Reading Schedule
Canadian Literature in English Texts and Contexts, Volume 2, Eds. Sugars and Moss (CLC)
How to Read (and Write About) Poetry by Susan Holbrook (Holbrook)
All work listed for a given class (readings, discussion, homework, exercises) much be completed by that class. Typically, in Thursday’s class we’ll continue on from discussions started during Tuesday’s class.
You have three kinds of written assignments this term: a short talk, close reading, a research paper. Read Holbrook to understand close reading and research as well as key terms to gain some preliminary understanding of how to write critically about poetry. We’ll discuss all of this in class.
Class Proceedings Homework (to be read/written on date listed)
Week 1 January 4-8
Course Introduction: Poetries
Jan 7
Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
Birth Poem by Lillian Allen
Christian Bök reads from Chapter I, Eunoia, text can be found on page 671 of your anthology
Caroline Bergvall reads from “Summer Tale”
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Bergvall.php
Week 2 Jan 11-15
Lecture on Canadian Poetries #1
Indigeneity, Nation-Making, Empire
Jan 14
“A Sea Chant” Inuit poem translated by Danish Anthropologist Knud Rasmussen
Inuit throat singing
“A Cry from an Indian Wife” by Pauline Johnson (handout)
Return to “A Cry from An Indian Wife” by Pauline Johnson
Week 3 January 18-22
Lecture on Canadian Poetries #2
Enduring Colonial Mythologies, Resistances and Postmodern Experiments
“Helpless” by Neil Young (handout)
“Sandra Lee Scheuer” by Gary Geddes (handout)
“Dark Pines Under Water” by Gwendolyn MacEwen (handout)
for postmodern experiments, return to Bök + Bergvall
Jan 21
“Jacob” by Maria Campbell
Essay: Read “Sad Anthropologists: the Dialectical Use of Tone” by Tony Hoagland (handout) + questions
Week 4 January 25-29
Catch up
Read Holbrook, Intro and Discussions One + Two
*You must read Holbrook’s text, How to Read and Write About Poetry, from pages 123-152.
Week 5 February 1-5
First Close Reading Due Feb. 4: One Page
Earle Birney
Readings:
Introduction: Making it New in Canada, page 1 (anthology)
“Anglosaxon Street”
“Canada: Case History: 1945”
“Can Lit”
“Bushed”
“i accuse us”
“Canada: Case History: 1973”
Week 6 February 8-12
Dorothy Livesay
Readings:
Holbrook Discussions 3 + 4
“Day and Night”
“The Three Emily’s”
“The Unquiet Bed”
Week 7 February 15-19 BREAK
Readings:
*You must re-read Holbrook’s text, How to Read and Write About Poetry, from pages 123-152.
Read Holbrook discussions 5 + 6
Week 8 February 22-26
Short Talks DUE (5 min recitation + short, critical talk)
Week 9 February 29-March 4
Al Purdy
Readings:
Read Holbrook’s Discussion 7 + 8
Introduction: Nationalists, Intellectuals and Iconoclasts, 213
Frye, Conclusion to Literary History of Canada, 253
“The Country North of Belleville”
“At the Quinte Hotel” (on-line)
“Lament for the Dorsets”
“Piling Blood” (on-line)
“Home Thoughts”
Week 10 March 7-11
Cohen/Ondaatje
Readings:
Read Holbrook’s Discussions 9 + 10
How to Write a Research Paper
From Survival” A Thematic Guide to Can Lit, 446
“The Only Tourist in Havana Turns His Thoughts Homeward”
“Hallejuah” (on-line)
“Suzanne Takes You Down”
“How to Speak Poetry”
Ondaatje “Letters & Other Worlds”
“The Cinnamon Peeler”
Week 11 March 14-18
Don McKay
Readings:
Read Holbrook’s Brief Discussion of Meter, pages 111-122
Introduction: The Local, The National, and the Global, 517
Lee, from Cadence, Country, Silence: Writing in Colonial Space, 470
From “Baler Twine: thoughts on ravens, home, and nature poetry”
“Sometimes a Voice (1)”
“Song for the Song of the Wood Thrush”
“Load”
Week 12 March 21-25
M. NourbeSe Philip
Research Paper Due
Readings:
“Meditations on the Declension of Beauty by the Girl with the Flying Cheek-bones”
“Discourse on the Logic of Language”
Week 13 March 28-April 1
Anne Carson
Readings:
“Short Talk on Sunday Dinner with Father”
“Short Talk on My Task”
“Short Talk on Major and Minor”
“Father’s Old Blue Cardigan”
“Audubon”
Week 14 April 4-8
Marilyn Dumont
Readings:
“The White Judges”
“Letter to Sir John A Macdonald”
“Circle the Wagons”
“my life, a sweet berry”
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