TPP)*9
- Mary Sidney Herbert, Mary Stuart “Sonnet to Queen Elizabeth”, Lady Mary Wroth
Week 3
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Gerard Manly Hopkins, Edna St. Vincent Millay, William Butler Yeats
- Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Anne Bradstreet
Ex: sonnets (3)
Week 4
- Charlotte Smith, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats
- Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti
Ex: lyric
Week 5
- Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
- Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, H.D., Amy Lowell, Marianne Moore
Ex: image
Week 6
- Robert Frost, e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot
- Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lord, Rita Dove, Thylias Moss
Ex: diction
Week 7
- Auden, Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, Dylan Thomas
- Emma Lazarus, Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Pinsky, Louise Glück
Ex: “I”
Week 8
- Robert Bly, W.S. Merwin, John Ashberry, Galway Kinnell
- Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Mary Oliver, Lucille Clifton, Margaret Atwood, Jane Kenyon, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joy Harjo
Ex: repetition
Week 9
- Naomi Shihab Nye, Gary Soto, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Louise Erdrich, Kim Addonizio
- Gary Snyder, Marilyn Chin, Li-Young Lee, Wang Ping
Ex: empathy
Week 10
- The Essential Haiku (selections from Basho, Buson & Issa)
- Haiku Mind (student selections)
Ex: haiku, haiku sequence, haibun
Week 11
- small group workshops
- small group workshops
Week 12
- individual conferences
- individual conferences
Week 13
- individual conferences
- individual conferences
Week 14 – portfolios due
- poetry performances
- poetry performances
Week 15
- poetry performances
- poetry performances
Grading:
10% reading, attendance, sharing, listening, “Bright Star” (film night)
10% student workshop & conference
10% poetry performance (memorization and reading)
70% poetry portfolio
Assignments:
Workshop: bring 4 copies of the draft of your portfolio for in-class workshop
Assessment: share the draft of your portfolio & give constructive feedback to others
Conference: bring your 2 copies of your revised portfolio for review with Dr.B
Assessment: bring complete portfolio with originals and revisions, ask thoughtful questions and bring up relevant discussion points
Performance: share a memorized poem and read your own work (prof & peer reviewed)
Assessment: audible voice / intonation, rhythm / pacing, eye contact, body language, correct memorization
Portfolio: turn in 5-10 poems with a reflective introductory paragraph and earlier drafts
Assessment: use specific and accurate language, employ literary devices effectively, master three poetic forms, understand and imitate another poet, improve upon revision, and make a cognitive and emotional impact on the reader
“When I am consumed by the fire /
give me new phoenix wings to fly at my desire!”
~ John Keats
