Reminder: Final Paper Due Monday

You're more than welcome to hand your papers in tomorrow, but the final deadline is Monday at 5PM. Please leave your essays in my box in the English Dept. mailroom (McMicken 241) in the appropriate folder for your class, making sure that they're stapled, and that, in accordance with MLA guidelines, your name appears on each page. Late papers will lose a full letter grade for each day until they're handed in, and papers which fail to meet the length requirements will automaticaly receive an F.

For tomorrow, please read Charles Bernstein's brief essay, "Against National Poetry Month as Such," as well as the epilogue in David Lehman's The Last Avant Garde, and come prepared for an overview discussion of our work this quarter. We'll revisit some of the key ideas of the New York School's poetics, make comparisons between authors, and talk about whose work you really loved and really hated. I'll also give recommendations for further reading. We've had a great quarter, with some wonderfully engaged conversations about the texts, and I'm hoping we'll have one last chat which will frame everything we've done over the last ten weeks.

Reminder: Waldman Quiz on Monday

Don't forget that our final quiz of the quarter will be on Monday. As we discussed in class, it will solely cover Anne Waldman (seen at right with Lewis Warsh in the late 60s) — specifically, the poems you read for Friday and will read for Monday. This is one way in which you can pull up grades that are lower than you might have wanted, and it's never too late to bump up your class participation grade by taking part in our discussions next week.

Of course, the best way to ensure a final grade you'll be happy with is to turn in a stellar final essay. Once more, I'll encourage you to take advantage of any opportunity to talk to me about your paper in advance, whether by e-mail or during my office hours: bounce ideas off of me, run your thesis statement by me, ask about the evidence you're using.

On Friday, we will have a full class, with a brief reading assignment (from Charles Bernstein), which might be useful in framing our work this quarter. I'll post that a little later this week.

Anne Waldman Readings

On Friday, we'll wrap up our time with Bernadette Mayer, and begin looking at the work of Anne Waldman as well (depending on which poems you're interested in discussing, we can split the class half and half, or work exclusively with one of the poets). Though Waldman often gets lumped in with the Beat Generation poets (largely due to her co-founding the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University with Allen Ginsberg), Waldman's roots are clearly in the New York School — aside from running the St. Mark's Poetry Project for a number of years, she co-edited the influential journal and press Angel Hair with her then-husband Lewis Warsh. As with Bernadette Mayer, there aren't a great many recordings of her earlier work available on her PennSound author page, but it's worth listening to a few tracks, just to get a feel for her vocal style, especially given the emphasis placed on a litany-based performativity in her later works (starting with "Fast Speaking Woman"), which result in raucous live performances.

All readings are in Helping the Dreamer: New & Selected Poems 1966-1988:


Friday, March 6th:

• After "Les Fleurs" (2)
• College Under Water (3)
• The De Carlo Lots (5)
• How the Sestina (Yawn) Works (12)
• My Kind of Man (14)
• Diaries (15)
• Paul Eluard (16)

Monday, March 9th:

• Paris Day (27)
• Snow (29)
• *Giant Night* (30)
• Fast Speaking Woman (36)
• & do what I know best (72)
• Distance Traveled (73)
• For J.A. as Dusk Deepens Canyon (74)
• Divorce Work (78)
• Mirror Meditation (92)

Wednesday, March 11th:

• True Story of Being at the Pool (98)
• Number Song (106)
• Baby's Pantoum (109)
• Baby & the Gypsy (113)
• A Phonecall from Frank O'Hara (150)
• The Lie (157)
• Triolet (180)
• The Stick (199)
• Out There (201)
• Sonnet: O Husband! (209)

Reminder: Quiz Today, plus Book Link

Don't forget that we'll be having a quiz on Bernadette Mayer's work today, as well as a quiz on Anne Waldman next week. As I said in Monday's class, we'll have two last quizes this week and next, so that folks who weren't happy with their performance on them so far have a chance to pull their grades up a little bit. As usual, you can expect a few general questions about the work you've read so far (largely drawn from our class discussion on Monday) and will analyze one poem.

Also, Ben passed along this link to a limited preview of A Bernadette Mayer Reader on Google Books. If you're taking my Contemporary American Poetry course next quarter, I'd recommend hanging on to this book, as we'll be reading Mayer's latest, Poetry State Forest.