Last semester was a tough one for me – taking required linguistics and lit. theory classes at the same time. Both classes were interesting and the profs were fantastic, but they still felt a bit like foreign languages to me, like I was just barely keeping my head above water all semester. I was also taking a poetry workshop, but felt like my writing kind of got the shaft in the midst of that heady stuff.
Because I’m teaching this summer, I also need to be registered for a class. Thankfully, I’ve signed on to an independent study with my prof Nancy Eimers where I’ll simply be reading and writing poetry. I’m focusing on the way various poets work with questions of “place,” and writing some influence poems based on what I see happening in their work.
I’m starting with David Baker’s Midwest Eclogue and Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s Orchard. Then moving along to Adam Zagejewski’s New and Selected, Jimmy Santiago Baca’s Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande, Campbell McGrath’s Florida Poems, C.D. Wright’s Deep Step Coming Shining, and James McMichael’s Four Good Things. Any suggestions?
3 Comments
May 7, 2008 at 12:14 pm
BH Fairchild’s Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest and Ron Rash’s Raising the Dead are both really good for place.
May 8, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Check out Cecily Parks’ Field Folly Snow.
May 8, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Thanks for the thoughts! I’ll check ‘em out.