My learning experience of "Modern & Contemporary American Poetry" (ModPo) - Online Course

Hello friends,

Recently I have completed my online course of “Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (ModPo)” and secured 99.8%.

Here is the screenshot of an e-mail which I have received by Coursera:

 

 

    My experience of learning was very good. I have not only learned poetic forms but also some life lessons like punctuality, multi-tasking, online learning and dedication towards work.

     In online course we don’t know our classmates properly. Every learner has to evaluate at least four assignments of fellow learners. We all are connected by our thought which we have reflected in “Discussion forum” and in “written assignments”.

     When I have got my fist review by Trish Shields, he appreciated my thoughts which I have reflected in my assignments and also pointed some errors. He also said he wants to read more about that poem by me. We can observe that on large platforms how people notice our little efforts and encourage us than only pointing out errors. When we participate in such course which contains large audience from all over the world, at that time we come to know about ourselves. 

here is the screenshot of his review:

 

 

    Marks which I have got are important for me but the more important part is reviews by my classmates and most of them were not only learners but professors and students of University. When these people appreciate and criticize my work I feel proud. I have also learned that how we can politely point out errors of students rather than underestimate or insult them.

 

Here I have shared my learning of every week; you can click on “Week” and read the blog.

 

Week 1 – Walt Whitman – Dickenson Proto-modernist (Ch 1.1)

 

Week 2 – Whitmanians & Dickinsonians (Ch 1.2)

 

Week 3 – The rise of poetic modernism - Imagism (Ch 2.1, 2.2)

 

Week 4 – The rise of poetic modernism (Ch 2.3, 2.4)

 

Week 5 – Communist poets of 1930s and formalism of the 1950s (Ch 3, 4, 5, 6)

 

Week 6 – Breaking conformity: the (Ch 7)

 

Week 7 - The New York school (Ch 8)

 

Week 8 – Some trends in recent poetry L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E (Ch 9.1)

 

Week 9 - Some trends in recent poetry: chance (Ch 9.2)

 

Week 10 – Some trends in recent poetry: Conceptualism and Unoriginality (Ch 9.3)

 

I can’t include every chapter with detail in my blogs. These blogs are just an overview of the course. If you want to enroll the course you can visit:

 Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (“ModPo”).

 

ModPo - Week 10 – some trends in recent poetry: conceptualism and unoriginality.

 

      In week 10 there was an introduction of Conceptualism and unoriginality. There are some writers like: Kenneth Goldsmith, Christian Bok, Caroline Bergvall and many more.

  

     In this blog I have just given brief introduction of Goldsmith’s work from ModPo course.

Click on the below image for information about all weeks:

   

      1)   “Soliloquy” by Kenneth Goldsmith

   In ModPo course “Act 1” has discussed well. It is a book which contains poetry. Here is one description of the book by author,

  Author description:  

Soliloquy is an unedited document of every word I spoke during the week of April 15-21, 1996, from the moment I woke up Monday morning to the moment I went to sleep on Sunday night. To accomplish this, I wore a hidden voice-activated tape recorder. I transcribed Soliloquy during the summer of 1996 at the Chateau Bionnay in Lacenas, France, during a residency there. It took 8 weeks, working 8 hours a day. Soliloquy was first realized as a gallery exhibition at Bravin Post Lee in Soho during April of 1997. Subsequently, the gallery published the text in a limited edition of 50. In the fall of 2001, Granary Books published a trade edition of the text. The web version of Soliloquy contains the exact text from the 281-page original book version, but due to the architecture of the web, each chapter is sub-divided into 10 parts. And, of course, the textual treatment of the web version is indeed web-specific and perhaps more truly references the ephemerality of language as reflected by the book's epigraph: "If every word spoken in New York City daily / were somehow to materialize as a snowflake, / each day there would be a blizzard." In order to achieve this effect, the web version is available only to users of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape 6+. Unfortunately, none of the prior versions of Netscape support the CSS tag used here: "a { text-decoration: none }" ; to view the piece in web form without this function enabled would be to ruin the intended experience of this work.

    The “Act 1” is very long and for further reading you can visit Modpo websites. I suggest enrolling the course for interesting poetry reading and understanding.

ModPo - Week - 9 - Some trends in recent poetry: Chance

           In week 9 there was an interesting task by instructors. They have given a link of “Mesostomatic” - a poem generator and instructed us to generate a poem. I have taken a poem “Pain” by jayanta Mahapatra and copied it in the Mesostomatic - poem generator and I have selected a phrase “Pain to Life” as a spine of my poem.

Click on the below image for information about all weeks:

Here I am sharing my assignment with reviews:


Stands blood to blood to understand well Pursued over
                                                                          And the skys
                                                                      heIghts it holds itself
                                         fast the mist of giviNg my mind

                                                                    liTtle rest small shelter where are
                                                leaves that cOmmanded heart disturbing those


                                                                  cLouds
                                                                whIch
                                      are the secrets oF
                                                                 thE sky will my swallowed the sky veil
    
           In this poem the concept of pain has described. The first line /stands blood to blood/ may suggest every human being or also we can say each spice, the understanding of harming each other well. This is the basic fundamental of each spice that if one harms you then the person who victimized by another will take revenge definitely and all social as well as wild animals have better understanding of harming each other. The heights of sky holds the mist, when there is mist our vision is not clear and same when we want to take revenge we only think about giving pain to others, same way when we are in pain we cannot enjoy our life. The mist of revenge and pain has controlled the mind, and heights of sky suggest the ego of a person, and that heights giving mist (unclear vision towards moral values) to the mind of a person.
       
         In the next stanza there is description of a tree, it gives us shelter, so the tree is giving very small and little shelter and when we are in the shelter of someone we are under their control and that is why the line /leaves commanded heart/ has used. Leaves of the shelter have commanded heart but heart is disturbing because of the clouds. Clouds are in the sky and sky contains secrets of the poet. In this stanza the sky is may be the divine God, or it can be consciousness of the poet which is controlled by the agony and suffering; and that sky has swallowed the veil from poet’s emotions and that is why the heart is disturbed but now everything is clear.
     
        The poem is full of metaphors, first is Sky, first it was used to represent ego of the person and we can also connect it with the height of pain, second time it has used as /the secrets oF thE sky will my swallowed the sky veil/ like that ego has swallowed the happiness of life and filled it with pain and another interpretation can be the sky is divine power which has destroyed the ego and gives punishment for sins. The metaphor of Tree used as the turning point in the poem, it can be used negatively as well as positively; may be the shelter has given a sense and because of the commands of leaves the consciousness of poet has evoked. It suggests the journey of pain to life and it is the pain of revenge and illness of mind. One can suffer till the person can feel emotions but when we make ourselves free from our ego and revenge we may get free from pain and get our life.

Here I have shared the screenshot of reviews:

ModPo - Week 8 – some trends in recent poetry L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E

     Week 8 was all about language poetry. ModPo has introduced experimental poems in last three weeks and “Language Poetry” is an experimental poetry. The movement emerged in the San Francisco Bay area and New York in the 1970s and 1980s. LANGUAGE poets are known for their blending of "poetry and critical writing about poetry". In this week there were two important poem have been discussed by instructors, first is “Chronic Meanings” by Bob Perelman and second is “My Life” by Lyn Hejinian

Click on the below image for information about all weeks:

    Here I have discussed one language poetry from chapter 9.1 “In a Restless World Like This Is” by Charles Bernstein.

In a Restless World Like This Is - Charles Bernstein

Not long ago, or maybe I dreamt it

Or made it up, or have suddenly lost

Track of its train in the hocus pocus

Of the dissolving days; no, if I bend

The turn around the corner, come at it

From all three sides at once, or bounce the ball

Against all manner of bleary-eyed fortune

Tellers—well, you can see for yourselves there’s

Nothing up my sleeves, or notice even

Rocks occasionally break if enough

Pressure is applied. As far as you go

In one direction, all the further you’ll

Have to go on before the way back has

Become totally indivisible.

        

         While reading this poetry we feel some kind of confusion. In the very first line the poet is confused that the thing which he is going to discuss was dream or reality. The words and images in poem distract us from the main concept of poem. In the last line he concludes his all confusion by saying that you cannot step back from your present condition. You have to move forward and go on. Sometimes we are very confident in our life and we move on though we have done so many mistakes, but this is what the title of the poem suggests. We have to move on and on. If we will look back, we will lose our path.