Contemporary Writers SOTA 2019-2020: November 2019

Friday, November 22, 2019

Poetry Cycle

AGENDA:

Work on poetry cycle---First draft DUE Tuesday

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

TEST---Rita Dove--Thomas and Beulah

AGENDA:

Test on Thomas and Beulah:
OPEN BOOK
This is to allow you to cite the names of poems and specific lines to support your claims!
Identifications (10 points each) should be at least 3 sentences long.
Indicate who or what the term is and relate it to the story of the poems as a whole. Why is it important or significant in Thomas and Beulah?

ESSAY (30 points)---Be sure to have a strong CLAIM and provide EVIDENCE (examples).
Explore themes such as marriage, racism in the 20th century, family, etc. or motifs and symbols.

COFFEEHOUSE READINGS TONIGHT! (Extra credit for attendance and participation)

WRITING: Your first draft of poetry cycle is DUE on TUESDAY next week

Monday, November 18, 2019

Rita Dove "Canary in Bloom"

AGENDA:

VIDEO: "Canary in Bloom"

WRITING: Work on Poetry Cycles

Scholastic entries?

TEST on WEDNESDAY: Thomas and Beulah

FRIDAY: Continue working on poetry cycles, First draft DUE TUESDAY 11/26

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Rita Dove/Coffeehouse/Scholastic

AGENDA:

Video: Thomas and Beulah

READ: Post comment on the blog
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2017/01/04/reading-rita-doves-thomas-and-beulah/

WRITING:

Work on your POETRY CYCLE (see previous post for assignment)

Work on your Scholastic contest entries

REMINDER: Coffeehouse--next Wed. 11/20 7 pm Extra credit for attendance and reading

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Rita Dove

AGENDA:

VIDEO: Thomas and Beulah--Mandolin section

The use of color is prominent in Thomas and Beulah. Choose one color -- yellow, blue, white, black, or silver, most obviously -- and trace its progression in a series of poems. How does the significance and use of the color shift and evolve? Or, alternately, how does it help to ground our understanding of Thomas, or Beulah, or their shared relationship?

Work and chores [labor] figure prominently throughout the poems in both sections; explore the role of labor in one or more poems from each section and how that defines Thomas and Beulah's lives, both apart from each other but also together.

Explore the themes of aging, illness, and/or death in one or more of any of the following poems: "The Stroke," "The Satisfaction Coal Company," "Thomas at the Wheel," "Recovery," "Nightmare," "Wingfoot Lake," "Company," "The Oriental Ballerina."

Look at the first poem in each of the two sections -- "The Event" in "I. Mandolin" and "Taking in Wash" in "II. Canary in Bloom" -- and explore the ways in which they inform our understanding of some or all the poems that follow.

Look at the last poem in each section -- "Thomas at the Wheel" in "I. Mandolin" and "The Oriental Ballerina" in "II. Taking in Wash" -- and consider the ways in which that poem operates as a crucial capstone for the poems that precede it in that section. [capstone= the final stroke, crowning achievement, culmination, acme, high point]

Explore the importance of music in Thomas's life in one or more of the poems in the first section of the book, "I. Mandolin."

In what ways do Thomas and Beulah's notions of their gendered identities limit them? [Or perhaps, free them?]

Consider Dove's treatment of racism in the collection as a whole. How does racism impact upon Thomas and Beulah's lives, and how does this shift over time?

Look at two poems that are in different sections but that come into direct contact with one another ["Courtship" and "Courtship, Diligence" is one example]. How do the two poems build upon and/or contradict each other? When read together, side by side, how do they change our understanding of each figure [Thomas and Beulah]?

Despire their more obvious differences, what connections do we see in the ways that Thomas and Beulah view their roles as parents, and why are these difference significant, in your opinion?

Consider the poems in the second section that look at Beulah's life in the 6 years between Thomas's death and her own. How would you characterize Beulah in this period?

WRITING: Begin working on your poetry cycle

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Poetry Cycle Assignment

Writing Assignment:

HMWK: Read the poems in "Mandolin"

Begin working on Poetry Cycle assignment:
Similar to Thomas and Beulah, consider some characters in your own life, or imagined characters, or actual historical characters. Imagine the significant chronological dates in their lives--high points and low points. consider how to construct a series of 8-10 (preferably more) poems that tell a story (narrative poetry) and explore these key moments and occasions.

a. Your poetry cycle should consist of 8-10 poems
b. Your poetry cycle should be accompanied by a chronology to support the key dates and occasions you chose to write about.
c. At least two of the poems should explore the same event from two different perspectives or viewpoints (like "Courtship" in Thomas and Beulah). These poems can have the same title.
d. Place one poem per page, single-spaced, 12 point type in a clean font and be sure to title each poem. you may want to title the entire cycle as well. Use italics for dialogue, songs, memories, etc as you observe in Rita Dove's work. Experiment with different stanzaic forms and poetic styles.
e. Poems can, of course, be narrative or lyric, but remember that the overall cycle is a narrative and must tell a story of a life or lives although we only see "fragments" or moments/snapshot

Rita Dove

Take notes about imagery and image patterns

Visit website:
VIDEO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7duHFUjieME

www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=6719

Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove
© Walter Benefield
Mar 9, 2001

Like snapshots in a photo album, Rita Dove’s award winning collection of poetry "Thomas and Beulah" provide glimpses into the lives of two people in love living together yet apart in an imperfect world. Dove mixes biographical, historical and social elements to create a journey of love, marriage, life and death in 1920's Middle America. Dove’s collection of narrative poems are based loosely on the lives her maternal grandparents.
The journey begins with Thomas in the poem entitled “The event.” Thomas and his friend Lem venture out of Tennessee onto a river boat "with nothing to boast of but good looks and a mandolin", which is a pear shaped stringed instrument. This departure by Thomas would eventually bring him to Akron, Ohio and Beulah.

The poem "Courtship" has Beulah on one "Fine evening...waiting-for what? A magnolia breeze, someone to trot out the stars?" Beulah meets Thomas. "Promises" a poem of marriage contains one of the most beautiful verses in the collection. "A deep breath, and she plunged through sunbeams and kisses, rice drumming the both of them blind." In that, most natural of processes after marriage comes children. "Variation on Guilt" shows Thomas the expecting father in a hospital waiting room less than pleased when "the doors fly apart...It's a girl, he can tell by that smirk." Thomas and Beulah in all have four children all girls.

Dove poetizes the emotional subject of sickness and death in several poems in the collection. In a more descriptive poem "Thomas at the wheel" shows Thomas in his car and eventually "he lay[s] down across the seat, a pod set to sea, a kiss unpuckering", having a heart attack. The poem "Company" is a tragic but fitting near end to the collection, Beulah leaves her dying husband this message, "listen: we were good, though we never believed it."

"Thomas and Beulah" is one personal history told from two perspectives and does not hold to a precise line of chronology and only the most rational of critics would protest; Dove the consummate artist creates her own order of things.

Delving into research before writing this review of "Thomas and Beulah" I unearthed some disturbing facts about this award winning collection of poetry.

Rita Dove received the Pulitzer Prize for this work in 1987. Many considered the eighties a time of upsurge in the popularity of poetry with increases in published works as proof. Despite the positive climate, the New York Times newspaper respected for its quality literary coverage never reviewed “Thomas and Beulah.” I only make light of these facts because there are other fine works like “Thomas and Beulah” that go unnoticed by those who are suppose to notice.