watch further discussion on "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

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来自 University of Pennsylvania 的课程

Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (“ModPo”)

164 个评分

University of Pennsylvania

Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (“ModPo”)

164 个评分

ModPo is a fast-paced introduction to modern and contemporary U.S. poetry, with an emphasis on experimental verse, from Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman to the present. Participants (who need no prior experience with poetry) will learn how to read poems that are supposedly "difficult." We encounter and discuss the poems one at a time. It's much easier than it seems! Join us and try it! Yes, the next live, interactive 10-week session of ModPo will begin on September 8, 2018, and will conclude on November 19, 2018. Al Filreis will be in touch with you by email before the September 8 start of the course with all the information you'll need to participate. If you have questions, you can email the ModPo team at modpo@writing.upenn.edu. During the 10 weeks of the course, you will be guided through poems, video discussions of each poem, and community discussions of each poem. And (unique among open online courses) we offer weekly, interactive live webcasts. Our famed TAs also offer office hours throughout the week. We help arrange meet-ups and in-site study groups. If you are curious about the ModPo team, type "ModPo YouTube introduction" into Google or your favorite search engine, and watch the 20-minute introductory video. You will get an overview of the course and will meet the brilliant TAs, who will be encountering the poems with you all the way to the end. If you use Facebook, join the always-thriving ModPo group: from inside Facebook, search for "Modern & Contemporary American Poetry" and then request to be added as a member. If you have any questions about ModPo, you can post a question to the FB group and you'll receive an almost instant reply. We tweet all year long at @ModPoPenn and you can also find ModPo colleagues using the hashtag #ModPoLive. ModPo is hosted by—and is housed at—the Kelly Writers House at 3805 Locust Walk on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia USA. All ModPo'ers are welcome to visit the Writers House when they are in our area. Our discussions are filmed there. Our live webcasts take place in the famed "Arts Cafe" of the House. To find out what's going on at the Writers House any time, just dial 215-746-POEM.

从本节课中

chapter 2.1 (week 3)—the rise of poetic modernism: imagism

<p><b>Week 3 of ModPo 2018 runs from Sunday, September 23 at 9 AM through Sunday, September 30 at 9 AM.</b> For those doing ModPo on their own or in small groups, the week 3 materials are open and available all year.</p><p>Modernism in poetry had many beginnings; imagism marks just one. But in a fast introduction, this brief but influential movement gives us a good place to start. Imagists had no use for late Victorian wordiness, flowery figuration and “beautiful” abstraction. They rejected such qualities through staunch assertions demanding concision, concentration, precise visuality and a sort of super-focused emotive objectivity. In this first of four sections of chapter 2, we will ask ourselves whether each poem meets the impossible or nearly impossible standards set out by imagist manifestos. If any given poem “fails” to meet such standards, it is by no means a sign of “bad poetry.” But one way to learn about the rise of poetic modernism is to make discernments based on the poets' own (momentary) programmatic demands. </p><p><b>ASSIGNMENTS:</b> During this week there are two quizzes due (see below). This is also the week in which peer reviews of writing assignment #1 are due. Peer reviews should be submitted any time between 9 AM on 9/24/18 and 9 AM on 9/30/18. There is also a live webcast on Wednesday, September 26 at 10 AM (Philadelphia time).</p>

watch video on H.D.'s "Sea Rose"21:34

watch video on H.D.'s "Sea Poppies"13:11

watch video on Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro"11:40

watch video on Ezra Pound's "The Encounter"13:33

watch further discussion on "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"9:33

与讲师见面

Al Filreis
Kelly Professor, Dir. Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Faculty Dir. Kelly Writers House

Did you want to talk about Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird?

>> Well I was hoping you were going to talk about it then I would

>> You know.

>> Okay. >> Say something.

>> [LAUGH]

>> That's so great.

These [INAUDIBLE] people are fantastic.

We're going to talk about the poem briefly, and

then you can respond to it either by making a comment or asking the question.

Does that sound like a good process?

>> Sounds like it's a fine process.

>> Okay. All right,

Allie, we're going to go to you and to Anne Marie.

Just say anything you want about the Blackbird poem.

And then, we'll come back into the room here.

And why don't you give the mic to Andrea, we'll put Andrea on the spot,

she can say something about it too.

Allie, your thought on the Blackbird poem?

>> Well, I mean, I love this poem.

This is one of my favorite poems in the course.

And I think probably the most obvious thing to say about it is just

to look at it's kind of prismatic quality.

Because it's of course, the central object,

the blackbird is the easiest thing to say it is about but each different facet

really does invoke something else,

where the resident image.

To get back to another Williams poem depends upon to some extent

the blackbird but isn't entirely the blackbird.

>> That's a great reading of Depends Upon.

So much depends upon the blackbird that we can generate not 13 but

infinite prismatic instances.

Well said, Allie, given how early in the morning it is in particular.

Ann Maurice what do you think?

>> Yeah, I really like the word that Allie used, prismatic.

I think the poem really talks about perspective and perception.

And prismatic seems to have sort of a rigid, frozen quality to it.

But what I really liked is the movement that goes through this poem, particularly

in the stanza that says when the blackbirds flew out of sight.

It marked the edge of one of many circles.

And then further down, the river's moving, the blackbird must be flying.

But the idea that no perspective is fixed and

it's constantly shifting and it's a matter of how you view and

interpret the foreground and background is a product of.

One of the maybe eye of the blackbird, of course the eye of the poem, the subject.

>> Well said Ann Maurice.

Thank you.

Andrea, your thought on this poem?

>> I loved this poem.

This was new this year.

>> New this year, yeah one of the new poems.

>> Yeah, it was great to see something new and to get a chance to kind of unpack it.

My favorite part is actually in the fifth stanza.

I do not know which to prefer, the beauty of inflections or the beauty of innuendos.

The blackbird was whistling just after.

>> Or just after, just after what?

>> Yeah, well, and that's what

I kind of took from that was bouncing back to all of these other things.

Was the beauty of inflections or the beauty of innuendos in all of the things

that we've been reading, and it's, you know, you dont know what to prefer and

you're looking at all of these different aspects of things.

And the imagists just really kind of whittling down to the essence of what is.

And so I just like that there's this sort of conflict between the,

not conflict, there can be a confluence between the inflections and

the innuendos in the blackbird whistling or just after.

I just think that's- >> All right Andrea, hold the mike,

stay on there, Julie.

Julie are you still with us?

>> I'm still with you.

>> Okay, Steve bring her up a little on the volume.

Julie, do you want to ask a question or

make a comment based on what you heard from Allie, Ann Maurice, and Andrea?

>> Well you know, they all had wonderful things to say.

I really like the word, as everyone else did,

the prismatic word that Allie used, I think it was Allie.

Whoever used it that was great.

>> It was Allie, she's smart.

>> And just now someone spoke about number five with the blackbird whistling and

it really is one to love and my personal backyard blackbird whistles

starting smack on the hour of 5:00 AM when he's doing his whistling.

>> So you don't have a rooster, you have a blackbird?

>> We have a blackbird and it sings to us in those three months when they do and

he starts smack on 5 AM every morning.

>> That's weird, what does it sound like?

What's the blackbird sound like?

>> It sounds like High Noon, the music from High Noon.

>> Really? Wow, I didn't expect that answer.

>> [LAUGH] >> Is the sound of the blackbird-

>> For those of you who don't know it,

it's the

[MUSIC]

>> Nice.

[CROSSTALK] >> We also have a nightingale that

appears occasionally but the blackbird is a far better singer.

>> Let's talk about the end of that section, okay?

I don't know which to prefer, we're going to skip the two next lines, and

assume that the ambiguity of preference continues to the end.

I don't know which to prefer, do I prefer the blackbird whistling, or

do I prefer just after the whistle?

Can you translate that, and can you paraphrase that?

What's the difference between the whistling and

the- >> Well,

there's many things one could say it seems to me that Sort of like reading a poem.

First you're actively doing it.

>> Yes.

>> And there after there's a time will percolates and

you begin to understand- >> That's such a high level answer.

>> [LAUGH] >> I mean,

really great high level answers.

That's like a graduate seminar answer.

Can we do the sophomore class answer that is to say-

>> Well-

>> Whistling and just after.

>> Voices, and then there's silence.

>> Right.

Sound and silence.

I don't know which to prefer?

Do I prefer the sound of something, or

do I prefer the silence that comes just after?

Dave Poplar, what's the difference between silence that's not preceded by sound,

I know that's theoretically impossible but, what's the difference between just

plain silence and the silence that occurs after a sound?

What's the difference?

>> The impact of an event lingers and that lingering is what happens when

the silence is right after the event that preceded it so-

>> Which do you prefer,

the sip of the coffee or the taste of it just after?

Well right now I appreciate the effect of the coffee.

>> [LAUGH] >> But

I guess the lingering part is really what you savor out of the experience.

It's not just imbibing it, it's the whole experience that comes after it.

>> Let's think of some, can someone give Steve McLaughlin the mike?

Because he's thought a lot about sound.

In a minute Steve, I'm going to ask you to say something about sound and the quality

of the silence right after a sound, as distinct from just plain silence.

But while he's thinking of something to say, lets think of some other words for

that silence just after a sound, any synonyms?

I'll throw one out, resonance.

Anything else?

>> Trace.

>> Trace.

Anything else?

>> Echo.

>> Echo.

>> Echo.

>> Or- >> Yep.

Anna, anything else?

How do you describe the silence right after the sound.

You know that.

A room fills with sound.

If I say Anna, and stop.

What happens after I stop?

She's silent.

>> [LAUGH] >> Anna happens after that.

Let's give Steve the mic.

Steve, what are your thoughts?

Say something brilliant about Sam.

>> Well, I mean, this is paraphrasing of this.

But I mean, I never heard any sound, just the sound of the mind.

So the moment right after it sound in is, in some ways more real than the experience

of the sound itself because- >> It's more real?

>> The brain turns on it starts processing.

>> So the ears take it in and

then the brain is processing the sound partly on like delayed.

>> Yeah party 30 seconds delayed.

Something like that.

>> Yeah >> So

this is actually a physiological thing.

Steve, Andrea still has the mic.

That's the same mic.

Steve, Andrea, and or Julie, let's say one more thing about this.

What does this stuff about silence, I don't know if I prefer the sound or

the effect of the sound.

The after effect is Steven saying.

What does it have to do with this whole project of prismatic seemingly infinite or

at least thirteen cubist tries attempts.

What is it, any of the three of you.

What does it have to do with his overall project that he

doesn't know which to prefer.

Andrea give it a try, this is hard.

I'm putting you on the spot.

>> Well I was thinking as he was talking I was thinking that the just after is

memory, really, and that is when you own it.

>> Memory.

>> That's when you possess whatever it is that you've just heard or

read and you're free to go in any direction that you want.

And so that's another piece of the prism.

It's not just the thing, it's the memory of it that changes.

>> I think we want to, Andrea that was brilliant.

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