Welcome Poet Friends!

Here is your essential go to resource for our entire poetry course. Please bookmark it and return to it often. It will help you keep things organized and gives some structure to the many resources, poems, teachings, recordings and videos.

Upcoming

Norton Anthology
Howl by Alan Ginsberg, Only Section I: pages: 337-342

That should nourish you deeply!

Reader — All remaining unassigned poems. 

Pg 8 — “Dirge without Music” — Edna St. Vincent Millay
Pg 9 — “In a Kitchen Where Mushrooms Were Washed” — Jane Hirshfield
Pg 10 — “Scotch Heart” — John Couturier
Pg 68 — “The Alphabet—Families of Sound” — Mary Oliver
Pg 102 — “Turn Your Eyes Away” — Ruth Stone
Pg 103 — “Curtains” — Ruth Stone
Pg 153 — “Lesson” — Franz Wright
Pg 154 — “Fading” — Franz Wright
Pg 165 — “Sure, Leroy” — Kenneth Patchen
Pg 176 — “The First Time” — Karl Shapiro
Pg 179 — “Planh for the Death of Ted Hughes” — W.S. Merwin
Pg 180 — “The Rabbit Catcher” — Ted Hughes
Pg 183 — “Before Time Changed Them” — C.P. Cavafy
Pg 184 — “Beautiful White Flowers Became Him” — C.P. Cavafy
Pg 185 — “The Afternoon Sun” — C.P. Cavafy

“Assigned” by your classmates

FROM VALERIE

Pg 254 — “Aware” — Denise Levertov
Pg 873 — “Bam Chi Chi Lala” — Lorna Goodison
Pg 951 — “The Path to the Milky Way Leads Through Los Angeles” — Joy Harjo

FROM KAYLEE

Pg 440 — “Elements of Composition” — A. K. Ramanujan
Pg 470 — “Twenty-One Love Poems” — Adrienne Rich
Pg 437 — “The Room of My Life” — Anne Sexton
Pg 880 — “[Long Time Ago]” — Leslie Marmon Silko

FROM DICK

Pg 920 — “At Luca Signorelli’s Resurrection of the Body” — Jorie Graham
Pg 464 — “Orion” — Adrienne Rich
Pg 465 — “Planetarium” — Adrienne Rich
Pg 466 — “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning” — Adrienne Rich
Pg 467 — “Diving into the Wreck” — Adrienne Rich
Pg 470 — “Twenty-One Love Poems” — Adrienne Rich

FROM LILY

Pg 221 — “Sad Steps” — Philip Larkin

FROM STEPH

“One Art” — Elizabeth Bishop
“Call It Fear” — Joy Harjo
“Soonest Mended” — John Ashbery

FROM STEVE

Pg 248 — “Pleasures” — Denise Levertov
Pg 837 — “Stray Animals” — James Tate
Pg 544 — “Wings of a Dove” — Kamau Brathwaite

FROM BRUCE

Pg 538 — “Burning the Small Dead’’ — Gary Snyder

Audio — “My Philosophy of Life” — John Ashbery

READINGS FROM BEFORE OUR FIRST SESSION

Norton Anthology

– Pg 34 — “In the Waiting Room” — Elizabeth Bishop
– Pg 345 — “Sunflower Sutra” — Allen Ginsberg
– Pg 423 — “They Feed They Lion” — Philip Levine
– Pg 533 — “I sang of quiet Achille, Afolabe’s Son” from Omeros, Book 7, Chapter LXIV — Derek Walcott
– Pg 537 — “Riprap” — Gary Snyder
– Pg 559 — “The Horses” — Ted Hughes
– Pg 918 — “The Colonel” — Carolyn Forché

 “Riprap” — Gary Snyder, 1958 San Francisco State University Poetry Archive

Audio —”I sang of quiet Achille, Afolabe’s Son” — Read by Derek Walcott

Philip Levine – “They Feed They Lion”

Allen Ginsberg – “Sunflower Sutra”

WEEK 1 – April 23

Norton Anthology

– Pg 379 — “Swimming Chenango Lake” — Charles Tomlinson
– Pg 656 — “Learning Experience” (1969) — Marge Piercy
– Pg 658 — “Moonburn” — Marge Piercy
– Pg 663 — “to my last period” — Lucille Clifton
– Pg 664 — “the mississippi river empties into the gulf” — Lucille Clifton
– Pg 995 — “Homo Will Not Inherit” — Mark Doty

Audio — “Swimming Chenango Lake” — Charles Tomlinson — Read by Andy Couturier

Audio — “Mitre Joint of Mouth” (Andy)

Video — Carolyn Forché on The Lannan Foundation

WEEK 2 – April 30  

Norton Anthology
– Pg 34 – “Traveling Through the Dark” – William Stafford
– Pg 148 – “The Boy Died in My Alley” – Gwendolyn Brooks
– Pg 197 – “Boy at the Window” – Richard Wilbur
– Pg 219 – “Here”  – Philip Larkin
– Pg 330 – “I Know a Man” – Robert Creely
– Pg 347 – “America” – Allen Ginsberg
– Pg 423 – “Those Winter Sundays” – Robert Hayden
+ Introduction, p. Ixii

Reader
– Pg 12 – “The Last One” – W.S. Merwin
– Pg 161 – “Age’ – Grace Paley 

Audio — “Age” — Grace Paley, Read by Garrison Keillor

Audio — “Boy at the Window” — Richard Wilbur, Read by Andy Couturier

Audio — “America” — Read by Allen Ginsberg

Audio —”Those Winter Sundays” — Robert Hayden, Read by Garrison Keillor

Audio — “Those Winter Sundays” — Robert Hayden, Read by Andy Couturier

Your First Assigned Movie
Ruth Stone – The Vast library of the Female Mind

Trailer

Rent the movie for $4.99 here
Purchase the movie for $9.99 here

WEEK 3 –  May 07

Reader
Pg 1 – (untitled) – Emily Dickinson
Pg 2 – “Wild Geese” – Mary Oliver
Pg 3 –  “Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout” – Gary Snyder
Pg 4 – “Insomniac” – Sylvia Plath
Pg 5 – “Ask Me” – William Stafford
Pg 6 – “Thanks” – W.S. Merwin
Pg 7 – “Broom” – Jim Harrison
Pg 11 – “The Waking” – Theodore Roethke
Pg 12 – “The Last One” – W.S. Merwin
Pg 58 – “What are the concerns of “Language Poetry?” (Prose) – Douglas Messerli
Pg 59 – “Eventually, At Once” – Stephen Ellis
Pg 60 – “Negative Capability” – John Keats
Pg 61 – Excerpt from “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land” – Aimé Césaire

Audio Link — “Broom” – Jim Harrison, Read by Garrison Keillor

Video — “The Waking” — Theodore Roethke

“Eventually At Once” — Stephen Ellis, Read by Andy Couturier

Video — W.S. Merwin on The Lannan Foundation
– 01:45 – “The Last One” – Page 12 in the reader.
– 19:57  – “Thanks” – Page 6 in the reader.

“Don’t try to understand the modern poem… Let it spray in your face” — William Carlos Williams

Class Recording — Andy discusses “Language Poetry” and why

Class Recording — Andy discusses how to get help from others with your poems

Class Recording  May 07 — Explanation of the Reader

WEEK 4 – May 21

Reader

All poems Pages 14-32.

Pg 14 – What can a poem be? – Andy Couturier
Pg 15 – Mindful Reading (Prose) – John Brehm
Pg 16 – On The Writing of Poetry (Prose) – William Stafford
Pg 17 – “Manhattan” – Kenneth Fearing
Pg 19 – “Chinese Space” – Mei Mei Berssenbrugge
Pg 21 – “The Subway” – Edwin Denby
Pg 22 – “Sea Surface Full of Clouds” – Wallace Stevens
Pg 26 – “Who Be Kind To” – Allen Ginsberg
Pg 30 – “Wales Visitation” – Allen Ginsberg
Pg 144 – “One More Brevity” – Robert Frost

“The Subway” — Edwin Denby – Read by Andy Couturier

“Who Be Kind To” — Read by Allen Ginsberg

“Wales Visitation” — Read by Allen Ginsberg

Audio Link — Mei Mei Berssenbrugge Reads “Chinese Space”  — Poem begins at 00:40

WEEK 5 – May 28

Pages 42-57 in the Reader – Section Three:  East Asia Lands in The West

Pg 42 – “The World Is Too Much With Us” – William Wordsworth
Pg 42 – Excerpt from “Sailing to Byzantium” – William Butler Yeats
Pg 43 – Excerpt from “The Wilds of Poetry” (Prose) – David Hinton
Pg 43 – “In a Station of the Metro” – Ezra Pound
Pg 44 – “A Restless Night in Camp” – Tu Fu
Pg 44 – “Another Spring” – Tu Fu
Pg 45 – “Night on the Great River” – Meng Hao-Jan
Pg 45 – “Mooring on Chien-Te River” – Meng Hao-Jan
Pg 46 – “Written on the wall at Chang’s Hermitage” – Tu Fu
Pg 46 – “Written on the wall at Chang’s recluse home” – Tu Fu
Pg 47 – “To A Traveller” – Su Tung P’o
Pg 47 – “Remembering Min Ch’e” – Su Tung P’o
Pg 47 – “A Letter to his Brother Su Che” – Su Tung P’o
Pg 48 – “Night Rain at Luster Gap” – Yang Wan-Li
Pg 49 – “Various Poems” – Ikkyū
Pg 51 – “Blue Open Sky” – Nanao Sakaki
Pg 52 – On Haiku, from Empire of Signs (Prose) – Roland Barthes
Pg 55 – “Haiku” – Robin Bishop
Pg 56 – “Haiku” – Etheridge Knight
Pg 57 – “Haiku” – Richard Wright
Pg 57 – “Haiku” – Kobayashi Issa
Pg 57 – “Haiku” – Tomas Tranströmer

Video Link –  Class Recording – May 28 – Asian Poetry and its influence on the West.

Jamaal May – “The Sky, Now Black With Birds”

WEEK 6 – June 04

David Abel will be joining us in class on June 4 to discuss “Sun” by Michael Palmer and “Premises” by Gustaf Sobin.
Get to know his work here.

As mentioned by email, the formatting in the reader isn’t perfect so please see the PDFs and print them if you can.

“Sun” – Michael Palmer – PDF

“Premises” – Gustaf Sobin – PDF

David also mentioned he will reference the book covers from which the Sobin poem is taken.

Towards The Blanched Alphabets – Gustaf Sobin – Book Covers – PDF

John Gibler will also be joining us. Please do see his poems in the reader (Pg 41 & 123) and consider any questions you might have for him. His published work is primarily in narrative journalism, mostly in Mexico. For those interested:

Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt (City Lights, 2009) ISBN 978-0-87286-493-1
To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War (City Lights, 2011) ISBN 978-0-87286-517-4
I Couldn’t Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us: An Oral History of the Attacks Against the Students of Ayotzinapa (City Lights, 2017) ISBN 978-0-87286-748-2
Torn from the World: A Guerrilla’s Escape from a Secret Prison in Mexico (City Lights, 2018) ISBN 978-0872867529

Please also take a look at the following in the reader:

Pg 33 – “Village” – Alice Oswald (Recommend you read this one aloud)
Pg 36 – “The Evolution of Memory” – Jack Marshall (Also read aloud)
Pg 41 – (Untitled) – John Gibler
Pg 70 – Excerpt from “It,” 1969 — Book Length Poem pp 11-12 – Inger Christensen
Pg 72 – Excerpt from “Alphabet,” 1981 – Inger Christensen
Pg 123 – (Untitled) – John Gibler
Pg 124 – “Dawn” – William Carlos Williams
Pg 124 – “Spring Strains” – William Carlos Williams

Audio – “The Evolution of Memory” – Jack Marshall – Read by Andy Couturier

Audio – “Sun” – Michael Palmer – Read by Andy Couturier

Audio – “Premises” – Gustaf Sobin – Read by Andy Couturier

Audio – Excerpt from “Howl” – Allen Ginsberg – Read by Andy Couturier

WEEK 7 – June 18

Please select, before class if you can, 3 or 4 poems (either from this week or from any other part of the class) that you would like to discuss more deeply, either to

revel in them,
or to share your feelings with others about them,
or to try to understand them better.

Reader

Pg 76 — “A Poem of Thanks” — Wendell Berry
Pg 76 — “History” — Wendell Berry
Pg 79 — “From the Crest” — Wendell Berry
Pg 84 — “Horses” — Wendell Berry
Pg 86 — “Marin-An” — Gary Snyder
Pg 87 — “Prayer for the Great Family” — Gary Snyder
Pg 88 — “Askesis, Praxis, Theôria of the Wild” — Gary Snyder
Pg 89 — “Dillingham, Alaska, The Willow Tree Bar” — Gary Snyder
Pg 90 — “Place” — W.S. Merwin
Pg 91 — “The Overpass” — W.S. Merwin
Pg 92 — “The Crust” — W.S. Merwin

Norton Anthology
Pg 779 — “The Figured Wheel” — Robert Pinsky
Pg 783 — “ABC” — Robert Pinsky

+ “Specks” — Kay Ryan — PDF

Audio — “Specks” — Kay Ryan — Read by Andy Couturier

Your second assigned movie:
W.S Merwin — “Even though the whole world is burning”
Available here — https://vimeo.com/ondemand/merwinfilm
$2.99 to rent or $7.99 to purchase.

Teaser

Video — Gary Snyder — “Prayer for the Great Family” 

Video — Gary Snyder — Friends of the Scranton Public Library Poetry Series

WEEK 8 – June 25

Reader

Pg 148 — “Prelude” — Tomas Tranströmer
Pg 149 — “Brief Pause in the Organ Recital” — Tomas Tranströmer
Pg 151 — “Golden Wasp” — Tomas Tranströmer
Pg 153 — “A Map To The Next World” — Joy Harjo
Pg 155 — “The Widening Spell of the Leaves” — Larry Levis

Pg 93 — “Continent’s End” — Robinson Jeffers
Pg 94 — “Carmel Point” — Robinson Jeffers
Pg 94 — “Natural Music” — Robinson Jeffers
Pg 95 — “Gnat-Psalm” — Ted Hughes
Pg 97 — “Time Is The Mercy Of Eternity” — Kenneth Rexroth

Pg 124 — “Dawn” — William Carlos Williams
Pg 125 — “Spring Strains” — William Carlos Williams
Pg 126 — “Uppermost” — A.R. Ammons
Pg 127 — “For Harold Bloom” — A.R. Ammons
Pg 128 — “The Quince Bush” — A.R. Ammons
Pg 129 — “Clarity” — A.R. Ammons
Pg 130 — “Viable” — A.R. Ammons
Pg 131 — “The Snow Man” — Wallace Stevens
Pg 132 — “The Niagara River” — Kay Ryan
Pg 133 — “The Moose” — Elizabeth Bishop
Pg 138 — “Song for the Rainy Season” — Elizabeth Bishop

+ “Rapsodia para el Mulo” (Rhapsody for the Mule) — José Lezama Lima — Download PDF.

Joy Harjo reads “A Map to the Next World”

Tomas Tranströmer reads from his work. “Golden Wasp” at 20:24.

WEEK 9 – July 02

Please be sure to read the emails for further information about these poems.

Pg 172 — “Aunt Elsie’s Night Music” — Mary Oliver
Pg 174 — “University Hospital” — Mary Oliver
Pg 118 — “Dulce et Decorum Est” — Wilfred Owen
Pg 117 — “The Bad Old Days” — Kenneth Rexroth
Pg 162 — “For Eli Jacobson” — Kenneth Rexroth
Pg 120 — “Autumn In California” — Kenneth Rexroth
Pg 164 — “June 5, 1940.” — Kenneth Patchen
Pg 122 — “I Will Not Mourn My Dead” — Dr Shahd Abusalama
Pg 111 — “On the murder of two human being black men, Denver A. Smith and his unidentified brother, at Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana” — June Jordan
Pg 113 — “Poem About My Rights” — June Jordan
Pg 116 — “Poem for Haruko” — June Jordan

+ 2 Recommendations from Lily Graham
1. Poetic Rhythm — Derek Attridge
2. Poetic Meter and Form — Paul Fussell Jr. https://archive.org/details/poeticmeterpoeti00fuss/mode/2up

“They don’t even know why they are in a country.”
Andy Couturier

I am in a country because of extract. I am
in a country because of sea to shining sea, of pile of bones, of agony, of male pattern slaughtering,
of Commander in Chief,  classic rock, Clear Channel, monocropping,
of nobility, savagery.

I am in a country because of Country, because of melting pot, huddled masses yearning,
monuments, statues, bicameral, supreme court, Winchester rifles, graves of unknown soldiers,
and anthems.

I am in a country because of Our Savior, man and wife, the Homestead Act, Laurel and Hardy, seek and destroy,
smash box office hit,
law and order. Because of hit the road, leisure industry, and menial laborers,
and regulatory compliance of interchangeable parts,
the Alien and Sedition acts, Chinese Exclusion, the gold standard.

But mostly I am in a country because of
rockets red glare
and never,
ever,
ever
a discouraging word.

Audio — On the Murder of Two Human Being Black Men, Denver A. Smith and His Unidentified Brother, at Southern University, Baton Rouge, June Jordan, Read by June Jordan on KPFA, Pacifica Radio Archives, 1972

Kenneth Patchen: June 5, 1940

Dr Shahd Abusalama, I will not mourn my dead

+ Book Recommendation – Where I found several June Jordan poems.
African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song, Edited by Kevin Young, A Library of America Anthology, ISBN-13 978-1598536669

+ Book Recommendation – For those of you who want to go deeper into Chinese classical poems.
Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese, Translated & Introduced by Sam Hamill, New American Translations: 13. ISBN-13 978-1880238981.

WEEK 10 – July 09

Anthology
Pg 927 — “Dream of the Unified Field” (Sections 1–6) — Jorie Graham

Audio / Visual — Jorie Graham — “The VR” from To 2040

ONLINE AUDIO AND VIDEO POETRY ARCHIVES THAT ANDY GOES TO AGAIN AND AGAIN.

Poetry Breaks

Poetry Breaks is a series of high quality videos filmed in the late 80’s and early 90’s, where you can see many poets who are now dead, read to you their work, including Lucille Clifton, Robert Bly, Sharon Olds. The layout is also very nice.

The Writers Almanac

Every single day I listen to a poem read by the excellent Garrison Keillor including “This day in literary history” which really helps me over the weeks, months and years, not only to learn about new poets and writers that I’d never heard of, but also the scope and depth of writers throughout history.

Penn Sound

Penn Sound comes from the University of Pennsylvania and has more than 100 poets. Many of them who I don’t know, but many who I have also heard of. On many mornings, I will go to the Penn Sound page and choose a poet at random and listen to them read.

David Abel on Penn Sound

San Francisco State University Poetry Archives

San Francisco State has been hosting poetry readings since the early 1950’s and this is a FANTASTIC collection of many well known poets, both audio and video. This is another place I go to find new poems.

Button Poetry — Youtube Channel

This is a great collection of much more radical work, both in its political orientation and its delivery. It’s a fantastic way to discover younger poets. These are regularly updated so you can check in weekly and find new poems.

Poets Speak — Youtube Channel

Poets Speak is a treasure trove of classic poems read to you directly by the authors themselves. The layout is also very clean and simple, with one black and white photograph, the poets name and the name of the poem. Unfortunately, way too heavy on white male poets. These are regularly updated so you can check in weekly and find new poems.

MP3 RECORDINGS

“Howl (For Carl Solomon)” – Allen Ginsberg

Time is the Mercy of Eternity, Kenneth Rexroth, Read by Andy Couturier

A discussion about Aimé Césaire & Derek Walcott

VIDEO LINKS

Ai: November 14, 1974

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge: April 21, 1976

Mary Oliver on the Lannan Foundation

Lunch Poems: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge