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Post by booklady on Oct 25, 2021 13:51:57 GMT -5
Hi Susan, and anybody else who can or wants to comment --
I'm looking for an old poetry exercise that I believe came from you called "Copy the Master." I've done a couple of searches here and can't find anything, and I'm shocked also to say I can't find anything about the technique in my internet searches. I'm in the middle of a project at school and want to give a student more guidance that I can remember all by myself. Do you still have the "instructions" for doing this?
Thanks!
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Post by slb2 on Oct 25, 2021 19:34:32 GMT -5
The poem I use and recommend for many reasons is Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevenson. I remember your poem was about baseball and you truly knocked it out of the park. You maintained the conceit throughout and did a wonderful clever job of mimicking the beat of Stevenson's poem. I have written a few of my own Copy the Master poems. It's a very satisfying exercise. I believe I learned of it in a class I took at The Loft in Minneapolis, a literary educational center. I also searched here and I found this post written January 9, 2007 by me So it looks like you'd need to use the wayback machine and look in the Chatterbox thread set up by GK. Um, wow. I didn't realize I was writing so much back there in that space. |
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Post by booklady on Oct 26, 2021 4:59:14 GMT -5
I've got my 13 Ways baseball poem and dug it out as an example for my student, along with a copy of Wallace Stevens' original. (I wrote a personal 13 Ways, too, as my older son prepared to leave home for college. It was probably 2006. I'm not going to share that one with the kid.  ) I thought I might be able to find some guidelines or something more than just a copy of my own attempt. How do I get to GK's Chatterbox thread? Does GK here mean our Gail or Garrison? Is the thread you are referring to somewhere here on ProBoards or on Garrison's website? Thank you for your help, by the way. Are you going to post about your retreat? |
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Post by booklady on Oct 26, 2021 14:16:38 GMT -5
So, I ended up assigning the student to do a "found poem" based on a speech by Robespierre against capital punishment. It's going to serve as an editorial for a "news magazine" we are putting together "covering" the French Revolution. He's embracing the assignment with enthusiasm and effort. I'm happy.
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Post by gailkate on Oct 26, 2021 23:31:13 GMT -5
If either of you can share more about this exercise, I'd enjoy it. I do recall our brilliant and demanding H.S. English teacher setting us sample sentences from splendid writers and making us write our own, matching the syntax and even the relationships among the parts. I'm not describing this well, but if a non-restrictive phrase was complimentary or sly or critical, then ours had to be too.
The inimitable Keillor was always GK. I am just commonplace gk.
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Post by slb2 on Oct 27, 2021 1:28:13 GMT -5
Instructions
1. fashion your poem in a similar tone and meter to Wallace Stevenson Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
2. use a conceit, that is, a theme and stick to it throughout the entire poem
3. use the same formatting as the original
Here's one of mine:
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackboard
1
Among twenty classrooms
The only audible sound
Was a bell clanging
2
I was of one mind meld,
Like Dr. Spock
Who resounded baby platitudes.
3
The blackboard hung from the
White, corked wall.
It was a small part of a teaching arsenal.
4
A child and a teacher
Are one.
A child and a teacher and a blackboard
Are one.
5
I do not know which to prefer,
The pre-dawn slumber of babes
Or the silence after the bus.
The blackboard screeching
Or just after.
6
Unbroken chalk filled the tray
Like dry, dusty fingers.
The heft of the blackboard
Dwarfed it, towering above.
The mood
Traced in the chalk dust
The anguish of unknowing.
7
O dull students of Minneapolis,
Why do you imagine white pillows?
Do you not see how the blackboard
Fosters your minds
Opens your worlds?
8
I know conjugations
And algebraic equations;
But I know, too,
That the blackboard is involved
In what I know not.
9
When the blackboard leaned against the wall,
It marked the edge
Of a pupil's knowledge.
10
At the sight of blackboards
Slated to become whiteboards,
Even the recalcitrant student
Would cry out sharply.
11
She rode over El Paso
Mapped on the blackboard.
Once, a fear skewered her,
In that she mistook
The perimeter of the projector screen
For blackboards.
12
The instructor is writing.
The blackboard must be squeaking.
13
It was three o'clock all day.
It was quiet
And it was going to be quiet.
The blackboard held
Her babies at last.
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Post by slb2 on Oct 27, 2021 2:49:03 GMT -5
One more because I like it better than my other.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at God
I
Among multifarious gods,
The only one offering an invitation
Was the God of Grace.
II
I was of one mind,
split like a trident
Into past, present, and future.
III
The Savior story piggybacks and
Assimilates, keen to preempt pagan practices.
IV
A shaper and a specter
Are one.
A shaper and a specter and a Nazarene
Are one.
V
Test me not for I cannot chose
To live in corporeal presence
Or to strive for the ether
To drink dandelion tea
Or imbibe celestial wine.
VI
Rainbows, full circles, when
Viewed from the other side.
Promises given, but no more
Sacrifice.
No blood of the Lamb.
No unleavened bread.
VII
Your opulence shields you
From the starving Calcutta waif.
Your nescience portends
A future spent in purgatory.
VIII
Brass coins, bells,
The slender neck of an oud
All sing in unison
But the deity is the
Ultimate rhythm.
IX
When god remained entombed,
Peter fell silent,
Interspersed with his denials.
X
At the sight of god
Ascending on golden stairs
Even the double-tongued Pharisee
Bent to prophetic omens.
XI
His donkey stepped to Egypt,
Hiding his scent from Herod.
Once, a leper touched him
Believing in miracles.
He received nothing less.
XII
The throngs are praying.
God transcends.
XIII
It was twilight his entire life.
Dusk prevailed
And did not abate.
God lingered until dawn
When the sun rose.
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Post by doctork on Oct 27, 2021 11:54:27 GMT -5
If either of you can share more about this exercise, I'd enjoy it. I do recall our brilliant and demanding H.S. English teacher setting us sample sentences from splendid writers and making us write our own, matching the syntax and even the relationships among the parts. I'm not describing this well, but if a non-restrictive phrase was complimentary or sly or critical, then ours had to be too. The inimitable Keillor was always GK. I am just commonplace gk. I'm GK too, as I found out while signing up for Social Security. I did not know that was my name, as it is not what is on my Social Security card, but I have just decided to accept it since it seems that is what I will need in order to get my money. 6 months later, I am still waiting; our tax dollars at work. Probably I need some poems, so thank you for the link and suggestions. |
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