Slam Poetry Links

Saul Williams on HBO's Def Poetry Jam (YouTube Link)

Saul Williams performing "Amethyst Rock" in the movie Slam

Lamont Carey performing "I Can't Read" on HBO Def Jam Poetry (You Tube Link)

Taylor Mali performing "Like, You Know" on Def Jam.

Sonia Sanchez performing "Our Vision is Our Voice" (You Tube Link)

Amiri Baraka performing "Why is We Americans?"

Please also PRINT OUT the handout on Blackboard--read these selections and bring the print out to class.

Literature after 9/11

As you read the excerpts in the Norton Anthology's new "Writing in a Time of Terror: September 11, 2001," think about the questions I posed in class as we were discussing The Road: How did 9/11 change literature? How do writers help us process trauma and work through historical crises? What is the relationship, broadly speaking, between literature and history? Can historical events change literary styles and sensibilities? How does literature create historical memory?

Please bring your copies of The Road to class, too. As you read both the 9/11 readings in the Norton Anthology and The Road for Friday, comment below on both the aesthetics and the politics of the readings. What do the texts say about our times? What assessment do they give of the future?

Cormac McCarthy, The Road (p. 1-69)

As you read The Road for Tuesday's class, think about the stylistic texture of this novel. How would you describe McCarthy's prose? What do you make of the opening images that McCarthy delivers of the world post-apocalypse? Do we get a moral voice here? A neutrally descriptive voice? Why does McCarthy center his novel on the relationship between father and son? Would you consider this to be a novel influenced by 9/11? Why or why not?

Please use the space below to write on any aspect of the novel. You might also want to check out The Road movie trailer and website here.

This interview with Cormac McCarthy appeared a few months ago in the Wall Street Journal. Please read it. Also, The Road was chosen for Oprah's Book Club in 2008, and Oprah lured the famously reticient McCarthy out of his writerly seclusion for a very rare interview. Watch a clip of the interview here. You might also want to take a look at how her book club presents The Road here. What are your opinions about the interview and about the book club's take on The Road?

Reed + Baraka + Clifton

Ishmael Reed. See him read here. Check out an animation of his work here.

Lucille Clifton's Poets.org page is available here. She passed away last month and her obituary can be found here. See a video of her reading here. See her reading "homage to my hips" here.

Check out Amiri Baraka's homepage here. Read about his play "Dutchman" here. See him read on Def Jam Poetry here. Also check out an amazing exhibit on Amiri Baraka in LA here. It's also worth seeing him work with the Urban Music Coalition here.

Confessional Poetry

Information on Anne Sexton @ Poets.org here. Some film clips here. Listen to her read "The Truth the Dead Know" here.

Sylvia Plath biography at Poets.org. Listen to her reading "Daddy" here and "Lady Lazarus" here.

Read Adrienne Rich's biography at Poets.org here. Check out an article in Boston Phoenix on her work here. Watch this video and listen to her read "What Kind of Times are These." And definitely check out this awesome animation of her poem "Diving into the Wreck."

Themes and Tensions in Ragtime

*the role of coincidence versus fate or destiny
*the multiple, insistent connections and links between characters
*the rise of industrial, mechanized capitalism
*metafictional commentary (stories about stories)
*simulacra (images/copies of "the real"); increasing confusion about the real versus the fake; the original versus copies

*and MUSIC!

What other repeated images, motifs or ideas can you locate in this text? Start tracing out how the book repeats and modifies key ideas and scenes. How do all these disparate characters become linked?

Ragtime

As you read Doctorow's Ragtime, think about how the novel reflects on (and perhaps rewrites) the history of modernism with postmodern flair. How does Doctorow address the role of technology in modernism? The role of immigration? Why is the narrative voice so ambiguous? What questions and concerns does Doctorow raise about the nature of historical truth? What do you think of the characters you are meeting so far in the novel?

Note also that there is a film adaptation of this book (look here).