ENG41840 American Lyric: Document and Memoir

Academic Year 2022/2023

*** Not available in the academic year indicated above ***

This module considers how ideas of the lyric poem have been adapted and reconfigured by American Poets since the 1960s. It proposes that 21st Century experiments with ideas of document and memoir can be traced to a second generation of American Modernist experimentation. The module begins with Lorine Niedecker's innovative sequences of lyric writing, which combines personal memoir with a representation of region. We will examine how subsequent generations of poets consider the relationship between the personal and the public, language and politics, in tandem with ethical responsibilities.

Focusing primarily on the key ideas of document and memoir, the module considers the representation of war, race and the everyday through a diversity of lyric forms. We will reflect upon the term 'docupoetics' as well as the influence of digital technologies upon ideas of form and reception. Finally, the module examines how the interpretation and manipulation of data and found web material (particularly conceptual writing procedures) challenges more established ideas of knowledge and poetic originality.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

The module will enable students to analyse the relationship between cultural theory and critical practice. Students will be to introduced tpo key contemporary theorisatons of lyric practice in post war American poetry. The course will enable students to make links between critical thought and cross genre writing. Transferrable skills: Students will be introduced to key critical terms to describe ideas of document and memoir in the processes of contemporary American lyric practice. They will be encouraged to use these analytic tools to judge and evaluate the impact of data capture and web practices on the writing and reception of contemporary American poetry and Poetics.

Indicative Module Content:

Defining ideas of document in poetry
Introducing lyric poetry theory
Relationship between innovative forms and exploration of self
How theory interests with close reading of poetry
Representing subjective states in 21st Century practice
Introducing key manifestos from 20th and 21st Century American Poetics

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Seminar (or Webinar)

20
Specified Learning Activities

80
Autonomous Student Learning

120
Total

220
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
group work
active/task-based learning in seminar
introductory context established by module coordinator
student presentations
critical writing 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations
Learning Recommendations:

Recommended: Undergraduate courses in American Literature such as this School's Modern American Literature ENG20430 or equivalents in undergraduate courses at other institutions).


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Essay: 5,000 words Coursework (End of Trimester) n/a Graded No

100

Carry forward of passed components
No
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Autumn No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Feedback on the preparation of a research proposal for final summative research essay Feedback will be individual face to face

Reading List (PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS LIST IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE)


• Hejinian, Lyn. My Life (Originally published 1987) Further versions published 2002/ (Wesleyan University Press, 2013)
Any edition.
• Goldsmith, Kenneth. Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age (2011) excerpts
• and Seven American Deaths and Disasters (2013) Excerpts will be made available.
• Niedecker, Lorine. Lake Superior (1966) recommended republished edition with archive documentation
(Wave Press, 2013).
• Komunyakaa, Yusef. Neon Vernacular (Wesleyan University Press, 1993)
• Nowak, Mark and Ian. The Coal Mountain Elementary (Coffee House Press, 2009) Excerpts will be made available.
• Palmer, Michael. The Lion Bridge: Poems 1972-1995. (Carcanet, 1999)
• Reznikoff, Charles. Holocaust (1975) Excerpts will be made available
• Rankine Claudia. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (Originally 2004) (Penguin, 2017)
•. Wright, C.D. One Big Self (Copper Canyon Press, 2007)
• Spahr, Juliana. this connection of everyone with lungs (University of California Press, 2005)

Background critical and theoretical material, manifestos and poetics will also be made available.