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From the course by University of Pennsylvania

Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (“ModPo”)

184 ratings

University of Pennsylvania

Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (“ModPo”)

184 ratings

ModPo is a fast-paced introduction to modern and contemporary U.S. poetry, with an emphasis on experimental verse, from Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman to the present. Participants (who need no prior experience with poetry) will learn how to read poems that are supposedly "difficult." We encounter and discuss the poems one at a time. It's much easier than it seems! Join us and try it! Yes, the next live, interactive 10-week session of ModPo will begin on September 8, 2018, and will conclude on November 19, 2018. Al Filreis will be in touch with you by email before the September 8 start of the course with all the information you'll need to participate. If you have questions, you can email the ModPo team at modpo@writing.upenn.edu. During the 10 weeks of the course, you will be guided through poems, video discussions of each poem, and community discussions of each poem. And (unique among open online courses) we offer weekly, interactive live webcasts. Our famed TAs also offer office hours throughout the week. We help arrange meet-ups and in-site study groups. If you are curious about the ModPo team, type "ModPo YouTube introduction" into Google or your favorite search engine, and watch the 20-minute introductory video. You will get an overview of the course and will meet the brilliant TAs, who will be encountering the poems with you all the way to the end. If you use Facebook, join the always-thriving ModPo group: from inside Facebook, search for "Modern & Contemporary American Poetry" and then request to be added as a member. If you have any questions about ModPo, you can post a question to the FB group and you'll receive an almost instant reply. We tweet all year long at @ModPoPenn and you can also find ModPo colleagues using the hashtag #ModPoLive. ModPo is hosted by—and is housed at—the Kelly Writers House at 3805 Locust Walk on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia USA. All ModPo'ers are welcome to visit the Writers House when they are in our area. Our discussions are filmed there. Our live webcasts take place in the famed "Arts Cafe" of the House. To find out what's going on at the Writers House any time, just dial 215-746-POEM.

From the lesson

chapter 7 (week 6)—breaking conformity: the beats

<p><b>Week 6 starts at 9 AM (Philadelphia time) on Sunday, October 14, 2018, and ends at 9 AM on Sunday, October 21, 2018.</b>For those doing ModPo on their own or in small groups, the week 6 materials are open and available all year.</p><p>The so-called “New American Poetry” that emerged in the late 1940s and 1950s went in many directions; some trends, styles, and approaches overlapped, while some were (or seemed to be) more distinct and separable than others. The “Beat” poets were a fairly distinct community of writers, making it easier than it would be otherwise to study as a coherent movement their ecstatic, antic, apparently anti-poetic break with official verse culture. Our approach, in just one week, looks at two “classic” Beats (Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac) and then quickly moves off to adjacent figures. Robert Creeley was not a Beat poet, but his most famous poem engages poetic, psychological, and social matters with which Ginsberg, Kerouac, and the others were obsessed. Anne Waldman is an “outrider” poet and is more closely associated with the second generation of “New York School” poets (see chapter 8), but she was a dear friend of Ginsberg and learned a great deal from his political pedagogy. Amiri Baraka, as Leroi Jones, was a Beat poet for a few years and then broke away. The poem by Baraka that we study here gives us a chance to look back on Countee Cullen's traditionally formal poetic response to racist hatred. The prose-poem/manifesto by Baraka on how poets (should) sound extends a theme already important to this chapter: the primacy of sound (or music) as a form of freedom from linguistic convention. Jayne Cortez gives us a perfect example of this and permits us to suggest connections among the Beat aesthetic, Black Arts, the influences of jazz, and the emergence of “spoken word” performance. Our focus on Jack Kerouac in chapter 7 is a little unusual — he, of course, is known more as a novelist than a poet. But his “babble flow” has been a significant influence on contemporary poets, more than his narrative fictional stance as psycho-social itinerant. We will have occasion, then, to examine and question Kerouac’s — and implicitly, Ginsberg’s — claim to be writing naturally spontaneous language. Our chapter 9 poets for the most part doubt such a claim. </p><p><b>ASSIGNMENTS:</b> During this week there are two quizzes due (see below). There are no writing assignments due, nor peer reviews. There is a live webcast on Wednesday, October 17, at noon (Philadelphia time).</p5

watch video on the first section of Ginsberg's "Howl" (part 1)18:38

watch video on the first section of Ginsberg's "Howl" (part 2)13:41

watch video on Kerouac's ideas about prose19:08

watch video on these instances of Kerouac's "spontaneous prose"24:37

watch ModPo TAs debate spontaneity & first thought/best thought11:30

watch video: can we do a close reading of babble flow?6:52

watch video on Bob Kaufman's "Jail Poems"30:03

watch video on Creeley's "I Know a Man"14:18

watch video on Waldman’s “Rogue State”12:19

watch video on Baraka's "Incident"15:46

watch video on Baraka's "How You Sound??"25:52

watch video on Jayne Cortez's "She Got He Got"30:04

Meet the Instructors

Al Filreis
Kelly Professor, Dir. Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Faculty Dir. Kelly Writers House

>> So we are talking about Robert Creeley's very famous, much anthologized

poem, I Know a Man. And usually Creeley's associated with the

Black Mountain School of Poetry but Creeley was someone who really helped form

the community or as he put it, the company of, of New American Poets and crossing

communities. And in this poem he seems to have some

kind of relationship with, with the beat poetry.

And we just needed to do Creeley in this course, so we have Creeley.

It doesn't perfectly fit. For instance the lines are not long, for

one thing. Okay, so we have this poem and what,

what's happening? Is he, he unlike a lot of Creeley poems,

he's telling about something that was seen, here.

Molly what, where are we? >> I'm not sure where we are but he's

talking about a conversation that he had with a friend.

>> Mm-hm. But we do know where he is.

>> Well, I guess they are in a car. >> The two of them, there in a car, yeah.

They are driving somewhere. Okay.

Emily why do you like this poem so much? >> Maybe the laughter and that sort of

Harvard reading is sort of a little pretentious, but it is.

>> Oh, you're referring to one of the many recordings we have on PennSound of

creatively reading this poem and one of them is at Harvard.

>> Yes. I understand.

>> And the Harvard audience laughs at the end.

Why do you think they laugh? >> Well, because there's, there's

something of a punchline as this person, the way I read it is he's going on this

sort of existential, philosophical jag behind the wheel of this.

>> Who's he? >> The speaker of the poem.

>> All right. Mm-hm.

>> Yeah. And he's this sort of.

>> Who's he talking to? >> A man he either knows or doesn't know.

Someone he thinks he knows, but doesn't know that well.

>> So who's driving? >> The speaker of the poem.

>> The speaker. So presumably, John is in the passenger

seat. >> Yeah.

>> Or someone. >> John.

>> John as it were. Yeah.

>> Yeah. And.

>> Mm-hm. And what's the punchline?

>> The punchline is he's wondering what do we do in the, in the darkness?

What do we deploy against the, the sort of uncertainty and sadness, and?

>> Mm-hm. >> And he's sort of already deployed it,

hasn't he? He has the car, he's in the car, he's

driving. And sort of by asking those questions, he

incapacitates himself from actually fighting the answers.

>> Oh, you went, you went big right away. Why do you think they left?

>> Because we all sort of know someone like this, right?

It's who asks these questions but doesn't attend to, someone who has all the

philosophical parts, but none of the practical parts.

>> Mm-hm. >> Or he does but he forgets about it,

and. >> Mm hm.

>> He has to drive the car rather than just talk about the car.

>> So John, or whoever this other person is, is reminding him of what?

>> That he's alive. That he's a body.

That he exists in the world, rather than just in his mind.

>> Okay. Amaris, your thought on this?

>> I like the emotional intensity of it, and the uncertainty that Emily was talking

about. And I liked, also, the way each of the

ends of the line seems to turn, so that you have to.

Especially, like, because I am. And then, I am always talking.

>> Mm-hm. >> Seems sort of a qualifier for that.

>> So, Creeley, Creeley not only situates this on the page that demands your

attention in a William Carlos Williams sort of way.

But he also performs it with a great break, even if the grammar suggests.

Enjoyment, yeah? And so lets take an example.

As I said to my friend because I am always talking, what do the break suggest?

>> Modernism there is a relationship of ownership here that there is an exchange

going on between him and him his friend and revelation is perhaps defined by the

talking by that exchange in his expression.

>> Mh-hm, Mh-hm. Talking, I mean, one of the ways in which

this does fit in the conversation we're having about beat poetry is the talking,

the always talking. The yakety-yaketing of Ginsberg and his

friends crossing, particularly in the situation where they're crossing the

country back and forth. >> Not going anywhere but going somewhere

fast. Does that have anything in relation to

what Creeley is saying or may be even satirizing in this poem?

Max, any idea about that? I'm always talking.

>> It's, it reminded me a little bit of, actually, of the Cid Corman poem that we

read earlier. In that, he's just filling in this, this

space. Maybe even that's, the darkness that

surrounds him. What, you know, it's not about buying a

car. That's not the way that you sort of fight

that back, or rather, fill in that space. >> But in the Corman poem, he needs us.

>> He needs us. Here he.

>> I'm not so sure it's clear he needs John.

>> He might not even need John. He doesn't even know his name.

>> He doesn't even know his name. Molly, what's the relationship between the

speaker and this other person? And is this other person maybe a stand in

for us? I don't know.

>> I mean the other person is, is there but.

And is, is there to listen it seems but is not necessarily.

Like, on the same page as the speaker. And the other person, maybe he's a little

more grounded. You know, he's the one that.

This is why I think it, it is satirized at the end where the, the other person has to

say, look out where you're going. >> Satirizing what?

What position or what personality's being satirized?

>> Satirizing that incessantly talking that, that.

>> The chattering monkey thief, you know, on speed, talking existential talk.

>> Not so sure. >> Maybe we could put it differently?

>> Yeah, go ahead, Emily. >> So we had talked about Kerouac, and how

sort of the mantra or the doctrine of this people is to do, to just go without

hesitation, and so he's talking about it, and it seems like that sort of, that.

Command, just drive. Look out where you're going is telling him

to do and go rather than just talk about doing it.

>> Okay. So that's the beat position?

>> Wouldn't it be? Yeah.

>> Mm-hm. And so what's Creeley, what's the

speaker's position? >> Does he know his position yet?

Can we say that with. >> Well he asked the question, what can we

do against it? There seem to be two options.

Dave, popular what are, what are some of the options about what we can do against

it? >> I don't think that it's posed, because

there is an answer. I think that the poem is saying the beat

generation tries to make themselves receptive to everything by going so fast.

They're getting images quick, here and there.

And, he's so confused by it all. He wants to buy a big car, even though

he's reminded he's in a car. And, he's basically.

In the end saying, look out where you're going.

You, you, you're not seeing everything. >> Who's saying that?

>> Well, John is saying that but John is a common name to.

>> The passenger. >> John might be a stand in for you know,

the whole populace that Kerouac was talking to.

>> Okay, so we, we really do have some options here.

What can we do against it or else shall we?

Alright. First of all what can we do against it

before we consider whether we should do against it?

What can we do against it? What are the options in this poem?

>> It seems like the options to me are either talk or drive.

>> Talk or drive, right. And, can we abstract?

Talk or drive or what or what? >> Think or do.

>> Think or do. Mm-hm.

>> Which of the two does the poem as a poem ally itself.

With sorry, with which of the two does the poem ally itself?

>> I think speaking but in this very concentrated sense, right?

Driving allows, provides a space of enclosure and containment for these two

passengers. And it kind of forces them to converge on

their differences. >> How else does it align itself with

speaking? >> Its, its words.

>> Its words. It's a poem.

>> To what extent does it ally itself with driving?

I love this, nobody knows. >> Well, he's kind of, throughout the

entire, you realize in the last stanza when you have the voice of the passenger

kind of saying, you like. >> Reality, ma'am, we're in the car.

>> Yeah, You kind of, I mean, driving is such a, second hand action or it's

something that's so easy to kind of just do without thinking.

It's that you can go on auto, auto driver. >> I suppose.

Okay. >> And so it seems as if he's just kind of

on this auto drive mode and he has to have someone kind of like pull him out of it

and be like. >> So you're, the writing of the poem in

an auto drive mode suggests that it's more Kerouacian than Creeley.

>> But I don't, I mean yeah, it could mean that but I also.

>> Yeah, but I want to ask another question which is how, in what other way

is it possible for us to say that this poem aligns itself with driving as an

answer to what we can do against the darkness?

We've said, I think eloquently, how the poem aligns itself with talking as an

option, but to what extent does it align itself with driving?

>> Well I think like in driving there's a certain road that is provided and everyone

has to follow the lanes and the rules and the lines of that.

But here he provides swerves with his. >> Swerves.

>> With his line breaks. >> Yeah he sure does.

This thing is, this is how do you characterize the flow of this speech.

>> Characterize it. >> Yeah.

How, how, how do you describe it? It's.

>> Halting. >> It's halting.

It's in the, the way that Creeley famously performs it.

It's vulnerable. It's anxious.

>> I mean as where a lot of poets tend you know, when they have line breaks, but no

punctuation at the end of line breaks, a lot of times they'll flow.

Like if I had never heard Creeley I might say, as I said to my friend, because I'm

always talking. >> Right.

>> John as, you know. >> In fact William Carlos Williams

famously wrote this way, but read, as if he didn't do the lineation.

>> Okay. >> Creeley is very conscious, about part

of his affiliation with projective verse. >> Mm-hm.

>> Which we're not going to go into but, you know the, well, it's very important to

him to seek a form of the poem that does what it needs to do for the moment.

I guess I'm going to answer my own question.

This is the first time I think, in, in, in, in our knowing each other.

I really think it goes back to Clark Coolidge's quoting blacho on movement in

writing. I think this, this poem is driving, this

poem is driving. It's, it's, it's, it's following its

digressive thought. As I said to my friend, because I'm always

talking, he hasn't told us what he said to his friend before he tells us, because

he's always talking. And he starts over, John, I said but that

wasn't his name, which was not his name. He's, every step forward is, it leads to a

digression in some other way. He's clearly not driving forward.

>> The poem is doing that kind of writing and movement thing we've seen in Kerouac.

And that is a way in which this kind of writing, let's call it New American poetry

or let's just call it Beat Poetry for the minute, can be something we can do against

the darkness of the current, of current life, of American life, of how we feel.

>> Or even against, or even against talking.

I mean, if this poem was really talking. >> Then it would be something a little bit

more like Kerouac where it would be just like free association, then just like

talking and talking and talking. >> But I think I'm saying that I think

it's a lot like that. It just doesn't look that way.

But the other question is, so I've been asking what can we do against it and

whether you know, which talking or driving is something we can do against it the

darkness? But then he says, or else shall we, or

else shall we, or else shall we do something against it.

What's that option mean? Shall we even bother to do something

against it? Shall we drive into the darkness?

Shall we accept the existential crisis? And why not?

Do what? Why not what?

>> Either. >> Yes.

I know what it said. I know the poem says buy a god damn big

car but what does that mean, Amaris? >> I think it starts out with this very

simple you and I exchange going on but here it starts with a we that's going on

and an emphasis on looking out and looking at where you, where you can go together

once you've arrived at maybe some commonality.

>> Anybody else want to talk about the god damn big car?

Why not buy a god damn big car? What's he talking about now?

>> This seems to, the, the God damn big car seems to be this sort of bourgeois

suburban aspiration to, to start a family. You get your big car, you get your house.

>> It could be. >> So why not just, why not just sell-out?

>> It could mean that, it could mean that. >> Ford's, Ford's Cadillac like that

across. >> In other words maybe we should, maybe

the way, or it's a jalopy. It's a god damn big car that's, that, that

we paid $26 for. >> I feel like that's what he's already

driving right now. >> Yeah, maybe.

>> [laugh] >> He's talking about. >> But maybe, I tend to agree, nobody's

really concluded this for sure about this poem, which is much talked about.

Buy a god damn big car, one of the things we can do against the darkness is to sell

out, I think is what you're saying. And then it's at that point that the

passenger who is essentially know a cypher, just a, a passenger.

Says, you know, you're in this car now. We are here now as Emily was saying.

And you probably ought to drive it or the existential crisis is going to get a lot

worse. >> [laugh] >> Emily, final word?

Maybe you just want to repeat what you said at the beginning?

>> I think you said it well. It's, it's just touching.

It brings him from this place of abstraction to this place of sort of

concrete physical existence. And rather than that being confining or,

or scary or dark, it becomes some type of solace.

It answers this sort of, scary question that he asks himself.

Good, I'm going to give Molly the final word.

Why do you like this poem so much? >>, What has it do for you?

>> I like it because it incorporates that urge to talk, and to drive, and to go but

it also comes back to reality at the end. >> And you like the reality, coming back

to reality at the end? You're not, you're not really ready to.

>> [laugh] >> Hit the road? >> [laugh] I'm not sure where I am.

>> Okay. >> But I like to know that's there.

>> We'll, in another session, we'll talk about where you are.

>> [laugh] >> For now, I think we've done a good job on that.

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