Temple University English Department, Graduate Program
English 565, sec. 401: Studies in Contemporary Poetry
Fall 2004
Documentary Poetics
You cannot penetrate events with reportage.
—Michelangelo Antonioni, The Architecture of Vision
It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.
—William Carlos Williams, “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”
The American Heritage Dictionary defines “documentary” as 1. Consisting of, concerning, or based on documents. 2. Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or fictional matter. What is interesting is the implied relationship between the two definitions, as if documents themselves could escape fiction. This class will investigate the implications of the term “documentary poetry.” In what ways are documents incorporated into contemporary poems? If it is agreed that poetry often dwells in the realm of the subjective, how can poems “present facts”? Conversely, could it be argued that documentary poems are more factual than conventional documentary forms? What methods of documentation can be found in poems?
Required Texts:
David Antin, Talking
Kamau Brathwaite, Trench Town Rock
Theresa Cha, Dictee
Susan Howe, The Midnight
Kristin Prevallet, Scratch Sides
Charles Reznikoff, Testimony
Barrett Watten, Bad History
plus additional readings posted on Blackboard
Schedule:
Note: readings in bold are books; all others are posted on Blackboard. There will probably be additions made to these lists; check the Blackboard assignment area every week for the most up-to-date reading list.
January 21: introductions and some ideas/questions
January 28: The Starting Point
Charles Reznikoff, Testimony (Black Sparrow Press) and 1934 version excerpt
Amiri Baraka, “Incident”
Juliana Spahr, “Testimony”
February 4: Other Forms of Testimony
Muriel Rukeyser, “The Book of the Dead”
Subcommittee on Labor transcript
Trinh T. Minh-ha, “Vertically Imposed Language”
Michael Davidson, “Not Sappho, Sacco”
Maggie Dubris, excerpt from Willieworld
February 11: Documenting Histories
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee
Sue-im Lee, “Suspicious Characters” (Professor Lee will visit our class today)
Lisa Lowe, “Unfaithful to the Original: The Subject of Dictee”
Joan Retallack, “Re:Thinking:Literary:Feminism”
February 18: Documenting Speech
Kamau Brathwaite, Trench Town Rock
Anne Tardos, excerpts from Uxudo
Lois-Ann Yamanaka, excerpts from Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre
Edwin Torres, “Portorico N Prague”
Catalina Cariaga, “The Mercy,” “His Civil Rights”
February 25: Textual Telepathies
William Carlos Williams, Paterson (Book 1) at Literature On-line
Paul Metcalf, “...and nobody objected.”
Paul Metcalf, “Willie’s Throw”
Paul Naylor, “Some Assembly Required: Paul Metcalf’s Rhizomatic Machines”
Jane Tompkins, “Indians: Textualism and the Problem of History”
Deborah Richards, “The Beauty Projection”
March 3: Textual Telepathies, cont.
Susan Howe, The Midnight
Susan Howe, “Sorting Facts; or, 19 ways of looking at Marker”
Dziga Vertov, “Film Directors. A Revolution.”
Lyn Hejinian, excerpt from My Life
March 10: Spring Break
no class
March 16: David Antin, 5:00 at Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk
March 17: Documenting Performance
David Antin, Talking
David Antin, “Fine Furs”
on-line interviews
Thursday, March 18, 8:00 TUCC 222: David Antin talk-poem. Your attendance at this presentation is required.
March 24: Pound and Documentary Procedures
Ezra Pound, Canto I and selected other cantos
Charles Bernstein, “Pound and the Poetry of Today”
Jackson Mac Low, Words n Ends from Ez at
Jackson Mac Low, excerpts from The Virginia Woolf Poems
Steve McCaffery, “Mac Low’s Asymmetries”
John Cage, “Writing Through the Cantos” (two versions)
March 31: Documentary Procedures, cont.
Joan Retallack, “Poethics of a Complex Realism”
Joan Retallack, “Afterrimages,” “AID/I/SAPPEARANCE”
Christian Bok, “ The Piecemeal Bard is Deconstructed: Notes Toward a Potential Robopoetics”
Katherine Parrish, “How We Became Automatic Poetry Generators”
Steve McCaffery, “Writing as a General Economy”
April 7: Poetics of the Found
Kristin Prevallet, Scratch Sides
Prevallet open letter to Mac Low and Mac Low’s reply
Tina Darragh, excerpts from “on the corner to off the corner” plus “Procedure”
Catalina Cariaga, “Excerpts from Bahala Na!”
Tom Phillips, A Humument excerpt
Ronald Johnson, Radi Os excerpt
Kenny Goldsmith, weblinks
Jen Bervin, NETS, excerpt
Jena Osman, “Gumshoe Poetry”
April 12: Kenny Goldsmith at Writers House at 5:00.
April 14: Documentary Collage
Barrett Watten: Bad History
Watten, “WAR=LANGUAGE”
Melvin Tolson, excerpt from Libretto for the Republic of Liberia
Ernesto Cardenal, “Trip to New York”
Frank O’Hara “A Step Away from Them,” “The Day Lady Died”
Charles Bernstein, “Emotions of Normal People”
Louis Zukofsky, “Poem beginning ‘The’”
April 21: The News
Tristan Tzara, “To Make a Dadaist Poem”
Leslie Scalapino, excerpt from The Front Matter, Dead Souls
Leslie Scalapino, “Can’t is Night”
Elizabeth Frost, interview with Leslie Scalapino
C.D. Wright and Forrest Gander, “The Persian Gulf War: for general audiences”
Lisa Linn Kanae, “Ola’s Son"
Kristin Prevallet: excerpts from The Parasite Poems
Juliana Spahr, “Documentary”
Hannah Weiner, excerpt from Weeks
Charles Bernstein: Blind Witness News
April 28: Last class
brief presentations of final papers