How perfectly timed is this post! Just yesterday, while spending 7 hours cooped up in the house with my five-year-old granddaughter, I started reading her poetry. She ignored me at first, and then, suddenly, was caught. How I love Creeley's poem, too. And you. xo
Hi Valerie, encourage your granddaughter. I started writing poetry at age 5. I now have work in over 60 publications and two chapbooks due out next year. I'm also working on a novel. I met Laura through ModPo.
If Coursera ever wants someone to teach a course on the so-called "Sex and Shopping" novels of the 1980s, I am the person for the job. Better yet, a class on Jacqueline Susann.
Love this and also I ALWAYS get recognized at the liquor store. Usually when I'm doing some insane ritual, like deciding to drink champagne every day for the last two weeks of the year.
I was late to Ali's Office Hrs this morning, and plus I didn't anticipate your presence. Tx to your tip, I enrolled for this year's Symposium session... ModPo has been...More. .... A lot. I have never engaged in close reading of poems before, or in discussions of metapoems, but here I am, trying my best to concentrate and read, and show up at some office hrs, the Kelly House livestream, the 20 minute 2013 "smart cookies" TA videos, I did first assignment only . How is this all free? And How is it possible to spend as little as 2 hours a week on all this? Anyway, there's a video on ModPo about whether the class overanalyzes poems... Not my problem, I think ,my Rookie sin is to find that I've underanalyzed them,.,.or the "it" or "this" or "here." I will re-read your post here about your rookie season....
Two hours a week is so funny, I spend at least 8 hours, not counting office hours! My first time through, I was nervous to admit how dumb I was, now I embrace it and when you listen to some of the Poem Talks (high recommend the one on O'Hara) and the big vocabulary comes out, you realize how much knowledge there is to acquire and how many years these people have spent acquiring that knowledge and then suddenly there is something glorious in being so dumb.
Just re-read your Nov. post. I too laughed at Koch, and when I read about how he stood on the desks at Columbia U while teaching poetry there for 40 years...I said, that's the way I want to attach myself to This. I'm going to post something about O'Hara in Discussion Group now. I've looked at Week 10 readings, if only to make sure that ModPo readings include living poets (aside from Rae A), those writing amidst these times, & the names of the poets in Week 10 are unknown to me so that's good. (I'll ask Al why no Jane Hirshfield). I understand why people take This as many as 10 times, and I'll add Poem Talks, tx.....
... But many of the poems, even after the ModPo close read and listening to discussions with different interpretations at Livestream and office hrs, just don't make a strong connect (like Koch did). I'll assume the ever=growing collection of poems in ModPo Plus have been your reading staple in Year 2....
Suzanne, I think this came up in an office hours where you were not in attendance, but -- I had no fear of writing. I was terribly afraid that I wouldn't find the right tone in critique, that my words would feel harsh, which is so NOT ModPo.
You're right; I wasn't there for that discussion... ModPo isn't harsh, except for the participants! I didn't worry about tone in the essays I wrote, but I was a bit petrified about tone when leaving feedback for others! Not in terms of being harsh, but in terms of being appropriately engaged and attentive to others' efforts.
I think/hope I will return. I have designed a very low-key weekly poetry program using the Poem Talk archives. And I think that learning to go one-on-one with poetry for nine months is an essential part of ModPo?
AHHH of COURSE I'm going to love a newsletter in which ModPo gets some love and you mentioned so many good poets--and then you say some of your favorite people are poets, and I click the link and it's ME, tra la, tra la,, this is me singing in joy.
I took "Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets" on Coursera in their early years, and absolutely loved it. Haven't had as fine an experience with the platform since then, but maybe I'll try ModPo, it sounds wonderful and timely for me.
I've kept this quote from an excellent NY Times interview, about 10 years ago, with poet Ellen Bass, on the purpose of poetry in a precarious and often violent world: "Most of us recognize our world’s at a tipping point right now. People are suffering, the environment is being destroyed, species are going extinct. And then there’s climate change. We could go on and on. I really don’t know what poetry can do. Can it save the earth? Or the girls abducted in Nigeria? That would be asking some heavy lifting of poetry. But it can do what it has always done. It can be a way to come into actual contact with reality, a way not to turn away. The Russian literary theorist Viktor Shklovsky said, “To make a stone stony: that is the purpose of art.” Being fully present for our most intense experiences is a great challenge, but there is a depth of living that comes from that presence that is, perhaps, the only true consolation and the source of meaningful action."
I endorse ModPo as a way of exploring what poetry can do -- although it is _explicitly_ political in some weeks, I think it is implicitly political throughout. Or, perhaps more precisely, always interested in the political-social realities.
Laura, I loved reading this post and had to stop numerous times to crack up. I love seeing your sense of humor come through. I’m honored by the mention and so happy we ended up choosing the same day to visit. As for lasting effect, I feel like the course has reinvigorated my creative spirit. I feel certain, just by the way you wrote about it, that the experience will have a lasting positive effect of your writing, and your general happiness, as well. Now, you can always find the poetic beauty, even if you’re just looking at a urinal. Also, congratulations on the Time list! I think it’s amazing when living authors, especially ones still working and growing, are recognized on greatness lists with late, classic writers. It really puts your talent in perspective. Take care and keep in touch!
I do feel as if I have all these cousins-in-poetry now. It's going to be so strange not to go to Dave's office hours Monday night (or Ali's on most Fridays). And I honestly feel as if I need Coursera progress bar for everything in my life.
You wer e in my town, even in West Philly. and I never knewr? That ModPo class sounds like one of the first ones I took in grad school, but turbo-charged.
The advantage of aiming for the certificate is that it made me write the essays, which I found valuable and rewarding. I will plan on writing again next year if the prompts are new, and yes, I do plan to return!
ModPo, that glorious Frankenstein of a course that I could not stop blabbing about, took many, many more hours than I anticipated. That's never happened to me before- not in Coursera, nor college, nor grad school. My time management skills weren't bad before, but I've had to take them up a notch. And of course, Twitter's implosion really did help.
Funny about the progress bar- I ignored it as I found for one thing, it had no idea how may hours getting through a ModPo week actually took! Plus it told me in week 2 that the quiz I passed made it absurdly likely I would complete the course. Week 2!
I didn't realize Aiden and you were rookies until the end. I thought there were no other rookies. Did you feel the same way?
How perfectly timed is this post! Just yesterday, while spending 7 hours cooped up in the house with my five-year-old granddaughter, I started reading her poetry. She ignored me at first, and then, suddenly, was caught. How I love Creeley's poem, too. And you. xo
I am devastated that I cannot figure out how to post my favorite screenshot here, the two showgirls from White Christmas saying: Mutual, I'm sure.
I get it anyway! xo
Hi Valerie, encourage your granddaughter. I started writing poetry at age 5. I now have work in over 60 publications and two chapbooks due out next year. I'm also working on a novel. I met Laura through ModPo.
It’s still astonishing to me how much I remember of Scruples all these years later. Thanks for making me feel a little less embarrassed about it.
If Coursera ever wants someone to teach a course on the so-called "Sex and Shopping" novels of the 1980s, I am the person for the job. Better yet, a class on Jacqueline Susann.
Love this and also I ALWAYS get recognized at the liquor store. Usually when I'm doing some insane ritual, like deciding to drink champagne every day for the last two weeks of the year.
Drinking champagne every day -- at anytime, not just the last two weeks of the year -- sounds like an eminently worthy goal!
Fair! I might have to do this again this year.
I was late to Ali's Office Hrs this morning, and plus I didn't anticipate your presence. Tx to your tip, I enrolled for this year's Symposium session... ModPo has been...More. .... A lot. I have never engaged in close reading of poems before, or in discussions of metapoems, but here I am, trying my best to concentrate and read, and show up at some office hrs, the Kelly House livestream, the 20 minute 2013 "smart cookies" TA videos, I did first assignment only . How is this all free? And How is it possible to spend as little as 2 hours a week on all this? Anyway, there's a video on ModPo about whether the class overanalyzes poems... Not my problem, I think ,my Rookie sin is to find that I've underanalyzed them,.,.or the "it" or "this" or "here." I will re-read your post here about your rookie season....
Two hours a week is so funny, I spend at least 8 hours, not counting office hours! My first time through, I was nervous to admit how dumb I was, now I embrace it and when you listen to some of the Poem Talks (high recommend the one on O'Hara) and the big vocabulary comes out, you realize how much knowledge there is to acquire and how many years these people have spent acquiring that knowledge and then suddenly there is something glorious in being so dumb.
Just re-read your Nov. post. I too laughed at Koch, and when I read about how he stood on the desks at Columbia U while teaching poetry there for 40 years...I said, that's the way I want to attach myself to This. I'm going to post something about O'Hara in Discussion Group now. I've looked at Week 10 readings, if only to make sure that ModPo readings include living poets (aside from Rae A), those writing amidst these times, & the names of the poets in Week 10 are unknown to me so that's good. (I'll ask Al why no Jane Hirshfield). I understand why people take This as many as 10 times, and I'll add Poem Talks, tx.....
... But many of the poems, even after the ModPo close read and listening to discussions with different interpretations at Livestream and office hrs, just don't make a strong connect (like Koch did). I'll assume the ever=growing collection of poems in ModPo Plus have been your reading staple in Year 2....
The advantage of trying for a certificate is that it forces you to write the essays! Let's return next year!
And it was much more time-intensive than I expected. Much, much more...
Suzanne, I think this came up in an office hours where you were not in attendance, but -- I had no fear of writing. I was terribly afraid that I wouldn't find the right tone in critique, that my words would feel harsh, which is so NOT ModPo.
You're right; I wasn't there for that discussion... ModPo isn't harsh, except for the participants! I didn't worry about tone in the essays I wrote, but I was a bit petrified about tone when leaving feedback for others! Not in terms of being harsh, but in terms of being appropriately engaged and attentive to others' efforts.
My goodness Laura! I think you will return to ModPo, and I find nothing wrong with that nickname! I'll wear my pumpkin hat just for you.
Mona
Mona! Mona!
I think/hope I will return. I have designed a very low-key weekly poetry program using the Poem Talk archives. And I think that learning to go one-on-one with poetry for nine months is an essential part of ModPo?
AHHH of COURSE I'm going to love a newsletter in which ModPo gets some love and you mentioned so many good poets--and then you say some of your favorite people are poets, and I click the link and it's ME, tra la, tra la,, this is me singing in joy.
Darling, who else could it be?
I took "Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets" on Coursera in their early years, and absolutely loved it. Haven't had as fine an experience with the platform since then, but maybe I'll try ModPo, it sounds wonderful and timely for me.
I've kept this quote from an excellent NY Times interview, about 10 years ago, with poet Ellen Bass, on the purpose of poetry in a precarious and often violent world: "Most of us recognize our world’s at a tipping point right now. People are suffering, the environment is being destroyed, species are going extinct. And then there’s climate change. We could go on and on. I really don’t know what poetry can do. Can it save the earth? Or the girls abducted in Nigeria? That would be asking some heavy lifting of poetry. But it can do what it has always done. It can be a way to come into actual contact with reality, a way not to turn away. The Russian literary theorist Viktor Shklovsky said, “To make a stone stony: that is the purpose of art.” Being fully present for our most intense experiences is a great challenge, but there is a depth of living that comes from that presence that is, perhaps, the only true consolation and the source of meaningful action."
I endorse ModPo as a way of exploring what poetry can do -- although it is _explicitly_ political in some weeks, I think it is implicitly political throughout. Or, perhaps more precisely, always interested in the political-social realities.
I have no problem with that at all and it sounds right up my alley. Thank you for a great newsletter.
Laura, I loved reading this post and had to stop numerous times to crack up. I love seeing your sense of humor come through. I’m honored by the mention and so happy we ended up choosing the same day to visit. As for lasting effect, I feel like the course has reinvigorated my creative spirit. I feel certain, just by the way you wrote about it, that the experience will have a lasting positive effect of your writing, and your general happiness, as well. Now, you can always find the poetic beauty, even if you’re just looking at a urinal. Also, congratulations on the Time list! I think it’s amazing when living authors, especially ones still working and growing, are recognized on greatness lists with late, classic writers. It really puts your talent in perspective. Take care and keep in touch!
I do feel as if I have all these cousins-in-poetry now. It's going to be so strange not to go to Dave's office hours Monday night (or Ali's on most Fridays). And I honestly feel as if I need Coursera progress bar for everything in my life.
Thank you for this.
Baby steps. The key to happiness. IYKYK
You wer e in my town, even in West Philly. and I never knewr? That ModPo class sounds like one of the first ones I took in grad school, but turbo-charged.
So sorry to have missed you!
It was a very fast in-and-out -- arrived at 11 a.m., left by 2:30 p.m.
The to-from travel took you longer than t he session, almost!
Lemme know if you come back this way? Would love to feed you, and talk abt our doppelganger cities.
"I Know a Man" and "Love Comes Quietly" are two of the best poems ever written.
Going to Google "Love Comes Quietly"!
I didn't know what IYKYK meant. thanks for telling me.
Apologies if this is a duplicate post...
The advantage of aiming for the certificate is that it made me write the essays, which I found valuable and rewarding. I will plan on writing again next year if the prompts are new, and yes, I do plan to return!
ModPo, that glorious Frankenstein of a course that I could not stop blabbing about, took many, many more hours than I anticipated. That's never happened to me before- not in Coursera, nor college, nor grad school. My time management skills weren't bad before, but I've had to take them up a notch. And of course, Twitter's implosion really did help.
Funny about the progress bar- I ignored it as I found for one thing, it had no idea how may hours getting through a ModPo week actually took! Plus it told me in week 2 that the quiz I passed made it absurdly likely I would complete the course. Week 2!
I didn't realize Aiden and you were rookies until the end. I thought there were no other rookies. Did you feel the same way?
Lost my other comment BUT I’m signed up for all the SloPo January through April AND Global Study Group AND European Timezone group!