Writers,
Just a reminder that the Poetry Assignment folder, which is open on Blackboard, will close at 11:59 Tuesday, March 15. Upload your poems before that time. As was discussed the past week, writers who submit assignments submitted on time will have an opportunity to revise their work.
A direct link to instructions for the Poetry Assignment is here: Poetry Assignment. Remember, you are turning in two poems that explore two different forms of poetry discussed in this class.
Writers,
Nice work in today’s poetry workshop. It was gratifying to see you all share your work with each other. We’ll also have workshops in our fiction and memoir modules.
A couple of notes for items covered in class:
Write on!
Email with questions: jsears@citytech.cuny.edu
Prof. Sears
Writers,
Below are important items covered in today’s class:
We covered a lot! Email, as always, with questions: jsears@citytech.cuny.edu
In class we have discussed and read examples of the following poetic forms:
You have also practiced them—with some impressive results–on class discussion boards and in class. A complete review of the poetic forms is in this post: Review of Poetic Forms and Poetic Terms
For this assignment, you will create, workshop, and revise two different poetic forms, based on our exploration of these forms through reading and writing exercises. You can use work you’ve already posted in our class as starting points for your submission.
For this assignment, you must submit two poems exploring two different forms we’ve discussed in class. You can develop poems you’ve already started in class through exercises and on the discussion boards. Or, you can start new poems using the guidelines for each form that we have discussed.
Each of the following count as one poem:
Note: for the assignment, you must explore two different options. For example, your might turn in one free verse and one pantoum. Or, one abecedarian and one sestina.
DUE: Thursday, March 10, 2:30 pm in-class: bring your poems to class for our peer review. Note that workshop participation is configured into the overall grade. You can bring your poems printed out or on a device that you can pass around to your peers.
DUE: Tuesday, March 15, end of the day, on Blackboard: upload your poetry assignment as a pdf or word file for a grade assessment from the instructor.
If you turn in the work on SafeAssign on time, you will have one chance to revise the assignment. Instructions for revisions will be provided.
If you do not turn in the assignment on the due date on Blackboard, you can turn in your assignment on the revision due date. Late papers do not lose points for being late. You will, however, lose your chance to revise your work.
Writers,
I am back, in good health, look forward to writing with you tomorrow in our classroom: 2:30 pm in Namm 521. To keep us on track with assignments for the semester, I’ve made a couple of changes to this week’s activities.
Stay healthy all and see you tomorrow!
Prof. Sears (Email: jsears@citytech.cuny.edu)
Abecedarian Notes:
I’m impressed by the new abecedarians on the OpenLab site. In these eleven posts, there are discussions of dreams, of cities, of frustration with world politics, …… Your work with the challenging letters has also proved productive.
If you have not posted, please remember that participation on this board will count as attendance for Thursday, March 3. The discussion board link is at the bottom of this post.
Here are some notes from those who have participated so far:
Ester bravely writes first and gives the reader a keyhole view of a sunny day in New York. Waiting for a subway becomes  wonderfully “xanthic” or yellowish. Dominic explores a bleak society writing, “no more are the times of reason, is such times have ever been present in this world.” Notice how his ideas break through the lines and how he incorporates the words xenocide and zealot. Jeanpierre writes about a character who dreams of being an actor and the frustration of seeking success until the actor receives a mysterious call from Xander (good way to use that X!) Muztahid writes philosophically about maintaining childhood dreams in a world shaped by pain. Notice how he returns to childhood with its imagined “xilinous” beasts but ends with a stoic look at the present. Ashiley gives us a love poem, using those tricky letters in words that often come up in relationships: vexation and yearning, feelings zapped away from the heart. Cesar writes about the challenge of the monotony of unfulfilling jobs and dreaming of vacation time with “xanthic” sunshine.
Alice’s abecedarian creates a world of animals, using the letters in some places to create names including a fish named Joseph, a very big fish, who makes a snack of Henry the Penguin, but they are all endangered by the “xenophobic” poacher. Xiang writes about gaming, using some of the letters to name characters including  a hero named Jinx and on the team Kayle, Morgana, Nunu, and Pantheon. (By the way, the header of our OpenLab class site is taken from below the oculus of the Roman pantheon.) Janet writes of an intense circus of young people who experience joy that is “quixotic” but wicked dialogues sometimes turn sadly xenophobic.
Xinhong writes about one of those rare good days when life serves too much cake but leaves enough time to play the xylophone! Mary writes about friendship, using the challenging letters to talk about quitting, individual uniqueness and values, and howling at the moon.
Here is the link to the Discussion Board-Abecedarian Poems. Post before the end of the day today, March 7:
Writers,
Due to an ongoing medical emergency, I am conducting today’s class asynchronously. In other words, we will not meet in campus today at 2:30 pm. We will be back in class on Tuesday, March 8 and will have the Poetry Quiz. (The link for the review post for that quiz is below.)
1. First, read this post on the poetic form: Abecedarian. It’s a fun form! Many students like it!
2. Then, try your hand at the abecedarian form on the Discussion Board: Abecedarian form. I will take asynchronous attendance for March 3 via your participation on this discussion board. Please participate before the end of the day on Monday, March 7. We will read some of them in class on March 8.
3. We will have the in-class poetry quiz on Tuesday, March 8 at our usual time and place: 2:30 pm in Namm. The review post for that  is here:
Review of Poetic Forms and Terms for the Poetry Quiz
Email with questions if you have them. I’ll answer:
The abecedarian form and The form: an abecedarian is a poetic form that uses the alphabet (for our course we are using the English alphabet). Many students in this class have enjoyed this form as it can be less constricting than the other forms we have tried, but has some structure to start you off.
Read this example of an abecedarian from our OpenLab site by the Native American poet Natalie Diaz. Notice the lettering on the far left of each line if your read it down spells out the English alphabet:
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sears-eng-1141-course-readings-and-materials/2021/02/24/poetic-form-abecedarian-by-natalie-diaz/
This more experimental abecedarian by John Bosworth also works its way through the letter Z:
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sears-eng-1141-course-readings-and-materials/2021/02/25/poetic-form-abedarian-by-john-bosworth/
Here also is a description of the abecedarian form from the Poetry Foundation with some more examples:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/abecedarian
After exploring the above examples and descriptions, try to write an abecderian poem working your way through the letter Z. The lines can be any length. You can certainly use a dictionary for ideas for those pesky letters: q, x, and z. Don’t be afraid to experiment!
To get started, you might do a free write by trying any one of the writing prompts on Writers Notebook Poetry Prompts or do the free writing class we were going to do in class: The Last Time I Saw You. For that freewrite, you begin writing for five minutes with that phrase: the last time I saw you…….if you get stuck, write the phrase again: the last time I saw you and keep going.
After you have written your abecedarian, post it on the Discussion Board: HERE.
Also see the items in the To-Do List: Abecedarian Form. The discussion board is also listed there.
Writers,
Just a reminder that there was no discussion board after our pantoum practice in class on Thursday. I appreciate those who did upload their pantoums to the sestina board, however! But this was not required, so I’ve closed that thread to make it more clear. I have two items to address before I see you tomorrow:
See you tomorrow! Feel free to email with questions: jsears@citytech.cuny.edu
Prof. Sears
Today’s class discussion went over the poetic form called the Pantoum . The pantoum is a form that is four stanzas of four lines each, 16 lines in total.
The description and pattern for the pantoum is described in this post from our online textbook:
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sears-eng-1141-course-readings-and-materials/2021/02/22/poetic-form-pantoum/
Examples of pantoums can be found in this post. In class today, we read “pantoum” by Marilyn Hacker and watched performance poet K McClendon read “Pantoum for What We Let Grow.” Both are in this post:
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sears-eng-1141-course-readings-and-materials/2021/02/23/pantoum-examples/
Lastly, here is a post to use as a guide for our poetry quiz which will be next Thursday, March 3 in class:
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/eng1141-d307-intro-to-creative-writing/2022/02/24/review-of-poetic-terms-and-forms-for-the-poetry-quiz/
Write on, all!
The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.
