Keeping Your Hand (Foot, Spleen) In It Poetry Workshop

Thursday, July 9, 2009: Week One

Week Two Outline

Week Three Outline

• Outline, expectations, definition, needs: I hope that, barring illness or emergency, that you’ll plan to attend each week, arrive a little before seven and be ready to go. You should plan on having a notebook in which to collect all that you write in the next four weeks, including work outside of class. You should do some writing outside of class. I’d be happy to meet with you one-on-one during the next six weeks (or beyond). I am good at returning email, usually within 48 hours.

• Introductions: Name, Where you’re from, Level of poetry skill & why you took the class.

§         Allen Ginsberg on 1^st Thought Best Thought: (sound)

§         1^st Exercise: Duo Corpse: (handout)

§         2^nd Exercise: How I Got Here

§         Nathaniel Mackey – Song of the Andoumboulou 19: (sound)

(From Wikipedia) Nathaniel Mackey was born in 1947 in Miami, Florida. He has taught and lived in Santa Cruz since 1979. "...Mackey's series of improvisatory jazz-inspired fictions locates a ground between invention and listening that he defines as the source of culture itself. All culture, for Mackey, is a form of listening to what "we" are collectively improvising." (Barrett Watten) Mackey’s poetry combines African mythology, African-American musical traditions, and Modernist poetic experiment. His several ongoing serial projects explore the relationship of poetry and historical memory, as well as the ritual power of poetry and song.

§         3^rd Exercise: Haibun: (handout)

• 4^th Exercise: Tribe: (handout)