Week 2 - February 11
Nature
in our own words
We
begin on a coast road, with a hurt hawk, a bear, and a canticle
what we have inherited: qtd. in John Elder: Imagining the Earth
Jeffers:
“The Coast Road” (2) & “Hurt Hawk” (5)
Snyder: :This poem is for bear” (8-9)
Brother Antonius: “A Canticle to the Waterbirds” (22)
what we have at our fingertips
Morales: “Vincent Price as the Fly” what would we do
without_____
Goodrich: “Fox” identify a messenger from nature and
explore its message
Kane: “Survivors in the Garden” even jays can be a role
model what unlikely role model do you find in nature besides jays
and of course slug
In a six line poem: think of something unheralded in nature which
we could not do without, and consider it as a role model and a
messenger what is the message it bears
Small groups:
& in addition to exploring the poems each group member has
brought, paying special attention to what you are most pulled
to and what might need a little work (more? less? clarification?
resonant particular…)
inspired by
Dancing with Wasps
do your own dancing with____________
and create a poem of instructions for this dance
then each group will dance it
then give instructions
then have other group dance it
III assignments:
McBride: “Hail the Horse” do your own hail the_______
(hail something in naure)
Schultz: “Pink Roses” rehabilitate a hothouse flower
Rivers: “Why I Plant Lettuce” explore the rules_____keep
“ I love the rules leaves keep…”
.
Lins: “We Were God in Our Eden” --kill something and
regret it
. get “high” off something natural –but so high
the language
is inebriated too
Herb Perkins-Frederick: “Blackberries”
Kavanagh: “April’s Yellows” get high on color with
a little help
metaphor as opiate, color as opiate
“Forsythia poses/as Isadora Duncan”
Do three entries to a Field Guide on Poets -- identify three types
of poets – by location, feeding and other habits,
plumage, markings, songs or sounds
selections
from Lucia Petrillo
Field Guide
reminder
Bill Wunder; “A Field Guide to Birds”
Over the course
of this Spring Workshop: create a FIELD GUIDE
it can be a field guide to slugs or wildflowers or things with
wings
or terrors or small blessings or punk rock songs or poets…
but have at least 5 of the poems in your chapbook be modeled after
a Field Guide ---scientific description, coloration, means of
identifying,
habitat, kind of “speech or song,” location, habits,
feeding
IN OUR
OWN WORDS
McBride: “Hail
the Horse” Assignment: do your own hail the_______
celebration
Morales: “Vincent
Price as the Fly” Assignment: what would we do without_____
rehabilitation
Schultz: “Pink
Roses” Assignment: rehabilitate a hothouse flower adornment?
comfort?
Kumar: “The
Chaos of Passions” Assignment: take something trouble you;
metaphor as hope, as consolation turn to metaphor drawn from nature
Kane: “Survivors
in the Garden” Assignment: even jays can be a role model
nature as role model what unlikely role model do you find in nature
besides jays and of course slugs
Lins”
“Death of a Bluefish” Assignment: explore a time when
your nature as paradigm, as glimpse of engagement in nature felt
more than just an kinship engagement with that nature –
Ferleger:
“Hawks” Assignment: explore a time when your nature
as paradigm, as glimpse of engagement in nature felt more than
just an kinship engagement with that nature –
Lins: “We Were God in Our Eden” Assignment: kill something
and regret it nature as enemy
H. Perkins-Frederick:
“Blackberries” Assignment: because LSD is expensive,
get high nature as opiate – see the little tippler off something
natural –but so high the language is inebriated too
Kavanagh:
“April’s Yellows” Assignment: get high on color
with a little help metaphor as opiate, color as opiate from metaphor/personification
“Forsythia poses/as Isadore Duncan”
Kavanagh:
The Solace of Soil” Assignment: find solace in something
unlikely
nature as solace (not necessarily “beautiful”) in nature
Saunier”
“Not Quite Spring” Assignment: find consolation in excess
nature as scavenger, as plumber of something in the natural world
(see Thoreau on the excremental nature
of Spring) ‘’There’s consolation in sound and excess”
Goodrich:
“Fox” Assignment; identify a messenger from nature
nature as messenger and explore its message
Rivers: “Why
I Plant Lettuce” Assignment: explore the rules_____keep
“ I love the rules leaves keep…”
Becker: Blind
Old Horse” Assignment: enter into the consciousness of
the psyche of nature a creature/creation of nature – aware
of the generosity of such an act and
the presumption, the gift and the limits
Levin: “Ash”
Assignment indulge your greed
our greed for nature, the nature of
our green “each tree flaring like a struck match”
compare Raby: “A Life of Greed”
Scott: “Of
Winter and Wings, 2007” Assignment: wish for something the
wishfulness of our life in some magic from nature
nature
Gross: “What
Ushers Forth” Assignment: let somethingin nature speak in
its “own wild tongue”
Wunder: “A
Field Guide to Birds” Assignment: doy uor own field guide
How can I
fail to admire an animal/who, given mud, makes pleasure of it.
Pat Goodrich: “Moose Encounter
Imagine
the river sliding/along its bed…Can you hear the whole world/running
with a cold humming,/a sub-vocal watery singing/just beneath the
grass…” Pam Perkins-Frederick: “Pillars Underground”
