AustLit
Description
In this subject students write extensively and read widely in a variety of genres of contemporary and modern poetry. The subject is designed for students who, interested in writing, have a sustained interest in poetry or who, while not being poets themselves, wish to develop a working knowledge of recent and contemporary practices in poetry. The approach stresses the student's own creative practice and the exploration of genre and technique in the composition of poetry. The unit also introduces the work of a number of contemporary Australian and international poets as part of a field of creative and professional contexts in which poetry is written today. The unit is a workshop designed to encourage participants to enhance their skills as poets and also to develop a critical ability in editing and revising their own work and that of other writers in the class. At the same time, broad issues to do with the work of the contemporary poet, whether to do with specific aspects of creative practice, publishing, experimentation, or the presence of poetry in performance oriented or other non-literary formats, will feature in the workshop.
Subject objectives/outcomes
In this subject, students will:
* produce a folio of poems
* acquire skills to reflect critically on their writing
* acquire skills to revise and re-draft work in progress
* further their knowledge of contemporary and modern English language poetry and a range of poetries in translation
* study and practise formal and technical elements of poetry making
* reflect and engage actively with the creative and imaginative process in its traditional and contemporary settings.
Assessment
Assessment item 1: to present no fewer than five poems (written or significantly re-worked within the time-span of the class) at the end of the first part of the semester
Objective(s):a, b, c, e, f
Weighting:30%
Task:No fewer than 5 new poems written within the time-span of the class
Assessment criteria:
Technical accomplishment
Inventive subject matter
Assessment item 2: To present a short folio (approximately between 8 to 10 poems) at the end of the semester
Objective(s):a, b, c, e, f
Weighting:45%
Task:To present a short folio (810 poems) at the end of the year.
Assessment criteria:
Technical accomplishment
Inventive subject matter
Insight into creative process
Assessment item 3: Brief presentation
Objective(s):b, d, f
Weighting:25%
Length:Approx 1500 words
Task:To introduce a poem or poems, selected from the class reader, in a brief presentation. To introduce a poem or poems, selected from recent reading outside the class reader and published within the last ten years, in a brief presentation to the class. This presentation must be written up as a reflective commentary on the chosen work or a significant aspect of it.
Assessment criteria:
Critical and readerly insight
Inventive subject matter
Supplementary Texts
ed. Adamson, Robert, The Best Australian Poems 2009, Melbourne, Black Inc. 2009
ed. Beveridge,Judith, The Best Australian Poetry 2006, St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press 2006
eds., Brennan, Michael and Minter, Peter, Calyx: 30 Contemporary Australian Poets, Sydney: Paper Bark Press, 2000
ed., Cook, Jon, Poetry in Theory: An anthology 1900-2000, Malden, MA: Blackwells Publishers 2004
eds.,Cosman, Carol Keefe, Joan and Weaver, Kathleen, The Penguin Book of Women Poets, New York: Viking Press 1986
ed., Ellman, Richard and O'Clair, Robert and Ramazani, John, The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, third edition, New York: W.W.Norton and Co, 2003
ed. Farrell, Michael and Jones, Jill, Out of the Box: Contemporary Australian Gay and Lesbian Poetry, Sydney, Puncher and Wattmann 2009
Harrison, Martin, Wild Bees: New and Selected Poems, University of Western Australia Press, 2008
ed., Kostelanetz, Richard, Text-Sound Texts, New York, William Morrow 1980
ed., Langford, Martin, Harbour City Poems: Sydney in Verse 1788-2008, Sydney: Puncher and Wattmann 2009
ed., Leonard, John, The Puncher and Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry, Sydney, Puncher and Wattmann 2009, 2001
eds.,Mead, Phillip and Tranter, John, The Bloodaxe Book of Modern Australian Poetry, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe Books 1994 and later editions
eds., Moramarco, F and Boston B.H. and Harrison, Martin and others, Poetry International: the Post-Colonial English Language Diaspora, San Diego: San Diego State University Press, 2003
ed., Murray, Les, The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986 and later editions
eds., Preminger, Alex and Brogan T.V.F., co-editors ; Warnke Frank J., Hardison O.B. , Jr., and Miner, Earl associate editors. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1993
eds., Rasula, Jed and McAffery, Steve, Imagining Language: An anthology, Boston: MIT Press 1998
eds., Rothenberg, Jerome and Joris, Pierre, Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry (From Postwar to Millennium , Vols 1 and 2), Berkeley: University of California Press 1995 and 1998
ed., Rothenberg, Jerome, Technicians of the Sacred, A Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Asia and Oceania, New York: Doubleday 1968 and later editions
Websites (Australian and American)
Poetry International http://australia.poetryinternationalweb.org/ piw_cms/ cms/ cms_module/ index.php?obj_id=15
Australian Literary Resources http://www.austlit.com/ a/ index.html
UbuWeb http://users.rcn.com/obo/ubu/
Other Details
Offered in:
2009
Current Campus:
City campus
Levels:
Postgraduate
