READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR THE WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 22-28, 2008

Don't forget that your second round of blogging (readings and discussion on Plath and Sexton) for the week of September 14-21 will be due by midnight on Sunday, September 21.

For Monday, September 22, please continue your readings in Anne Sexton as assigned for last week, and also read Read the following essay located in Project Muse, from the USD library research databases: http://www.usd.edu/library/research/ - On this page, scroll down to the listing of databases, click on Project Muse, search for Anne Sexton, and the following article will come right up in full-text format):

Alkalay-Gut, Karen, "The Dream Life of Ms. Dog: Anne Sexton's Revolutionary Use of Pop Culture," College Literature - 32.4, Fall 2005, pp. 50-73.

Additional essay on Sexton, not assigned, but of possible interest:

Gill, Joanna, "My Sweeney, Mr. Eliot": Anne Sexton and the "Impersonal theory of Poetry," Journal of Modern Literature - Volume 27, Number 1/2, Fall 2003, pp. 36-56.

For Wednesday, September 24, please read all of the selections in the Norton Anthology by Sharon Olds, the poems by Kim Addonizio on the Xerox handout, and the article on confessional/post-confessional by Kathleen Osip, linked as a Word document immediately below.

"No Room in the Booth: An Appreciation of Confessional Poetry, by Kathleen Osip.

Sharon Olds at the Academy of American Poets Website

Kim Addonizio at the Academy of American Poets Website

For Friday, September 26, please read all of the selections in the Norton Anthology by Adrienne Rich, as well as Adrienne Rich's essay on poetics in the Norton Anthology ("When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Revision" p. 1086).

Also see: Adrienne Rich at the Academy of American Poets Website

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Guidelines for Modeling Poem Assignment #1:

Your first modeling poem will be due on Monday, September 29. Your assignment will be to write a "confessional" poem in the style of either Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, or Anne Sexton. In addition to incorporating aspects of "confessionalism" as discussed in class, your poem should also specifically model stylistic traits unique to either Lowell, Plath, or Sexton. In a 500-word minimum accompanying write-up, please discuss the ways in which your modeling poem attempts to address these stylistic criteria. Please bring a hard copy of your assignment to class on Monday, September 29, and please also post your models on your course blog as well.

Note regarding confessionalism: For the purposes of this model, you may certainly use your own autobiographical materials to generate the poem, but if this makes you uncomfortable, you are absolutely welcome to generate a fictional persona (or to even pretend to be Lowell, Sexton, or Plath) from which to write your "confessional" poem.