The Multi-tasking Muse: Inspiring Your Poetic Voice ...

UCLA Extension Writers’ Program
Public Syllabus

Note to students: this “public” syllabus is designed to give you a glimpse into this course
and instructor. If you have further questions about our courses or curriculum, please
contact the Writers’ Program at (310) 825-9415 or via email at
[email protected]. We are happy to answer any questions and to help you find
the best class to achieve your writing goals.

The Multi-tasking Muse: Inspiring Your Poetic Voice through
Exploring Multiple Art Forms

Instructor: Michelle Bitting

Course Description

Drama, music, the visual arts, and dance have much to do with writing dynamic poetry.
These crown jewels of human expression help to deepen our understanding and ignite the
visions we use to make our poetry more provocative and powerful. In this course, we will
examine the multi-tasking muse at play in the works of a variety of poets, past and
present, in order to identify how to bring a well-tuned ear and ekphrastic (a literary
description of a visual work of art) mind to bear on the page. We will explore music from
ballads to blues as well as famous collaborations among artists, writers, dancers, and
musicians to find inspiration for our own work in theirs. Each week there will be a mini-
lecture/discussion on various genre topics and/or an aspect of craft. Exercises will be
given, and time set aside to constructively critique the work we generate in our ten weeks
together. Students will come away with a series of new poems as well as a renewed
connection to the creative source and the versatility of art and life that surrounds us.

Required Text

The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life
By Twyla Tharp
Simon & Schuster 2006
ISBN-13:978-0-7432-3526-6

Writers’ Program Contact Information

(310) 825-9415 / [email protected]

Grading Policy

For students enrolled in this course for a grade, I take into consideration attendance,
completion of poetry assignments, and class participation when making my final
decision.

Course Requirements

Each week, students will be given an exercise to inspire a poem to be written at home and
shared with the following week’s class. In addition, there will be some light reading, and
on occasion, handouts given and in-class exercises assigned.

Workshopping Guidelines

To be downloaded from the Blackboard website (http://uclaextension.blackboard.com/)

Week One

Introductions! A brief history of the instructor and some things to know about you.

Are you experienced? In other words, in what other areas of your life are you creative
and passionate besides poetry? Think broadly. The principles of collaboration extend to
and have a profound effect on many areas of our lives without our realizing it. When we
talk about collaboration we are talking about being creative, period. All creative acts are a
collaboration of some nature when you really get down to it.

Also, what are you reading? What do you hope to come away with from this class?

Handout: from Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town.
Group collaborative exercise: Variations on Exquisite Corpse.

Pinsky: What Do Music and Poetry Share? (Article) Jazz and Poetry For Pinksy
Music as “Triggering Town” for Pinsky

Mini lecture/discussion on The Ballad. Reading of ballads by Millay, Keats & others.

Audio/Visual presentation: Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and The Ballad.

Take home exercise: Write a ballad or ballad-inspired/influenced poem. Use 5-10 words
from the group “Word Urn” (to be explained in class). Read chapter one of Tharp’s The
Creative Habit

Quote for the week: “The purpose of art is to stop time.” —Bob Dylan

Week Two

Brief discussion of week’s reading.

Student poems: roundtable critique (We will discuss half the group’s work each week,
so that students alternate sharing of poems—one week on, one off, etc…)

Mini lecture/discussion: The Blues, inside and outside the poetic body. “Stomping the
Blues: Kevin Young and the New Idiom of American Poetry”

Handout: From The Poets Companion by Dorianne Laux and Kim Addonizio:
“Repetition, Rhythm and The Blues” and Forward from Young’s Blues Poems
(Everyman Pocket Series)

Read sample poems together: Hughes, Brooks, Young

Audio presentation: Bessie Smith, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed
Partial viewing of Martin Scorcese’s Feel Like Going Home (time permitting)

Take home exercise: Write a blues or blues inspired poem. If possible, use 5-10 words
from the group Word Urn. Read chapter two of The Creative Habit.

Quote for the week: “I feel like a poem is made up of poetic and unpoetic language, or
unexpected language. I think there are many other vernaculars, whether it’s the
vernacular of the blues, or the vernacular of visual art, the sort of living language of the
everyday.” —Kevin Young

Week Three

Brief discussion of week’s reading.

The Rilke-Doty-Laux connection

Student poems: roundtable critique.

Mini lecture/discussion: Meter, Rhyme and Form—the music inside the line.
Handout from The Poet’s Companion. (also) from Addonizio’s Ordinary Genius:
“Write a Sonnet” and “The Poem’s Progress”

Read sample poems together: Shakespeare, Hopkins, Laux and Lux

Handout: “How We Are Changed by the Rhythm of Poetry” by Karin de Weille
(also) “Arrhythmia” by William Baer from The Kenyon Review

Writing Exercise

Take home exercise: Write a sonnet! If possible, use 5-10 words from the Word Urn.
Read chapter three of The Creative Habit.

Quote for the week: “The primary way to get to the reader’s heart and mind is through
the reader’s ear.” —Robert Frost

Week Four

Brief discussion of week’s reading.

Student poems: roundtable critique.

Mini lecture/discussion: The Poet Listening—Bebop, Jazz, The Beat Poets and Beyond.
What do you listen to when you write?

Handouts: “An Argument Against Simplicity” by Yusef Komunyakaa (also) “The
Influence of Jazz on the Beat Generation (Janssen) and “Rebels: Painters and Poets of the
1950’s” (Watson).

Writing Exercise

Read poems together: Whitman, Ginsberg, Waldman, Ferlinghetti, Bell

Audio/Visual: “Corso: The Last Beat” A film by Gus Reininger

Take home exercise: Try listening to a great piece of music before, during and after your
writing session. See how this affects the poem and your connection to the words before
you choose them and after you’ve set them down. Also, read chapter four of The
Collaborative Habit and two short chapters from Ordinary Genius (handouts): “By
Heart: A Shakespearean Sonnet” and “By Heart: A Love Poem.” Decide on a poem
you’d like to memorize, to be recited during our final class.

Quote for the week: “Music always wins…” —Marvin Bell

Week Five

Brief discussion of week’s reading.

(Ginsberg, Whitman, Bell, etc… from week before—carry over)

Student poems: roundtable critique.

Mini lecture/discussion: What is ekphrastic poetry?
Handout—“Third Mind: Creative Writing Through Visual Art” (Blackhawk)

Writing Exercise

Read together Keats (“Ode on a Grecian Urn”), Komunyakaa (“Facing It”), Sexton
(“Starry Night”).

Take home exercise: Look at a photo or painting and let it guide the subject of your
poem, directly or indirectly. Your poem may be very much about whatever is contained
in the picture (or sculpture, etc…) or the visual may merely provide a prompt that takes

you to another place entirely. Try using 5-10 words from the Word Urn. Read chapter
five of The Creative Habit. Work a little on your piece for memorization.

Quote for the week: “Art is not about itself but the attention we bring to it.”
—Marcel Duchamp

Week Six

Brief discussion of week’s reading.

Student poems: roundtable critique.

Mini discussion/lecture: Merging with the Muse—Persona Poetry and the Visual Arts
Handout from “Third Mind: Creative Writing Through Visual Art”

Read together poems by Maclay, Bitting, Parker and others.

Handout from The Poet’s Companion: “Voice and Style” (pay particular attention to the
section on persona poetry.

Visual presentation: Robert Olen Butler on the photographer Weegee.
Also, Aberfan sonnets: a collaboration between Poet Bitting and Photographer Rappoport

Take home exercise: Write a persona poem from the POV of a person, creature, or object
inside a work of art. Read chapter six of The Creative Habit.

Quote for the week: “You’ve always made the mistake of being yourself.”
—Eugene Ionesco

Week Seven

Brief discussion of week’s reading.

Student poems: roundtable critique.

Mini discussion/lecture: More on Collaborations.
Handout: “Drawn and Quartered—Review of Books and Painters” from Art in America,
February 2002. (also) “Beyond Words: 5 Writers Who Practice Other Arts” from Poets
and Writers Magazine—Jan/Feb 2010.

Read together poems by O’Hara (“Why I am Not a Painter”), Blake, St. John from
“Prism” (a collaboration with photographer Lance Patigan) Marvin Bell Poetry and
Photographic collaborations

Handout: from Ordinary Genius: “Making a Broadside”

Writing Exercise

Take home exercise: Choose a poem that you love—of your own or someone else’s and
make a broadside to share in class next week. You can keep it simple: an image with text
on paper or get outrageously sculptural and unorthodox. As long as it’s “safe” (no wild
homages to Chris Burden no matter how much I love him) and fits through the door!
Read chapter seven of The Creative Habit.

Quote for the week: “All collaborations are love stories.” —Twyla Tharp

Week Eight

Brief discussion of week’s reading.

Music: OPERA!

Student poems: Sharing of broadsides with class.

Mini discussion/lecture: Poetry and Movement: How does the line flex it’s muscles and
what makes a poem dance down the page?

Look at poems by Lux, Young, Clifton, Levine, Thomas, Whitman and others.

Handout: “The Poem as Summons to Performance” (Forrest, British Journal of
Aesthetics)

Visual presentation: Great Collaborators—Merce Cunningham and John Cage.
My recent collaborative work exploring poetry through film. Todd Boss and
MotionPoems

Take home exercise: Write a poem using 5-10 words from the Word Urn if possible.
Change your writing routine to include some physical activity. Write, take a walk, put on
loud (or soft) music and dance around, write, repeat… See how getting your body in
motion affects the movement and direction of your poem. Read chapter eight of The
Creative Habit. Be sure to work on memorizing the poem you’ve chosen.

Quote for the week: “There is no rhythm in the world without movement first.”
—Langston Hughes

Week Nine

Brief discussion of week’s reading.

Student poems: roundtable critique.

Mini lecture/discussion: Origins of Poetry in Theatre—Ancient to Contemporary Times.

Handout: The importance of Recitation (N.Y. Times, 2009)
Addonizio: “Page To Stage: Performance”

Paul Valery: “The Speaking of Poetry”

Robert Frost: “The Figure a Poem Makes”

In Class Exercise: from Ordinary Genius—“Two Heads: Collaborations/Alternate Lines”

Take home: Work on your chosen poem to recite in class next week. Work on poem from
class exercise or work on revision of favorite poem from past ten weeks.

"If a poem is written well, it was written with the poet's voice and for a voice. Reading a
poem silently instead of saying a poem is like the difference between staring at sheet
music and actually humming or playing the music on an instrument." Robert Pinsky

Quote for the week: “Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves
you, say what you’ve got to say and say it hot.” — D. H. Lawrence

Week Ten

Student poems: Roundtable critique.

Student presentation of memorized poems.

Audio Visual presentation: Great performances by great poets.

Final discussion: Where are you going from here? Some sharing of experience from
those who are publishing and tips from the teacher for those who want to begin to send
work out.