Week 5

Learning Journal Activity -- Critical or Creative

You have a choice of two different activities for this week's journal entry, one of which is more critically oriented, the other more creatively oriented.

Critical -- Everyday Poetry

Identify and discuss an example of poetry in everyday life. Although it is easy to think of poetry as something that exists only as lines of text in books, poems and poetic language are quite literally everywhere. Your task is to find this everyday poetry, which is sometimes hiding in plain sight, and tell us why you think your selection is an example of poetry. Your entry does not need to be more than a few paragraphs, but if possible you should either link or somehow include a sample (or a few samples if it makes sense) of the "poetry" you are working with. As we have already completed an activity on songs, you should try to think of an example other than this; however, your particular example may contain music or other elements common to songs.

Creative -- Spatial Poetry

This Wednesday we will be looking at poems by bp Nichol, a Canadian poet who is perhaps best known for the way "space on the page" is significant to his poetry. Following in Nichol's footsteps, this creative option for this week's journal activity asks you to craft a spatial poem of your own.

Spatial poetry (often also called concrete poetry) relies on shape and typographical space to add a new dimension to language. Rather than a poem being "read" in a traditional sense, spatial poems are in many ways "viewed", as one would view a painting or a photograph. Working with digital technology (such as blogs, photoshop, paint, or word processors) allows for an increased range of possibilities when formatting text. However, these poems can also be made (often quite impressively) using paper and a pen, then taking a photo and posting it to your blog.

Below are a few samples of spatial poems I've made, which will hopefully help get the creative energies flowing:


I Sail

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as the ship was heading into a storm the captain said
sometimes you can do everything right and still lose
and though it may seem that the race is finite
it's only one lap around the track
only an agon

Words

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Balance a Diamond on a Blade of Grass

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iam
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Assigned Readings and Overview for Week 5

In Monday's class, we will be looking at two free verse poems, Lorna Crozier's "Poem About Nothing" and Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Constantly Risking Absurdity". Wednesday's class, as mentioned above, focuses on bp Nichol and spatial poetry. On Friday we will be looking at spoken word poetry. As always, if you have questions about this week's activities, or any questions about our course more generally, leave a comment here or send an email to my mun.ca address.