Study Guide for the Fiction Take Home & The Final

Here are the stories that are included on the fiction take-home:

"Love in L.A."

"Girl"

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
"Today's Demon: Magic"
excerpt from Persepolis
"The House on Mango Street" (excerpt)
"Everyday Use"
Nosferatu (film)
"The Cask of Amontillado"
"Saboteur"
"This is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona"

On the take home, feel free to use your notes and the book, and be sure to do the extra credit, too!  Anything from Mike Maggio's presentation is fair game, too.

For the final, we will cover the following:

Film -- Nosferatu (1922) dir. F.W. Murnau  (Above is the director's picture.)

Fiction -- "The Cask of Amontillado"
"Saboteur"
"This is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona"

Poetry -- William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqIl3oX_44s

Sherman Alexie's "Dangerous Astronomy" (villanelle)

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/dangerous-astronomy

Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" (free verse)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmJYs6PQKVc

Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool" and "The Bean Eaters"

Here are two versions of "We Real Cool":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaVfLwZ6jes (Ms. Brooks reads)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t_kkjAhDNw (John Ulrich reads)

I wish I could find a video of Ms. Brooks reading "The Bean Eaters," but this one will have to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anKeKmfRCqc

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" (dramatic monologue)
James Mason reads "My Last Duchess":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZbNrNE9q8g

Below is a picture of James Mason in North by Northwest, one of Hitchcock's great films.  Mason played a spy.

The forms that we discussed were the villanelle (on the first day of poetry) as well as the sonnet, the graphic poem, and the bop.

For the form of the villanelle plus Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," see this link:  http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetic-form-villanelle

More about the sonnet is here:  http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetic-form-sonnet

Learn more about the bop here:  http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetic-form-bop

We began with Shakespeare's sonnets.  The first two are to the Dark Lady.  Was she Emilia Lanyer, the poet pictured above?

Sonnet 130 is here:  http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/my-mistress-eyes-are-nothing-sun-sonnet-130
Alan Rickman recites the sonnet here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP06F0yynic

We also looked at Sonnet 129:  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174374
Ralph Fiennes recites the sonnet here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8PbuQkUWWE

Shakespeare also wrote sonnets to a young man.  Was the man pictured above he?  We looked at #18 first:
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/shall-i-compare-thee-summers-day-sonnet-18

David Tennant recites here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD6Of-pwKP4

Then we looked at #29:  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174357
Rufus Wainwright sings the sonnet here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYd2KlRX4Vs

We moved onto Petrarch and his Canzionere. Note that A.S. Kline's translation does not rhyme.  First we looked at Sonnet 3:
http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/canzoniere.html?poem=3

We also looked at the end of the Canzionere, which is not a sonnet but a poem of address to the Virgin Mary: http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/canzoniere.html?poem=366

Gwendolyn Brooks' "the rites for Cousin Vit" is also a Petrarchan sonnet:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182621

Mustn't forget our graphic poem, Ed Schelb's "Bird Call Dance Hall":
http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/11/bird-call-dance-hallcoming-soon.html

Moving onto the bop, we began with Aafa Michael Weaver's "Rambling":
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/rambling

We also looked at Evelyn N. Alfred's bop, which she wrote for Reuben Jackson's workshop:

flashes: a bop for bix b.

he hungered for the notes
playing before he could see the keys
mother bird chewed them for him
while he regurgitated beauty
fingertips savoring the song
without knowing the recipe.

the hungry and the hanged, the damaged and the done
striving along this spinning rock, tumbling past the sun

without knowing the recipe
he learned how to taste the tune
adding brown sugar, nutmeg,
and horn lines
but couldn’t bake an unfamiliar harmony
cooling his heart,  sinking the middle
to what effect?
is a fallen cake ruined?

the hungry and the hanged, the damaged and the done
striving along this spinning rock, tumbling past the sun

is a fallen cake ruined?
forced to flash up the treble
singed in chicago winds.
south side speakeasies
intoxicated his ballads
he hungered for the notes.

the hungry and the hanged, the damaged and the done
striving along this spinning rock, tumbling past the sun

We concluded with Gabrielle's reading of her own bop written in a poetry workshop at MC Rockville.

We covered more poems (and fiction) than I imagined that we would have.

From The Song Is..., we looked at Regina A. Walker's "Hiraeth":  http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/10/hiraeth.html

Martin Willets, Jr.'s "The Elephant on the Keyboards": http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-elephant-on-keyboards.html

Feel free to look at other poems at the blog, but these are the ones that may be on the exam.

We also reviewed fiction, looking at some flash fiction (under 1000 words).  Michael Oppenheim's "The Paring Knife" is on p. 319.  Catfish McDarish's "Hippopotamus Summer" was published by The Blue Hour Literary Magazine: http://thebluehourmagazine.com/2013/05/25/hippopotamus-summer-by-catfish-mcdaris/comment-page-1/#comment-12272 

Finally, we turned to prose poetry with Naomi Shihab Nye's "Hammer and Nail":  http://webdelsol.com/tpp/tpp5/tpp5_nye.html

I hope that you enjoyed our detour into flash fiction, prose poetry, and the online literary magazines!