A discussion Board post and also a draft for a poetry project

241/Ritt

Poetry assignment info & writing ideas

Your task is to write one or more poems. If you choose to write more than one poem,

your works may be related or not, at your own discretion. Here are some prompt ideas

to get you started:

a) Write a poem that’s a list (e.g. “Things I Could Never Say Out Loud”).

b) Write a poem about a color or an abstraction (e.g. love) without ever naming the

subject of the poem. Give lots of specific, vivid details. Use the subject as the title

of the poem.

c) Take an existing piece of writing (any fiction or non-fiction that you’ve written), and

using a dark marker, block out strategic words or phrases to create a new poem

with a new meaning (feel free to alter line lengths or add breaks as needed).

d) Write a collection of statements, each of which is a lie.

e) Write a poem in which weather plays an important role (either as the focus or as

an influence on events).

f) Write a poem that answers a question. You could choose to begin with the

question, as in Whitman’s “A child said…” or imply the question, leaving the

reader clues as to what you’re exploring.

g) OR feel free to do anything else that intrigues you! As long as you hit the

minimum length requirement, there are no wrong answers in poetry.

Feel free to play with formatting, line length, punctuation, alliterations, sounds, etc: There

are NO specific formatting requirements for your poetry. If you choose unusual

punctuation or editing conventions, you’ll want to make sure that they serve a purpose in

your work: to enhance the emotions, to create a sense of intentional confusion, etc. Your

work may be fictional, non-fiction, or some combination thereof. (See length

requirements, on reverse).

As in the previous exercise, try to show us information about the scene rather than

just telling what’s going on. For example, "I felt embarrassed" is much less moving

than immersing your reader right in the details that show us how embarrassed you

were—your sweaty palms, your face turning red, the kids around you laughing, etc.

Help the reader see the scene as you see it and feel the emotions you feel by using lots

of specifics.

As you move into the 2nd draft, keep in mind that poems, like essays, will often have two

layers: One is the surface-level subject (e.g. a snowfall). The other is the larger,

underlying idea: What is your essay really about? (e.g. change, loneliness, etc). After

241/Ritt

we read your poems, we should have some hint towards or sense of your overall

purpose: Why was this topic important for you to write about? (Don’t tell us directly,

but we should be able to infer this or have a sense of it by the end of your poem).

Assignment lengths:

 SFD: 1-3 pages (double-spaced, unless you have short lines and/or really strong

feelings about why it should be single-spaced)

o Submitted for feedback; graded for completion and creativity (+10)

 Small group workshop draft: 1-3 revised pages (double-spaced)

o Used in class during small workshop (+5 participation points).

 Second draft: 2-4 revised pages (double-spaced)

o Submitted for feedback and a grade (+30).

Bonus! Poetry Collaboration Project with Art 176 (Digital Multimedia Design)

 We will participate in a collaboration with Prof. Shevchenko’s DMD students. We

will send them our poems, and they will have the challenge of interpreting them

into works of text-based art.

 Participation is voluntary but highly encouraged—it’s neat! And easy! Just email

your working draft to Prof. Ritt at [email protected] with the subject line "poetry

project". Don't forget to include the title of your poem. (Don’t forget to print a

regular copy to submit for a grade, as usual).

 Don’t worry about how someone else can interpret your work—that’s the artist’s

job. Your job is to write a poem that is meaningful and expressive (which you’re

already doing, anyway). They’ll figure out the rest.

 After the collaboration project, you may choose to purchase a print of the artist’s

interpretation of your poem! The cost is $6 per print (because of the cost to the Art

Department for the special paper). Details about obtaining a print will be given

later.