Temple University English Department, Graduate Program

Fall 2001

English 970

Meeting Time: 5:30-7:30, TUCC 314

Instructor: Jena Osman

Office: Anderson Hall 956, 204-8539, josman@temple.edu

Office Hours: Wednesdays 1-2 and by appointment

HYBRID GENRES: VISUAL, SOUND, and

PERFORMANCE POETRIES

This course will be an investigation into the many ways that poetry changes the page and moves off the page. The scope of our topic is enormous and thus will be a mutual exploration into activist possibilities in language. In what ways do these cross-genre language works reflect a cultural-historical moment? To what histories do they respond? We’ll try to ground ourselves in instances of cross-genre experimentation from the early 20^th century and then move forward to our current moment. Look at the syllabus below as a skeleton which our semester’s work together will flesh out. All students are strongly encouraged to add to the syllabus as we go along and to bring in additional texts/audio/video to share with the class.

Required Texts (all available at the TUCC bookstore):

David Antin, What It Means to be Avant-Garde

Amiri Baraka, The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader

Johanna Drucker, Figuring the Word

Alec Finlay (ed), Wood Notes Wild: Essays on the poetry and art of Ian Hamilton Finlay

Adelaide Morris (ed.), Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies

Edwin Torres, Fractured Humorous

Class Requirements:

Warning: This class will require a lot of internet reading/viewing/listening. If you do not have a fast modem at home, it is your responsibility to locate a good location on campus and find the time to cover what’s on the syllabus.

Weekly Responses

Each week you will write a response to the reading. These responses are informal reactions/interactions with the texts. Feel free to write in any style you like (critical, performative, epistolary, imitative, etc.), and focus on any one aspect of the readings you find interesting. You can also use the responses as a place to pose questions to be addressed by the class in discussion. They should be no less than a page, but not too long either. Post all responses on the class listserv by Sunday night, and make sure to read all posts by the time class begins on Tuesday.

Class listserv

Everybody in the class needs to have an active email account that they check regularly. Our syllabus covers a lot of territory and we probably won’t be able to cover all texts during the class period—the listserv can help fill that gap. Use the listserv not only as a place to post weekly responses, but as a place to extend lively discussion. The address for the listserv is hybrid@listserv.temple.edu. You can also access the archives and post through the website at http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/hybrid.html.

Research

One of the goals of a 900 level seminar is to teach you some solid research strategies. Three course requirements will focus specifically on research:

1) Class Presentations. Each of you will give one brief (15-20 minutes) presentation on one of the works listed for the week you choose. This presentation can take any shape or direction you like; however it must include references to at least three good secondary sources you discovered in your preparation: one book, one journal article, and one web source. Your presentation should be accompanied by a hand-out for class which includes (but is not limited too) a bibliographic listing of your sources. Ideally the presentation will serve as a jumping off point for class discussion, so feel free to end your presentation with some questions.

2) Final paper, 15 pages. This paper can be on any topic that is related to the areas covered by the class. It does not have to be on the topic of your presentation. You are not limited to the authors covered by our syllabus; however some engagement with the issues and texts we discuss as a class is expected. You will hand in a preliminary proposal a month before the paper is due.

3) Presentation of research. During finals week you will give a 15 minute presentation of your findings. Feel free to use audio-visual-digital aids.

reserve book list (in Paley Library):

Abrioux, Yves, Ian Hamilton Finlay: A Visual Primer (1985) F457.A27x 1992

Bernstein, Charles, Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word PN1042.C46 1998

Johanna Drucker, The Century of Artist Books N7433.3.D783x 1995

Steve McCaffery and Jed Rasula, Imagining Language P120.I53I46 1998

Marjorie Perloff, Radical Artifice: Writing Poetry in the Age of Media PS325.P38 1991

Phillips, Tom, A Humument N7433.4.P5A4x 1987

Mary Ellen Solt, Concrete Poetry: A World View, PN 6110 C77 S6

Schedule:

(readings in bold are books; all others are in the photocopy packet (P) or on the web)

August 28: Introductions

September 4: Visual Poetry from Mallarmé to Concrete

Definitions from Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (P)

Stéphane Mallarmé: Un Coup de Dès/A Throw of the Dice (P)

Mary Lewis Shaw: "Concrete and Abstract Poetry" (P)

Sérgio Bessa, “Originative Poetics of Concrete Poetry”

(on www.ubuweb.com under “papers”)

Mary Ellen Solt, “Concrete Poetry: A World View”

(on www.ubuweb.com under “papers”; this book is also on reserve)

Look up any artist mentioned in any of these essays on Ubuweb so you can see examples of the work. Browse through as many of the “historical” pages as possible and keep notes.

September 11: Johanna Drucker

Johanna Drucker, Figuring the Word

September 18: language environments: Finlay, Vicuña, Antin

Susan Howe, "The End of Art" (P)

Alec Finlay, ed. Wood Notes Wild: Essays on the Poetry and Art of Ian Hamilton Finlay

Mark Scroggins, “The Piety of Terror: Ian Hamilton Finlay, the Modernist Fragment and the Neo-Classical Sublime.

(http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket15/finlay-by-scroggins.html )

Images of Little Sparta can be found at (http://www.perlesvaus.easynet.co.uk/hippeis/gallery/little_sparta/

Ian Hamilton Finlay, "Images from the Arcadian Dream Garden" (P)

David Antin, “Fine Furs” (P)

TRANS>Arts.Cultures.Media skywriting project:

http://www.e-flux.com/decode.php3?cid=681

Cecilia Vicuña "Vaso de leche," "Antivero," "Sendero Chibcha" "Tunquén"(P)

related reserve reading: Abrioux, Yves, Ian Hamilton Finlay: A Visual Primer (1985)

September 25: Field poetics from page to screen

Charles Olson: “Projective Verse” (P)

Kathleen Faser: “Translating the Unspeakable: Visual poetics, as projected through Olson’s “field” into current female writing practice” (P)

Nathaniel Mackey: “That Words Can Be on the Page: The Graphic Aspect of Charles Olson’s Poetics” (P)

Browse contemporary links at www.ubuweb.com

Browse e-poetry pages at http://epc.buffalo.edu/e-poetry/

Browse Kaldron at http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/kaldron.htm

Browse global cyberpoetry at http://www.experimedia.vic.gov.au/~komninos/maysites.html

Check out this: http://www.arras.net/RNG/flash/dreamlife/dreamlife_index.html

October 2: Amiri Baraka

The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader

Browse through www.amiribaraka.com

Mackey, “The Changing Same: Black Music in the Poetry of Amiri Baraka” (P)

Lorenzo Thomas, “”Neon Griot” (P)

Baraka, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Sanchez sound files:

http://www.factoryschool.org/content/poetry/index.html

October 4: Amiri Baraka reads at TUCC, 8:00

October 9: Sound Poetry, historical instances

Steve McCaffery, “Sound Poetry: A Survey” at

http://www.ubu.com/papers_frames.html

Dick Higgins, “A Taxonomy of Sound Poetry” at
http://www.ubu.com/feature/papers/feature_higgins_sound.html

Kurt Schwitters, “Ur Sonata” excerpt (P) plus whole score can be see and heard at:

http://www.ubu.com/feature/sound/feature_schwitters.html

See and hear sound scores from 1914-1919 in the historical link at Ubuweb.com

Browse through as many sound poetry links at Ubuweb.com as possible.

Selections from Richard Kostelanetz, Text-Sound Text: Young, Goldstein, Kern, Lucier, Leon, Mac Low, Gillespie (P)

October 16: More Sound Poetry

Adelaide Morris, Sound States

(read the following: Introduction, Perloff, McCaffery, Collins, Mackey, Stewart)

John Cage links:

http://dept.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/cage-quotes.html

http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/cage/

listen to August de Campos:

http://www.ubu.com/sound/decampos.html

Kamau Brathwaite, “The Marley Manor Shoot/in” (P)

Excerpt from Jack Spicer’s After Lorca can be read at

http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/spicer/lorcaletter.html

Wallace Stevens, “The Red Fern” http://www.princeton.edu/~qrl/Retropty.htm#STEVENS

October 23: Some Canadian Sounds and Visions

At Ubuweb.com, browse sound files for Christian Bök, The Four Horsemen, McCaffery, Paul Dutton, and bpNichol.

At epc.buffalo.edu, browse through pages for Bök, McCaffery and Werschler-Henry.

Browse Bök, McCaffery, Werschler-Henry at:

http://www.factoryschool.org/content/poetry/index.html

Four Horsemen sound scores (P)

October 25: Johanna Drucker and Charles Alexander at Writers House

October 30: Odds and Ends

Paper proposal due

Browse through the sound files at the EPC:

http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/sound/file-list.html

“Narrative as Genealogy: Sound Sense in an Era of Hypertext” by Larry Wendt:

http://cotati.sjsu.edu/spoetry/nghome.html

Michael Davidson, “Technologies of Presence” in Sound States

Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape (P)

November 2: First Friday at the Painted Bride

November 6: Spoken Word to Edwin Torres

Edwin Torres, Fractured Humorous

Maria Damon, “Was That ‘Different,’ ‘Dissident’ or ‘Dissonant’?” (P)

Meta DeEwa Jones, “Slam Nations: Emerging Poetries, Imagined Communities” at

http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/stadler_center/how2/current/in-conference/american-lit/jones.html

excerpts from Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café (P)

The Last poets (Jazzoetry clip through Amazon.com)

Listen to Gil Scott Heron and Torres at:

http://www.factoryschool.org/content/poetry/index.html

More Torres:

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/torres

Browse through http://www.livepoets.com/

Does rap belong on this list? If so, please post some links to the listserv (note that Amazon.com has audio excerpts for many of the CDs it sells).

November 8: Edwin Torres at Temple Gallery, 8:00

November 13: Antin

David Antin, What It Means to be Avant-Garde

Interview between Antin and Charles Bernstein: http://www.centerforbookculture.org/interviews/interview_antin.html

Marjorie Perloff, “David Antin, Talking” http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/perloff/articles/antin.html

Henry Sayre, “David Antin and the Oral Poetics Movement” (P)

November 20: No class, Thursday schedule

November 27: Poet’s Theater

Gertrude Stein, “Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights” (P)

Frank O’Hara, “What Century” “Mephisto” (P)

Carla Harryman, “Percentage” (P)

Kevin Killian, “Schizmata” at http://www.morningred.com/friend/1998/12/pages/schizmata.html

Fiona Templeton, excerpt from You The City (P)

Mac Wellman, “The Land of Fog and Whistles” (P)

Suzan-Lori Parks, excerpt from The Death of the Last Black Man In the Entire World

Works by Richard Foreman at http://www.ontological.com/

December 4: last class

open to use however you like

Finals week: 15 minute presentation of your research paper findings.