Schedule+of+Readings+and+Assignments

**Week One: The State of Contemporary Poetry**
__T 9/13__ Introduction to the Course What Is a Good Poem?

__R 9/15__ Read John Spaulding, "Poetry and the Media: The Decline of Popular Poetry"

Week Two: Poetry and Social Responsibility
__T 9/20__ Read [|Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Poet" (1844)] Read [|Walt Whitman, "Open Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson" (1856)] Read [|Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying: An Observation" (1889)]

__R 9/22__ Read Joseph Harrington, __Poetry and the Public__, pages 1-55

Week Three: The Uses of Poetry in America
__T 9/27__ Read Joan Shelley Rubin, __Songs of Ourselves__, pages 1-74

__R 9/29__ Read Joan Shelley Rubin, __Songs of Ourselves__, pages 75-103

Week Four: Group Presentations on History of Popular American Poetry
__T 10/4__ Group Presentations on Chapters 7 and 8 of Rubin

__R 10/6__ Group Presentations on Chapters 9, 10, and 11 of Rubin

Week Five: Poetry of Protest (Bob Dylan)
//Paper #1 due by email no later than F 10/15// __T 10/11__ Read Robert A. Rosenstone, “The Times They Are a-Changin’: The Music of Protest” Alberto Gonzalez and John J. Makay, "Rhetorical Ascription and the Gospel According to Dylan"

__R 10/13__ No Readings: Small Group Presentations
 * Instead of doing new readings for Wednesday, let's get into three small groups on (five students/group) and offer brief presentations about music as popular poetry. Each group will need to present one song as an example of "popular poetry," however your group defines that, and one song that is NOT an example of "popular poetry," again based on your group's definition of that term. You may draw upon Monday's readings about Bob Dylan, or any of our previous readings. Your group will also need to lead a brief class discussion based on your presentation. I imagine devoting 20-30 minutes per group, which includes the presentation and discussion.**

Week Six: The Beat Generation
__T 10/18__ Read Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" [|Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"] Read Richard A. Hishmeh, "Marketing Genius: The Friendship of Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan"

__R 10/20__ Read [|Allen Ginsberg, "Poetry, Violence and the Tremling Lambs"] Read Steve Silberman, "How Beat Happened" Read Various Manifestos by poets in the 1950s

Week Seven: The Black Arts Movement
__T 10/25__ Read Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, "A Very Quick and Slanted Pre-Slam History by Someone Who Wasn't There" Read the contents of the __Black Arts Movement__ under the Poems Tab (poems by Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, and Crystal Williams)

__R 10/27__ Read Marvin J. Gladney, "The Black Arts Movement and Hip Hop"

Week Eight: Street Poets, Performance Poets, and Slam Poetry
__T 11/1__ Read Joseph Harrington, pages 159-186 Read Lesley Wheeler, "Voice Activated: Contemporary Academic Poetry Readings and the National Poetry Slam"

__R 11/3__ Read Susan B.A. Somers-Willett, "Commercial Niggas Like Me"

Week Nine: Workshop of Class Poems
Read Dana Gioia, "Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the End of Print Culture"

//Paper #2 Due No Later Than F 11/12//

Week Ten: Designing Broadsides
//Paper #3 Due at the End of the Quarter//