Collaborative Poetry Encyclopedia

Due Date: Wednesdays, throughout the semester 

Grade: 10% of your class grade

NB: No AI software should be used on this or any other assignment this semester.

The Assignment(s):

For the next few weeks, we’ll explore poetic terms that'll expand your understanding of poetry. These terms will fall under the following rubrics: tropes (i.e. figures of speech), sounds, accentual-syllabic meters (like iambic pentameter), other meters (like syllabics), elements of line, fixed forms (like sonnets), and rhetorical forms (how poems argue). Think of these as tools in a poet’s toolbox or muscles in their body.

For each term in our encyclopedia, you'll write an entry in our online poetry encyclopedia. As you can see from the expectations listed below, these entries can go beyond the merely informative. I'd like them to be personal and creative.

The Entries:

Each entry should consist of the following parts, though not necessarily in this order. Nor do you have to spend equal time on each parts. (An elegy, for instance, is relatively easy to define; it's much harder to qualify how it makes you feel. A villanelle, on the other hand, takes a long time to explain, though you might have a very immediate response to the form.) Feel free to use images, diagrams, sound files, links, and/or videos when writing your entries. You're writing for a digital audience; make the most if it! Mix it up. Be creative.

Definition: What is this term? What differentiates it from the other terms in the same category? Give us a sense—using numbers and diagrams if necessary—of what this poetic element is/does. Your peers should be able to write a pantoum, say, from your definition of pantoum.      

History: Where and when does this poetic element originate? Are there historical eras when it flourished? When it languished? Is it still used today?    

Your Response: What do you think about this poetic element? You can be catty, didactic, enthusiastic, learned, and/or angry. Just don't be boring. 

A Metaphor or Simile: What is this poetic element like? What would you compare it to?  

An Example Poem, Quoted in Full: Please provide one poem that uses the poetic element in question. This example should include an author, title, and date of composition. Unless you're dealing with an epic or book-length work, please quote the poem in full. Maintain its form on the website.                        

Process:  

We will divvy up terms in class on Wednesday. You should upload your completed Poetry Encyclopedia Entry before class on the following Wednesday. The length of these may vary over the semester, but I'm imagining something in the neighborhood of 300 words. 

Resources and Citations: 

Lewis Turco's The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics is a great place to start your encyclopedia entry. The reference texts listed in the syllabus—The Princeton Encyclopedia on Poetry and Poetics or All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing—will be additionally useful. The following books are available in Lilly Library and on reserve for ENG 312 behind the front desk: 

• The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Roland Greene and Stephen Cushman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2012.

• All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and Versification. Timothy Steele. Athens, OH: Ohio UP, 1999.

• A Poet’s Guide to Poetry. Mary Kinzie. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999.

• Meter in English: A Critical Engagement. David Baker. Fayetteville, AR. U of Arkansas P, 1996.

• John Hollander’s Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1981.

• The Essential Poet’s Glossary. Edward Hirsch. Boston: Mariner, 2017.

• A Little Book of Form: An Explanation into the Formal Imagination of Poetry. Robert Hass. New York: Ecco, 2017.

Please be sure and cite your sources in your encyclopedia entries. If you're building your definition from Hollander's Rhyme's Reason, then your reader should know that from the start. Obviously put all directly quoted material in quotation marks. Provide citations and a clear method for your reader to trace your work back to its source (MLA style is standard, but not required.)

And one final reminder: ChatGPT and other AI software are shitty poetry scholars and cannot be your sources.