"toon tune" & Sackner Archive

Here's an example of the pairing of a visual poem with a verbal account of how it works. This is what you're doing for Thursday's final submission. Geoff Huth's writing is a little too brief, but it does a good job of situating the reader/viewer with more information than the piece itself is capable of yielding. Your paragraph need not be exactly or at least 100 words, but it's a useful guideline.

Below is an exhibition shot of a gallery show in Miami of the Sackner Collection of Concrete and Visual Poetry. Here's a short video. 

And here's a link to the collection. Amazing resource. 

I'm not sure if the full-length feature film "Concrete!" is available on common streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. It might be on the brilliant & free streaming service provided by public libraries: Kanopy. Look into it. So many art-based films and documentaries that you can't find other places.  

Mel Bochner

 

Visual Poetry Workshop

  

TODAY!

This is visual poetry... we are making visual poetry, we are reading/viewing/experiencing visual poetry. 

This is not the only site for generating custom signs and captions, but I think Add-Letters is pretty good. If you have a site that you prefer, you are free to use it. 

The directions for this workshop are brutally easy and direct. Make at least two (and no more than five) signs or captions. They can be funny, profound, serious, sad, surreal, smart, dumb, childish, or child-like. In other words, they can be any way you please (as long as you don't use language that's hateful, violent, pornographic, etc).

After you generate the sign, take a screengrab. Send your screengrabs to me at csmith@dcad.edu.

Start Time: 4:150

Independent Work: 4:15-4:30

Critique: 4:30-4:45

Module Three: Art & Poetry

I'm really excited about this new module. It provides a break from the kind of narrative and argumentive essay-writing we focused on in the first two modules.

In some ways, it's more difficult and challenging because the door is wide open and you'll have to make independent and individual decisions. In other words, the prompt is open-ended.

The assignment is due nine days from today, on Thursday, Oct. 1 at noon. An ungraded draft is due one week from today, on Tuesday, Sept. 29 at noon. Upload to Populi. 

This assignment has two parts:

1) Your visual poem (jpg or pdf)

2) A single paragraph that explains or comments on the decisions you made in constructing your visual poem (100 words minimum). If you need or want more space than a single paragraph, go for it. 

Draft due Tuesday, Sept 29, upload to Populi, deadline noon.

Final due Thursday, Oct 1, upload to Populi, deadline noon.

Ok. So what precisely is a visual poem? Sometimes the term "concrete poetry" is used to mean essentially the same thing. The quick answer is that it's writing with a pronounced visual dimension. Think of a so-called regular poem. What does it look like? Generally, it will be justified on the left margin, the lines will vary slightly in length, and it will be grouped in segments called stanzas. Here's an example of a "standard" poem:

________________________________

BLK History Month

BY NIKKI GIOVANNI

If Black History Month is not

viable then wind does not

carry the seeds and drop them

on fertile ground

rain does not

dampen the land

and encourage the seeds

to root

sun does not

warm the earth

and kiss the seedlings

and tell them plain:

You’re As Good As Anybody Else

You’ve Got A Place Here, Too 

____________________________________________

   While this poem does have a visual dimension (all text does), 

   it doesn't rely on anything except words and punctuation. You could make this a visual poem by adding a layer of color or image or changing the size and font of certain words.  Here's an example of a visual poem:

Google Image Search for "Visual Poetry"

   Let's watch a few videos to give us a better idea of what visual poetry is, and how to make it. 

What Makes a Poem a Poem? (animation)

How to Make a Visual Poem

Ways to Make a Visual Poem

Reading assignment for next class, September 24:

From Line to Constellation (short but kind of difficult)

Visual Poetry Today (relatively easy)

Concrete Poetry and Conceptual Art: A Spectre at the Feast? (relatively difficult)

Module Two is Finished, Get Ready for the Visual Poetry Module

 

Next Tuesday we start our first "creative writing" module. I really think you're going to love it.

You have no homework until we meet again on Tuesday, September 22, but you might want to learn a little about visual poetry. Check out ubu.com.

What's Wrong with the Five Paragraph Essay?

 

Let's watch this animated essay about writing college papers. 

What's so wrong with the Five-Paragraph format?

Do you agree with this advice? Why or why not?

 

Free Symposium about Art & Activism

Friday, September 25. Questions: csmith@dcad.edu

Module 2: Genre Conventions and O Henry's "The Last Leaf"

 

In this module we're going to examine a key concept in college writing: understanding genre conventions. Whenever we write something, we are (almost) always writing for an audience that has certain expectations. For instance, a writer could accurately depict an event in two totally different ways, yet keep faithful to what happened in that event. Case in point: You go to a really fun party. You might send a text to your best friend. You might tweet about it. You might post an Insta. You might make a FaceBook post (no, only old people use FaceBook). You might write a snap. You might write a standard email message. You might write a postcard. You might write a traditional, old-fashioned letter. All of these different formats bring with them their own "rules" or expectations. These are called genre conventions.

In this next essay (draft due Sept 15, final due Sept 17), write about how these different versions of O. Henry's short story, "The Last Leaf" operate. They all tell the same basic story, but they do it in wildly different ways. Which version do you prefer? Why? Is the original always the best? Do adaptations always lose something? Or do they add relevance to contemporary culture? The questions above are suggestions to get you started; they are not a list of questions you must answer. Find your own angle of approach. 

Use the same two-column format with an image in the top left corner that we used in our first brief essay. For this essay, the image should be an actual leaf (drawn, photographed, scanned, appropriated, etc.). You can include the branch it's clinging to or not. If you want to make it a conceptual idea of "leafiness", go for it.

Questions? As always: csmith@dcad.edu

Here's an article about Genre Conventions to get us started. 

Links Below to 15 Versions of "The Last Leaf" 

First Appearance, 1906, page 198

Original Story

Film Version

Longer Film Version

Mormon Film Version

Children's Animation

Learning English

Audiobook

Japanese Anime Version

1963 Pop Song

Tom Waits & Keith Richards Version

Storyboard Comic Version

Quasi-Documentary Version

Reader's Digest Version

I did not include a link to the version by heavy-metal band, Monolord. Curious students can easily find it with a Google search, but it's too disturbing for general consumption. 

Congratulations on Finishing Module One!

Hello Everybody, I'm looking forward to our critique and discussion this afternoon. Let's remember to be both honest and positive. These two things are not opposites.

Remember that you have no homework or reading to complete until we meet again next Tuesday. Enjoy the mini-break and get ready for an exciting unit on genre conventions. 

We are going to end class about ten minutes early today to give everyone the chance to write me a quick email message. I'd like you to write for five or ten minutes. Describe how things are going for you in this class. Do you feel confident in sharing your writing? Is it hard for you to focus on the computer screen for extended periods? Do you have any information that would be good for me to know? For instance, do you have a job that requires a lot of time? Do you have caretaking responsibilities for family members? Is internet/computer access difficult for you? You can also write about all the great things that are going on for you right now. There is no wrong way to write this email message. It is not being graded.   csmith@dcad.edu

Formatting Your Brief Essays in Reading & Composition

Today in class we talked briefly about this. The first class received a quick run-through, but the second class didn't get much guidance.

For the short essays, we are not using MLA double-spaced format, which looks like this:

_________________________________________

EXAMPLE A

________________________________________________________________

We're going to use something that looks a little bit more like a magazine layout. Here is the same text formatted in the preferred manner:

___________________________________________

EXAMPLE B

_____________________________________________________________________

Here are the simple steps to take your essay from Example A to Example B.

1) Select (highlight) your entire text 

2) Change double-space to single-space

3) Select "Two columns" (often in the Layout or Insert menu)

4) Insert an image in the top left corner of the first column. This image can be your own art or photography or something appropriated from a popular culture site or meme. The image should be connected in some way to your piece of writing
5) Underneath the image, type the title of your essay in bold face

6) Write your name under the title, and the date under your name

Hints and Ideas:

Use a single font for all text, including the title. I prefer a serifed font like Garamond or Times New Roman, but you might prefer a sans-serif font like Helvetica or Arial. You can either skip a line between paragraphs, or you can indent the first line of a new paragraph (no skipped line if you use indentation). 

If you can get your whole essay on one side of this two-column document, that's great. If you have a lot to say, try shrinking the font down to 10 pt. If you need to go to a second page, that's perfectly fine.  I kind of think that 11pt or 12 pt is best. If you go above 12pt. your writing will start to look like a children's book or a text for someone with bad eyesight. 

I do understand that these directions might be confusing. Your grade for Thursday's essay will not suffer if you don't get it right. We can always make edits later. 

Send questions to me at csmith@dcad.edu.  THANKS!  -- Casey

Jesmyn West's Amazing Essay

 

An old friend of mine sent me a link to this essay, and I'm sending it on to all of you: Jesmyn West in Vanity Fair. We might talk about it for a few minutes on Thursday, but it's optional reading, not required. It's a remarkable essay for so many reasons. 

FINAL Brief Essay One Due on Thursday

 

Your final essay, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Writer" is due no later than noon on Thursday, September 3. You are free to make a lot of revisions to your first draft. In fact, your second draft might be totally different. If you like your first draft, and you've checked it carefully for casual errors, then maybe you don't have too many revisions or edits to make. 

As always, send me an email if you have questions or if you want me to give you advice on your draft.  -- Casey