https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?55246-The-Education-of-J-H-S The largest classic literature discussion forum on the Internet. Read Write Teach Share. en Fri, 05 Jun 2026 07:09:32 GMT vBulletin 10 https://www.online-literature.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?55246-The-Education-of-J-H-S https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12399-Yale-Open-Courses Tue, 15 May 2012 18:32:41 GMT I'm not sure if someone has already brought up this amazing resource, but Yale University has posted an entire semester worth of lectures for an Introduction to Theory of Literature Class. It's taught by this very well respected professor there, Paul Fry. I'm on the 4th lesson right now--and I'm so excited and thankful that this resource is available! Looks like this course is going to cover so many of the ideas I'm interested in: Heidegger, New Criticism, Russian Formalism, Deconstructionism, etc.

I was hoping some others would be interested in starting discussions on the videos! He is very, very clear--I don't have the text he uses and he has many handouts that I don't have access to either, but I still feel that I can somewhat understand what he is talking about. Maybe I will get the text, just for reading.

Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YY4C...0D35CBC75941BD ]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12399-Yale-Open-Courses https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12395-Essay Fri, 11 May 2012 22:39:22 GMT So, finally, three months after saying I wanted to write an essay, I began yesterday. I think the essay is going to end up being a sort of critique... So, finally, three months after saying I wanted to write an essay, I began yesterday. I think the essay is going to end up being a sort of critique of poetry criticism, and will deal heavily with ideas about Deconstructionism, "Death of the Author", and the decentralization of language, and my experiences of viewing the world after the language's true nature has been uncovered to me. Or at least, the nature I perceive. It's not going to be a work of genius, will not even make sense most likely, and will be riddled with flaws, but already I feel that through the writing I am gaining new insights about some common statements we have heard in the last century or so regarding poetry. I think a lot of the ideas we have all been exposed to in a general way have been misunderstood. Or I could misunderstanding things. But at least it's a start, and at least I feel that the ideas floating around are starting to take on a form I can deal with more easily! ]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12395-Essay https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12234-I-Want-To-Write-An-Essay Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:30:56 GMT I don't know why. I've never written one before. ]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12234-I-Want-To-Write-An-Essay https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11704-Oh-I-Can-t-Think-Of-A-Title!-Is-It-Really-Important Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:26:12 GMT I'm just gonna use bullets, I think.

• I think I like poetry.
• I try to read poetry. I don't do a very good job. This makes me very sad. When I see what other people come up with when they read poetry, I find myself thinking that their way of viewing poetry is very odd.
• The other day I went to poetry group. This guy said he didn't like this poem cause it needed a metaphor. This other guy (very intelligent, in my opinion) made him look kind of silly when he proved that the poem already had metaphors. It made me realize that I don't even know what a metaphor is really. I don't think about metaphors when I'm writing. I just...write. I think that's a mess.
• Writing prompts seem silly to me.
• I'm not a good reader. I've not read a lot. I'm not a good communicator. But I think my poems are pretty good. In fact, I won't post them online because I think that someday, they may get published. Isn't that silly?
• Perhaps my problem is that I'm too willing to be vague.
• I've bought a lot of poetry books in the past year. I try to read as much of them as I can (I could do way better). But I love avant-garde stuff, like this anthology, "American Hybrid". I also have books by poets like Rae Armantrout, Matthea Harvey, and Rachel Zucker.
• I'm working on a poem with the word "zombie" in it. I really admire the when poets infuse their poems with very contemporary issues or diction. Though, I would have to say it doesn't really fit my work at this point. I'm working on it. Becoming more...weird, I guess? Is that a valid goal?
• In my junior year of high school, we had these blue folders with poems our teacher had xeroed and collected. Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, Eliot, Brooks, Plath, Lowell, Cummings. Don't remember a lot about what we studied. Though I love the couplet from "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock".
• Somehow, my readings of poetry have become very tied into the philosophies of Wittgenstein and Heidegger. I don't have the mental facilities to understand these philosophies, though they seem to be very important to a lot of the poets I read.
• I sometimes feel suffocated by the poetry that's been written and is being written in my region. "Place" is very important to this poetry. I'm not sure I have much invested in this place.
• I love reading poems out loud. A few people have said they think I have a talent for it. Of course, I once got a comment back on a poem that the only advice they could give me was to "read normally". It really upset me.
• Gertrude Stein seems very important to me.
• I would love to be able to give better critiques in poetry group. The group pretty much is made of people who somewhat know what they are doing...so we don't get to talk about these kinds of things. I don't know how to help people fix their poems. I don't believe in one way to write poetry. And I can't make other people's poems into my kind of poem. Then it wouldn't be theirs. That's just silly, right?
• I have a lot of trouble with the Beats and New York School. Also, Dean Young and Tony Hoagland and a host of younger poets I feel are influenced by them. I feel these writers are very important to me and poets I admire. Maybe I just don't get comedy. Maybe I don't get the absurd.
• I worry about this stuff a lot. This morning, I woke up and realized my mind was already turned to poetry.

]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11704-Oh-I-Can-t-Think-Of-A-Title!-Is-It-Really-Important https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11541-On-Printing Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:55:32 GMT Today I printed out the poems I've finished and am somewhat happy with. The earliest was completed in November or December of 2009, and the latest was completed...well, today! There are fifteen.

Obviously, I wrote more than fifteen poems over this period of time, so where did those poems go?

The ones written for the poetry course I took (the poetry course from hell), I discarded. I've heard that many people keep everything they write, and I do too--unless it's garbage. These poems, inspired from writing exercises, held none of my voice, didn't tackle any of the issues I want to explore. The most promising piece from this class, a haiki "sequence", was way too narrative for my taste. I have no interest in producing works that you can look at and say, "Oh, I've done that writing prompt before."

Then there were two poems I wrote for my writing group, that they deemed...well, unsalvageable. I kept these, because I know one day they may grow into something--and I was right. The final line of one of the poems has now landed itself in a totally different poem. (The original poem was discarded--I was asked if I was trying to recreate a scene from "The Road", and it made me realize the poem had no original images).

I wrote a few poems I posted on here, but because of that, those poems are now essentially useless to me. Only one of them did I like at all anyway, the one called "rosary". I also wrote some religious poetry which is posted on another site.

There were a couple of sonnets I wrote for extra credit for a lecture course--one traditional, and one more free form. I had liked the less traditional one, but I took it to my workshop group, and they hated it, and I trust their judgment. And then I wrote a poem for an acquaintance's tuba recital, because they had joked about it--I kind of like it, but still not my style.

Anyway, for poetry group, I usually printed two copies of my tiny poems on one page. So I forgot what they would look like on a normal page of paper, and now that I see them, I realize they don't look too bad! I usually keep all my poems on a flash drive, but I think printing them out every once in a while will help me--at the very least help me remember that the poems are real, that I've really written them. I know that sounds crazy, but when you have one poem you worked on for six months that's a page and a half, and a bunch of other poems you wrote a year ago, with no one to share them with, you lose your sense of reality. ]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11541-On-Printing https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11536-On-What-I-Want-To-Say Mon, 21 Mar 2011 02:30:59 GMT There is a lot I want to say and explore on here about language. I'm gonna have to make some sort of list and get to work, because I want to write about these issues, and get responses to these issues. The past year has sent me into overload when it comes to language. I find myself listening to things people say, wondering to myself if they even make sense, what (if taken at face value) the person is actually saying. I'm not really sure what the point of this blog is other than just to express that I feel like I'm going crazy. Anyway, I'm gonna try to make the rest of the blogs I do more polished so the message gets through better. Just gonna have to figure out how you write in prose in this sort of style, and figure out who is gonna help me figure out how to write in prose in this sort of style.

I really hate writing prose, by the way.

I mean, if I put some time and effort into it, I think I do okay, but it's not good enough for the thoughts I want to express, which I really do feel are very solid in my mind. Really, they only sound like ramblings, because my communication skills are so lacking. I'll try to do better. ]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11536-On-What-I-Want-To-Say https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11533-On-Concrete-Language Sat, 19 Mar 2011 00:35:46 GMT It's the veritable warhorse when it comes to writing poetry: concrete language. For many beginning writers, their abstractions serve to derail the poem, but what happens when the poem falls into more capable hands?

I think most of us would agree that when it comes to writing no rule applies 100 percent of the time, and I know a poem cannot be built on entirely abstract language. Still, in the poems I read (many of which are of a more experimental and contemporary nature) I think there is a heightened awareness--perhaps not the "abstract"--but of the "idea". When it comes to poetry, I'm not interested in what is considered "correct", I'm interested in what works. What are people having published? What type of work is considered arresting in the world we live in now?

Despite what some traditionalist may say, I don't think contemporary poetry has reached the level of "anything goes". I watched a youtube video of a discussion panel--the poets chosen were Lyn Hejinian, Ron Perelman, Carl Phillips, and Kay Ryan. Two "experimental" writers and two more "traditional" ones. I admire all these poets (although I'm unfamiliar with Perelman's work). Lyn Hejinian's poetic autobiography, My Life, written using the New Sentence, is highly regarded even now, and it's only been about thirty years since it was published. Carl Phillips writes beautiful elegiac poetry that has garnered him a nomination for the National Book Award, and a spot as the judge of the Yale Younger Poets' Prize, one of the most prominent first book awards. And Kay Ryan, former Poet Laureate, whose concise, sharp witted poems hold a unique wisdom.

All three are considered accomplished. The topic of the discussion is "strange" language. The video is only an excerpt, but you can tell they have discussed what context strangeness exists in--is it an arena all it's own, or does it exist within the parameters of the normal? Hejinian argues that poetry allows for meaning to be made in many ways, while Ryan insists that going so far out into strangeness makes the work, in effect, meaningless. The video ends with Hejinian asking Ryan how she justifies the poetic works of Gertrude Stein, some of the earliest radical poetries, from a modernist icon. Ryan's response is as sharp as her poems: Stein's work is "very experimental".

Somehow this has become not just about Concrete Language, but a larger issue...do the same rules still apply to language in the same way that they did?

What are your thoughts on experimental writing? Do you ever read any of it and find something valuable, or do you think it's a bunch of garbage? ]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11533-On-Concrete-Language https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11496-Syntax Fri, 04 Mar 2011 05:14:32 GMT The Ninth Edition of A Glossary Of Literary Terms (Abrams) defines it as "the study of the way that sequences of words are ordered into phrases, clauses, and sentences" while John Drury's The Poetry Dictionary describes it as "the arrangement of words in a sentence; the tactics of word order." Lately, the words come up in interviews with poets I've read (Carl Phillips and Linda Gregerson), but I don't really understand how it can operate in a poem--or, I don't know how to use this function in my own poems. I'm able to clearly see the difference syntax can make when presented with an example, but I have not actively used syntax other than to change a couple of word orders here and there.

I don't think every poet can actively use all the tools available to them in their poetry. I think every poet has a set of tools that comes naturally (or can be honed easily) that helps distinguish their work--but I'd still like to get a stronger grasp on syntax, since so many poets I admire use it to their advantage. ]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11496-Syntax https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11472-It-Seems-That-Everything-Is-Connected Fri, 25 Feb 2011 03:27:14 GMT Today I spent several hours in a hospital and used the time to finally read through Versed, Rae Armantrout's Pulitzer Prize winning book of poems. My surroundings were quite appropriate, because of the dark cloud hanging over the book--Armantrout was diagnosed with cancer during the writing of the manuscript.

I'm not sure if I purchased Versed before or after hearing about Rae Armantrout, or if I had already begun my investigations of Language Poetry. For some reason, I did end up purchasing the book. Since then, I've started following Ron Silliman's blog from time to time, read the anthologies Language Poetries (ed. Messerli) and American Hybrid (ed. Swensen/St. John), and read experimental journals like New American Writing and Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry & Opinion. I still have a very slight grasp on Language Poetry, or the more broad school of the avant-garde, or experimental.

Versed seems to be informed by Armantrout's interest in quantum physics and science, and the influence of Language Poets like Ron Silliman and Charles Bernstein, and other poets in the Bay Area. Reviewers agree that Armantrout's verse seems more committed to lyrical ideals than most Language Poets (meriting her inclusion in American Hybrid, which purports to represent established writers who use both traditional and experimental techniques). What I'm trying to explain (elliptically, and without much finesse) is that I'm not an expert in this kind of poetry, but I've tried to grasp as much as I can on my own.

Versed is made of two sections: Versed and Dark Matter. Most of the poems are in sections as well, and some of the sections are mere one-liners, almost fragmentary. Armantrout is known for using the disparate elements of the modern world freely in her poems: nature, technology, science, quotes from waking life, dreams, and pop culture are all up for use. I've been reading each of these poems with a certain premise, as if each one is a collection of tiny fragments that somehow relate to the greater whole of the poem and, more generally, the book. With this in mind, I'm only sure about a few of the poems (not sure as to what they mean, but the way technique is used to make them perform).

Ron Silliman says that avant-garde poetry should be easy for anyone with a proficient reading ability to understand. Many seem to believe that these works are beyond meaning. While I don't find meaning of ultimate importance, it troubles me that I cannot so easily understand this kind of work (I've even heard other Lit-netters say that contemporary poetry is much less complex than the verse of the past). Somehow, though, I write poems. And I don't think they're that horrible. One woman in my small workshop group said she thought I must have read voraciously, but the fact is that I am severely under-read. And I'm not sure my skills improve as I do read more.

My dream is to one day find a community of people who share the same poetic interests as I have, so I can investigate the questions rolling in my brain (and the questions that I'm not even capable of forming yet).

And once again, I'm at the end of prose, wondering what's the point of anything. ]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11472-It-Seems-That-Everything-Is-Connected https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11016-Jumbled-Thoughts-In-My-Head-Because-My-Brain-Is-Still-On-Fire Thu, 23 Sep 2010 01:47:28 GMT I have all these thoughts in my head, and I was trying to focus on one topic, but it didn't work so I'm just gonna make a huge list and be very vague. Hah.

1.) I'm trying to read all the books of poetry I have, because I haven't been making time to do so. First up: "The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke" trans. Stephen Mitchell. I don't like Shakespeare of Keats or Donne or any of those people. I don't know how to read this stuff. I realize Rilke is different but he is considered a master and a poet known by name alone.

2.) I wonder about poem endings. Sometimes they seem really sentimental. Or like the entire poem depends on the last line.

3.) Maybe I don't really care about a poem's content. I think I'm more concerned with the objects and settings that appear in poems. If a poem has Diet Coke, I'm lost. Though D.A. Powell does make pop culture references, his poems still seem graceful, while others just seem like they are being hipsters.

4.) I haven't finished a new poem in a long time. This scares me. I need to be writing.

5.) I would like to start developing poems in a three or four kinds of shapes. I find that books of poems that have interesting shapes, but the shapes reoccur look really good. They just seem cohesive. And I don't want my poems to be all the same usual shape everyone is used to seeing.

6.) I feel like I disagree with a lot of people about poetry. It's role. How to read it out loud. How to write it. It's meaning. And I would like to have poetry friends, I really would, but I have found no one that even comes close to my thinking on poetry. And I'm not sure I'm willing to compromise. I believe in what I'm doing, I think, but I wish everyone else did too (not that no one does, just not everyone does).

7.) I would love to be in some kind of artistic environment where I could learn. Or share ideas. Anything? ]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11016-Jumbled-Thoughts-In-My-Head-Because-My-Brain-Is-Still-On-Fire https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11004-Brain-On-Fire Sun, 19 Sep 2010 09:03:14 GMT For a few months now, I've made the habit of visiting Ron Silliman's blog (www.ronsilliman.blogspot.com). These days, the blog is mostly a list of links, but its earliest postings were actually thoughts written by Silliman, who has gained a reputation of good taste when it comes to poetry. He's associated with L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, and people send him literally hundreds of books a year to review.

Looking through the archives I came upon this post:

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2002...-them-kit.html

Silliman does a close reading of a text to show that L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry isn't just "word salad". The poem, "Moon I" is from Bruce Andrews' Lip Service, a book and poet I know nothing about. It supposedly takes Dante's Paradiso and somehow uses it as inspiration. Reading the dissection of the text by Silliman doesn't really help me at all. I can't even understand his explanation! He even says in one paragraph that all these observations should be apparent to the most "casual" reader, and that, "Any college senior, regardless of major, who can’t pick up 80 percent of it just by reading the passage above ought to demand a refund of his or her tuition...."

Of course, I've not read Dante. Which, I suppose, I should have done. As well as all these other works. That I have little to no interest in. But maybe that's because I'm illiterate?

In a lot of the more experimental work I read, I can derive some pleasure by my limited understanding. If I didn't, I wouldn't keep reading. I've been reading this stuff for a few months now, and I don't think I really understand it any more than I did a year ago. Or anymore than I would have understood it in fifth grade. They say reading is the only way to become a better reader, but I can't find any growth. If anything, I'm a worse reader now than I've ever been. And thinking in lines has somehow made it hard for me to read prose.

I think to most people I seem smart. I've always seemed that way. In my writing group, I told one of the writer's I'm closest to that I had no idea what I was doing after she asked if I wanted to get together and go over our poems seperately from the group. She insisted that I did, and said that it must be because I've "read widely". Ha!

Anyway, my brain is on fire.

Just thought of another thing. When I read Silliman's Blog, I realize I don't know what's going on in the play, because I don't know a lot of the players. I haven't read much poetry, especially the stuff that influenced the experimental writing of today. Bah!
]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11004-Brain-On-Fire https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?10998-Random-Thoughts-I-Had-Today-On-Where-I-Was-At-and-What-I-Was-Doing Fri, 17 Sep 2010 04:44:09 GMT This morning, I found myself trying to find out where I stand on poetry. Not ON POETRY, like some sort of treatise, or in the grand scheme of things.... This morning, I found myself trying to find out where I stand on poetry. Not ON POETRY, like some sort of treatise, or in the grand scheme of things. Just right now. The work I’m doing falls into two categories: writing and revising. Is there really anything else?

Last semester, I joined my first writing group and took my first creative writing class. The class was miserable, but I love the writing group (most of the time), have met some great writers, and gotten a little bit of something worthwhile when it comes to critique. For a few months, I was going every week, and had to have something new to read. It was good for me to have to write constantly, and it seemed I was on a creative streak at first. That’s kind of gone away for now, but I figure the process is all ebb and flow, and am not too concerned about why I feel less creative now.

So, from these poems, I probably produced 10-12 drafts. One of them was really horrible, so I just threw it out (well, I liked it at first, but after the critique I realized that the images weren’t as good or original as I thought). I also took in a sonnet I wrote for a class for extra credit (I got four points, which was the most out of anyone in the class), but the writing group didn’t like it too well. One of the most knowledgeable writers said it was the most “pedantic” poem he had read of mine. Bah!

I haven’t been to writing group for a while, so I’m out of a weekly routine, but right now I’m working on three new poems. They are very different in style.

The first uses no punctuation, and some of the phrases are missing words or run together somehow. It’s inspired by a photograph of someone on the beach, and it seems like it is gonna be about fading beauty. It kind of reminds me of this poem:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch...html?id=181511

The second is really trying to mimic this poem, in its structure of lyric and narrative passages, a kind of blending of voices:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch...html?id=239346

I’m not normally a fan of narrative poetry, but I thought the fusing together of the more lyric parts and then the pseudo-monologue was brilliant, and had to at least see what it would lead to. So far, I think this poem is about words, or the power of words.

And the third. It’s not a prose poem, but I feel like it is somehow related to the prose poem of Stein. I don’t understand her work, but this poem was also trying to mimic something I did in an earlier poem, that people in my writing group did not like, but I thought was interesting. They both have rather long lines, and I try to use symbols and images to suggest themes or emotions, while still keeping the language as wholly lyric as possible. There is a narrative inside my head for both poems, but I’m trying to show snapshots of the narrative that let you see parts of the narrative and gain an overall sense about them.

It’s kind of like these poems, but with less of an absurd quality:
http://www.octopusmagazine.com/issue11/story.htm

Then I have the revising. Right now, my revising is mainly trying to find shapes I like for the poems. I had originally written them all left justified with normal line lengths and stanza breaks, but then I bought “Crush” by Richard Siken, and had a favorite poet wonder why people always stick to the same format. He also suggested that it was the “white” way to write poems (he’s Chicano), and it just made me think about making individual poems with pleasing shapes on the page, and not limiting myself because of what’s become the norm.

Eventually, I want my work to be “lyric experiments”. I find experimental work very interesting, though I’m not sure I have the right kind of mind to understand the theory behind that style of writing. I find the work on some L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets interesting. I like poems that deal with linguistics in some way. Or play on word roots. Or use words in unusual syntactical patterns. At the same time, I don’t want my poems to seem to absurd like Flarf.

One day, while having lunch with a friend, I told them I wanted my poems to be like strange, writhing creatures you held in your hands, and didn’t quite know what they were. They acted like I was insane. Maybe that’s a sign of where I’m going to end up?

]]> shortstoryfan https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?10998-Random-Thoughts-I-Had-Today-On-Where-I-Was-At-and-What-I-Was-Doing