Poems as Arranged Life

Before returning to specific poems, we spent the first few minutes of class talking about MLA conventions (quotation marks around poem titles, citing line numbers, etc.) We also discussed writing effective paragraphs (see link below) and writing assertively (avoiding "I think," "I believe" statements).

Then, we began a discussion of "poems as arranged life."

In the last two weeks, we've discussed how “poems originate in crucial moments of private life… (Vendler 27)

However, poems don’t simply record what has happened. As Vendler says, “Art interrupts the stream and constructs one segment or level of the stream for processing” (27).

Assignment: With your partner, choose one life moment from the newspaper that you feel would be a subject worthy of a poem.

Then, we took our discussion to the next level, considering how form reinforces and reflects content.

According to Vendler, "The poet discovers the emotional import of that life-moment by subjecting it to analysis; the analysis then determines how the moment is described, and the invented organizational form that replicates it” (27).

We looked specifically at Blake's "Infant Sorrow," outlining the formal constructions that reflect the poem's content. These include:

1. Contrast: Physical vs. mental (one stanza each)
Main verb in stanza one: “leapt”
Main verb in stanza two: “thought”
2. Environmental
The child’s dependency on his parents is reinforced by the poem’s structure.
Each stanza begins with the parents, and in the final stanza “they literally enclose him” (29) .
3. Adjectives: realistic (many) and supernatural (one)
Helpless, naked, loud, bound, weary vs.
“like a fiend hid in a cloud” (4)
4. Grammatical
“ –ing” adjectives to reflect what the baby can do (“piping,” “struggling,” “striving.”
Other adjectives to reflect what the baby is feeling (“helpless,” “naked,” “like a fiend,” etc.)

See summary on pg. 31.

Assignment: With your partner, determine possible formal constructions that would replicate/reinforce the poem’s content.

Also, students were given the opportunity to revise the assignment due today based on our discussion. Revisions are due Tuesday. Wednesday, bring a favorite poem to class.