Making Waves

It's finally here! The podcasts are coming, the podcasts are coming!

For the next two weeks, students from my advanced poetry class will be presenting some information on poets our teacher considers contemporary. I am posting these presentations on the blog in order to try and create some discussion about what makes a writer contemporary and what each of these authors are working with in order to earn the title “contemporary author”. It’s more than just being alive and writing in the 21st century, contemporary poets are like those trend shoppers, always on the cutting edge of the next big thing.

This post will include a list of all the poets you are likely to hear about at the bottom. The students will also be assigning a writing exercise based on the author's work, which you can try at home and post as a comment on the blog. The best one will go up in a post as the winner!

The students will be talking about some complicated stuff, so for those readers unfamiliar with the ins and outs of poetry, I have a link here that will take you to a site that lists common poetic terms and their literary definitions.
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072405228/student_view0/poetic_glossary.html

In order to listen to the podcasts, just click the link that will be embedded in the post with the authors name as the title. So for example, if you want to hear about Sylvia Plath, click the link in the blog post titled Slyvia Plath.

Here is the list of authors most likely to appear in the post, one or two might not, it's up to the students. For more information about any one of the poets you see here, check out http://www.poetryfoundation.org/

Philip Levine, What Work IS (1994)
Detroit poet, working class roots, long lines, nearly no stanza breaks, based strongly in memory.

Sylvia Plath, Ariel (1963)
Book came out after her death, image – based, personal and mythological

Tony Hoagland, What Narcissism Means to Me (2003)
Recent major poet, Billy Collins-y, personal humor, more bite

Carolyn Forche, The Country Between Us (1981)
American poet trying to deal with political issues, observer in El Salvador during intense Civil War.

Yusef Komunyaaka, Neon Vernacular (1994)
Pulitzer Prize winner, centers on Vietnam experiences, blues/jazz American scene, almost surreal, tight, imagistic.

Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red (1998)
Fiction/poetry blend, everyday paired with the suddenly mythical, traces early life of winged hero

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A Coney Island of the Mind (1958)
So influential it’s worth knowing

Mary Oliver American Primitive (1984)
Break-though book, Pulitzer winner, observations-of-nature based poems but also human world dealings as well, intriguing.

W.S. Merwin, The Lice (1967)
THE “deep image” style book, close to Lorca, earth-bound and surreal

Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah (1986)
Sequencing evokes an era, personal portraits, inventive and true-to-life.

Billy Collins, Picnic, Lightening (1998)
Witty, deceptive, descriptive and natural, tongue-in-cheek and deeply felt.

Mark Doty, Source (2002)
Poems from the tiniest of observations

Jane Hirschfield, The Lives of the Heart
Deceptively simple, crisp imagery, very song-like.