EN 5213    THE NEW POETRY

Barnard Turner & Rajeev S Patke

 

 

Course Description

 

This year this module will set itself two different but complementary goals in its discussion of contemporary (post-1962) Anglo/North American as well as Irish poetry in English: an examination of the content and methods of selection of two leading, and widely-available poetry anthologies, beginning with A. Alvarez’s The New Poetry, which introduced a whole new generation of controversial American poets to England and in a sense contributed to that climate of opinion which is now generically known as “the Sixties” there; and The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (1990), which confirmed that region as a leading force in contemporary poetry in English.  These two themes—the personal and the geopolitical—and their negotiations of centres and margins will be central to the other writers considered in more detail, including the Irishman Paul Muldoon, the Canadian Al Purdy, and the Scotsman Edwin Morgan; the interlacing of the personal and the political is also traced in the work of leading  American poet Adrienne Rich.

 

 

 

READING LIST

PRIMARY TEXTS

 A. Alvarez (ed)             Penguin Book of New Poetry (1962; Penguin 1992)

ISBN: 0140585656

 Peter Fallon &

 Derek Mahon (eds.)      The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (Penguin, 1990)

ISBN: 0140586091

 Edwin Morgan              New Selected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet, 2000)

ISBN: 1857544595

 Paul Muldoon                New and Selected Poems 1968-1994 (Faber 1996)

ISBN: 0571177840

 Al Purdy                       Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets: Selected Poems 1962-1996  (Vancouver: Harbour, 1996)

ISBN: 1550171488

 Adrienne Rich               Adrienne Rich’s Poetry and Prose (New York: Norton, 1993), eds. Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi and Albert Gelpi.

                                    ISBN: 0393961478

 

 

 

SECONDARY READING

 General

 Davie, Donald               Under Briggflatts: A History of Poetry in Great Britain 1960-1988 (1989)

 Heaney, Seamus           The Redress of Poetry (1995)

 Larkin, Philip                 Required Writing (1983)

 Mole, John                    Passing Judgements: Poetry in the Eighties (1989)

 Muldoon, Paul (ed.)      The Faber Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (1986)

 Schmidt, Michael          Reading Modern Poetry (1989)

 Thwaite, Anthony          Poetry Today: A Critical guide to British Poetry 1960-1995 (1996)

 On/By Poets

 Corcoran, Neil (ed.)      The Chosen Ground: Essays on the Contemporary Poetry of Northern Ireland (1992)

 Crawford, Robert &

 Hamish Whyte (eds.)    About Edwin Morgan (1990)

 Kenneally, Michael       Poetry in Contemporary Irish Literature (1994)

 Morgan, Edwin             Nothing Not Giving Messages: Reflections on His Work and Life (1990)

 Purdy, Al                      Starting from Ameliasburgh: Collected Prose (1995)

  Solecki, Sam                 The Last Canadian Poet: An Essay on Al Purdy (1999)

 (For Rich, Adrienne)    (Students should start with the essays in the back of the Norton edition of her poems used for this module.)

  

 

 

Continuous Assessment

Students will write TWO short papers, on specific, precise topics. Essays must be about 1000 words AND NO LONGER.  Students will also give one short (10 min.) presentation, and there will be a 2-hour final exam.

 

 

 

Time-table: 2000/2001, Semester 2 


  Tuesdays 6-8, Video Room 1 

 Week 1 Jan 9 Introduction (BT/RSP)
 Week 2 Jan 16 Alvarez (ed), Penguin Book of New Poetry (BT)
 Week 3 Jan 23 Alvarez (ed), Penguin Book of New Poetry (BT) 
 Week 4 Jan 30 Fallon/Mahon (eds), The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (RSP) 
 Week 5 Feb 6 Fallon/Mahon (eds), The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (RSP) 
 Week 6 Feb 13 Al Purdy Rooms, Selected Poems 1962-1996 (BT)

 Week 7 Feb 20 FEBRUARY 20-27 MID-SEMESTER BREAK

 Week 8 Feb 27 Al Purdy Rooms, Selected Poems 1962-1996 (BT)
 Week 9 March 6 Paul Muldoon, New Selected Poems (Hariraya holiday: Makeup TBA) (RSP) 
 Week 10 March 13 Paul Muldoon, New Selected Poems (RSP)
 Week 11 March 20 Edwin Morgan, New Selected Poems (BT)
 Week 12 March 27 Edwin Morgan, New Selected Poems (BT)
 Week 13 April 6 Adrienne Rich, Poetry and Prose (RSP)
 Week 14 April 10 Adrienne Rich, Poetry and Prose (RSP) 


 Assessment: 40% CA = 2 papers, presentation & participation, 60% = final exam. 

 

 

 

 

POETS FOR CLOSE READING

from

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF CONTEMPORARY IRISH POETRY 

  Week 4  Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley

  Week 5  Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, Tom Paulin, Medbh McGuckian 

  Weeks 9/10 Paul Muldoon

  NEW WEATHER (1973):  The Electric Orchard , The Upriver Incident, The Field 

   Hospital, The Year of the Sloes, for Ishi

  MULES (1977):  Lunch with Pancho Villa , Our Lady of Ardboe, The Bearded Woman, 

  by Ribera, Mules

  WHY BROWNLEE LEFT (1980): The Boundary Commission , The Weepies, Anseo,  

  Promises, Promises , Immrama

  QUOOF (1983): Gathering Mushrooms , The Right Arm, The Frog, The More a Man 

  Has the More a Man Wants

  MEETING THE BRITISH (1987): The Lass of Aughrim , Sushi, Salvador

  MADOC: A MYSTERY (1990): The Briefcase

  SHINING BROW (1993): The Reporter’s Quartet

  THE PRINCE OF THE QUOTIDIAN (1994): Only a few weeks ago…

  I look out the window…

  THE ANNALS OF CHILE (1994):  Milkweed and Monarch , Incantata

 

 

 

WEB LINKS for IRISH POETRY

 

 

 

IRISH POETRY PAGE

 

 

LAST UPDATED  9 March 2001

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