Week TWO

Over the course of this week, I will send you comments on what you wrote for Week One. All the work will eventually get back to you, and you will have an opportunity to revise the work if only for practice; at times, I will require more than a week to get material back to you, so have patience.

But know that I look carefully at all your work and especially this first week's assignment to give you specific suggestions on how to make the prose stronger.

After Week One, you will write and revise for the duration of the term. So develop good habits in this regard from the beginning of the term. And keep an open mind.

You have this week four separate and short poetry assignments to complete; in addition, you will complete for the Discussion Board an exercise over simile and metaphor, over figurative language, the special skills, in fact, that all good writing requires. So begin to experiment, to take changes, and to have fun with language.

Send all assignments to me using the appropriate link--and please send all parts of your work in one document.

As always, feel free to share your work on Discussion Thread Three.

Assignments are due, as always, by this Sunday, September, at midnight.

Assignment 1:

Write Seven Haiku, making sure to utilize the correct form: Three lines with 5-7-5 syllable count.

You will find an interesting discussion about Haiku in Chapter Seven, "The Form of Poetry." Read over these pages, 122-125.

Part One of Assignment ONE

Part One of the assignment requires that you write four poems, one for each season of a particular part of Nebraska you know well; if you do not know a specific place in Nebraska, use a different location such as a favorite spot in Idaho by a garden, for example.

And, of course, feel free to use your imagination if the specific assignment moves you in, well, different directions.

Before the poems, indicate in a few sentences what you seek to accomplish in the four, what you write about. And aim for a connection among the four.

In your four poems, try to pick a specific place and consider all the changes that take place in a year--the more specific the focus, the more vivid the images. For example, focus on a specific object and work the sensory details discussed in Chapter Three, especially the Five Senses addressed as well in class notes.

In addition, limit the use of articles such as "an," "the," and "a," for you want to make considered use of all the syllables. In addition, use with great economy the verb "to be" (is, are, were, was) in its various manifestations.

Aim for the specific and the emphatic: use active, descriptive verbs.

Examples of effective Haiku abound.

Check out, for example, these web sites:

This particular site offers some excellent advice and provides a rich array of examples of Haiku poetry from some of the world's great practitioners of the genre and of people who send in examples for publication.

And this site offers some wonderful examples and hints about writing all manner of Haiku, in particular "Visual Haiku," which is also part of your assignment.

Remember that haiku have a form, with a specific syllable count; in addition, you might begin the individual poem with a vivid image and then work from there--use the last line for dramatic effect if you can, moving to a different sense or a reaction to what precedes.

Avoid for the most part haiku that include a three line sentence.

 

Aim, too, for variety.

Part Two of Assignment ONE:

This section asks that you create TWO Haiku (more if the spirit moves you) based on two of these photographs.

Go to the site and look at the nature-bound photographs, which you can download and upload to the discussion board; note before your poem which photograph you utilize--you can also provide a hyperlink to the image.

(We will use this site again next week for a different kind of poem; I might add some new images.)

Remember to work the senses.

Part Three of Assignment ONE:

Well, in my discussion of the seven senses, I list the usual five senses you want to employ in all your writing to make the images and the thoughts all the more vivid.

In addition to the traditional senses--sight, touch, sound, taste, and smell-- you need to use common sense to ensure that you connect with your readers.

That is to say, use your imagination but aim for truth even in fiction.

And why not play with a Sense of Humor?

Read about Honku and try your hand at ridding yourself of road rage by composing a Haiku--writing for anger management, to be sure.

Here the originator of the genre describes what you want to write this week:

A "honku" is a haiku poem about cars and traffic.

Haiku is a traditional Japanese form of poetry. As it's typically written in English, a haiku consists of three lines written in a 5-7-5 format, totaling 17 syllables. A good haiku is subtle. It makes a simple and direct observation of something in nature, often leading the reader to a larger observation about the world as a whole.

Below is a classic haiku by the Japanese master, Basho. I believe this may be the world's first honku:

This road -
no one goes down it,
autumn evening.

The 17th century Japanese poets who began writing haiku found inspiration in the details of their immediate surroundings - the mountains and streams, the plants and creatures, the changing of the seasons. Similarly, the 21st century Brooklyn poets who began writing honku closely observed the flora, fauna and phenomena of their natural environment - the Mountaineers, Explorers and Escalades, the horn blasts of impatient cabbies, the wail of the 3:00 a.m. car alarm. Basho would have had a field day with this stuff.

Anyone can write a honku. Anything that drives you crazy while in or around cars, traffic, and the American motoring experience is fodder for a honku.

Honku is a road rage anger management technique. The next time some jerk cuts you off or steals your parking spot, rather than succumbing to the rage, take a step back. Separate yourself from the moment and try to observe it with clarity and perspective. Then boil it all down into crisp and pithy 5-7-5 gem. That's a honku.

So now try your own Honku--choose a situation in which you experienced some of the feelings "relived" in the Honku on Aron Naparstek's site from which the preceding information comes.

Assignment TWO:

Read William Carlos William's poem, "This is Just to Say," on Page 68.

Note how he begins with the central idea and image, that plum.

You can imitate this poem; apologize indirectly for your food piracy or use a related angle, from a broken window to a curse word-- but rely on implication, which elicits greater, dramatic impact than a direct telling.

Or go to Page 70 and complete #2 under "Writing for Ideas and Practice 4.2."

You can move, as the poetry indicates, in a number of different directions.

 

But remember to present details and make reference to senses other than sight. Experiment, too, with figural language: from metaphor to personification.

Again, you can also mimic William's poem, in which case, do not say directly the truth of the matter. Instead, as previously suggested, use implication.

In other words, how do you know that Williams enjoyed the plum? You can have a lot of fun with this particular assignment.

Try to begin your poem with a specific image of no small importance for your poem, that plum.

Assignment Three

On Page 85, complete assignment #1 in "Writing for Ideas and Practice," 4-8.

Reread what the text has to say about symbols and see what you can do with writing a poem of at least six or seven lines about one of the objects listed--or an object of your choice will do just fine.

Take your time with this part of the assignment and put into practice what you learned from the previous writing assignments: experiment with at least one simile and attack the senses, bringing these specific images alive with special significance.

As the text indicates, you need not be profound; however, aim for something a bit more sophisticated than what the text discusses. But do not aim for something very "heavy," for you want to communicate a feeling in the poem. Thus, for example, the door might symbolize anger at feeling alienated; ivy can inspire; and a leaf can give you pause for wonder.

In other words, choose an object of some specific meaning to you, from your grandmother's old chair to the scarf you remember as a child. And steer clear of abstractions.

Each of the objects has the potential to serve as a symbol for a universe of ideas--but begin with your own experience to make the object real.

This poem takes some thought, so remember that you describe an object to register an emotion--emotions are abstract, so use words of description with an object that signifies or connotes the emotion, love for an absent person by describing a warn hat, for example.

And distance yourself enough so that others can appreciate connections you make.

My experience with this class suggests that this poem gives people the greatest problems, and I thought about omitting the assignment this year--instead, I lifted the requirement that you use one of the objects mentioned in the text. Use the text, then, as a point of departure and experiment.

Consider that you write about an object and that you attempt to give that object emotional value, so narrow the focus.

When you pick one of the objects in the text or of your choice, imagine a specific context that brings the object alive for you, a specific door to your bedroom, for example, or the memory of ivy on your Uncle Pete's house.

But do not get caught up in the actual, for you write fiction.

Try to avoid the overly sentimental--and use your imagination.

Assignment Four:

Getting in the habit of using figurative language takes some doing.

This assignment will give you some inspired practice-- and then experiment with using this language, the writers wonderful tools, in your more formal work.

For the previous assignments, for example, you should attempt, as an excellent revision strategy, to include in the appropriate places both metaphors and similes.

Here you should have fun.

Go to Page 77 and complete Exercise #3 under "Writing for Ideas and Practice" 4-5.

Next, go to "Writing for Ideas and Practice 4-6 and complete Exercise #1. This time you will use metaphors.

You will write two humorous poems or prose descriptions based on the two exercises.

Make the exercise fun.

A. Create a self-portrait using similes. Finish the following sentences--add items as you like--as if you were painting a picture--but not realistically, so have some darn fun: imaginatively, figuratively.

a. My toes are like.....

b. My nose is like....

c. My hair is like....

d. My voice is like....

Now and again, in addition, substitute "is like" for an active verb: reminds me of, resembles, feels like, sounds like, smells like etc.

B. Create another self-portrait, this time using metaphors. Finish the following sentences to create a picture of yourself. Feel free to arrange the tenor and the vehicle in any way you wish. Your vehicle could be an noun which comes after the verb or before a prepositional phrase, or it could be the object of the preposition as well, referring to the tenor. Your verbs could be metaphorical as well. And you can add items.

a. My mouth

b. My toes

c. My ears

d. My eyes

Remember to have fun! And that you can create a prose description as well.

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Last Modified: 08/28/2011