English 506, section 001: Studies in Poetry

Thinking and Singing: New Canadian Poetry

Seminars: Wednesdays 3:00-5:00 or so in BuTo 597

Prof. Kevin McNeilly
Office: BuTo 401, Phone: 822-4466
e-mail: mcneilly@interchange.ubc.ca
Office Hours, January to April: MF 2:00-3:00, or by appointment

Course Description

When, at the beginning of his 1987 poem "Credo," Robert Bringhurst aspires to "knowing, not owning," he sets in motion an anti-colonial poetics challenging the egocentricity of the lyric voice that, over the course of the last decade of the twentieth century, has begun to find connections with and to cohere in the writing of a number of Canadian poets - including Don McKay, Jan Zwicky, Roo Borson, Tim Lilburn, and Dennis Lee - as well as to resonate with the work of some of the most important voices to emerge at the beginning of the twenty-first century, such as Anne Carson and George Elliott Clarke. Philosophically informed and culturally engaged, their thought continues to cluster around fundamental problems of language and aesthetics, emphasizing concerns over polyphony, ecology, ontology, culture, theology, ethics: a set of concerns that found provisional expression in Tim Lilburn's 1995 anthology of poetics, Poetry and Knowing, and solidified in the more recent collection Thinking and Singing: Poetry and the Practice of Philosophy (2002). In this seminar we will address one of the most significant movements to appear in recent Canadian poetry, and to assess the nature of that school's ongoing importance. We will read their poems in detail, juxtaposing their texts with their claims about poetics, as well as with the philosophical and literary backgrounds they invoke and dispute (including Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Thomas Merton, George Grant and others). Their award-winning and influential poetry has had a substantial impact on a generation of poets emerging in Canada at the outset of the twenty-first century, and needs to be addressed as one of the most rigorous and provocative engagements with the state of poetry in English. We will also look at the publications of a variety of young Canadian poets (possibly including Stephanie Bolster, Karen Solie, Ken Babstock, Adam Dickinson, Lisa Robertson) who extend, oppose, revise and engage the work of these writers.

Don't forget to check related sites on my Links Page as well.

Please note: the links on this page are being revised, and many are still inaccurate or dated. A finished syllabus will be up soon.

If you wish to submit electronic versions of your presentation reports, I will post them on this page, in order to foster further discussion.

SEMINAR SCHEDULE
January 7
Introductory
January 14
Jan Zwicky
Seminar Presentation: Janey Lew
Please read Songs for Relinquishing the Earth
Please pay close attention to "The Geology of Norway," "Lancey Meadows," "Brahms' Clarinet Quintet," the two Bill Evans poems (as well as "You Must believe in Spring"), "Kant and Bruckner," "Five Songs for Relinquishing the Earth," "Trauermusik," and any other poems that strike you. Try, as well, to assess the ways in which this text can be read as a book.
Please also have a look a the essays by Zwicky in Thinking and Singing.
Click here for a profile of Jan Zwicky, with a bibliography and a few links.
Click here for the record of Zwicky's manuscripts depositied at the National Library of Canada.
Click here for a brief announcement of a teaching award for Jan Zwicky at the University of Victoria.
Click here for the announcement of the publication of Wisdom and Metaphor by the Gaspereau Press in October 2003.
Click here for a promotional page on Songs for Relinquishing the Earth from Brick Books.
Click here for Jan Zwicky's faculty listing in the Philosophy Department at the University of Victoria.
Click here for a "review" of Zwicky's Lyric Philosophy published in a deep ecology discussion group.
Click here for an abstract to an article by Zwicky, "Oracularity."
Click here for an excerpt from Jan Zwicky's acceptance speech for the 1999 Governor General's Award for Poetry.
Click here for a description of 21 Small Songs, a small press publication by Zwicky.
Click here for a review of Thinking and Singing by Jamie Dopp.
Click here for a review of Terra Nova 4, which mentions Zwicky.
Click here for resources on the philosopher Arne Naess, and "Deep Ecology."
Click here for a general background page on Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Click here for a bilingual hypertext edition of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
Click here for "A Brief History of Johannes Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115" by Christian Charron.
Click here for "The Bill Evans Web Pages."
January 21
Jan Zwicky / Tim Lilburn
Seminar Presentations: Travis Mason, Duff Roberts
Please pick up the photocopies of excerpts from Kill-site from outside my office.
Click here for the announcement for Tim Lilburn winning the 2003 Governor General's Award for Poetry.
Click here for an excerpt of a review of Kill-Site that appeared in The Globe and Mail. (Scroll down a little.)
Click here for a review of Where the Words Come From, which includes interviews (by other poets) with Zwicky, Lilburn and McKay, among many others.
Click here for "Listening with Courtesy: A Conversation with Tim Lilburn" by Darryl Whetter.
January 28
Don McKay
Please read Another Gravity.
Click here for "Animalia" by Susan Fisher, which mentions McKay's bird poems.
Click here for the Writers' Union profile of Don McKay.
Click here for a profile of McKay.
Click here for the Griffin Poetry Prize short-list citation for McKay's Another Gravity.
Click here for a brief bio of McKay.
Click here for the e-text of McKay's poem "Song for the Song of the White-throated Sparrow."
Click here for "QWERTY, qu'est-ce que c'est?", a brief editorial on the founding of the little magazine QWERTY.
Click here for an ad for McKay's new book of poetry, Camber, to appear in March 2004.
Click here for an ad for Aria, a chapbook by McKay with earlier versions of some of the poems inb Another Gravity.
Click here for "Messages from Don McKay and Stan Dragland, founding partners of Brick Books, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Brick Books in 1995."
Click here for an interview with poet Karen Connelly, who mentions McKay's work as an editor.
Click here for the text of McKay's poem "Softball," from CBC Radio's Poetry Plus.
Click here for a note (scroll down) mentioning the film of "Sometimes a Voice" -- McKay's poem -- by Kirsten Newlands.
February 4
Robert Bringhurst
Please read A Story as Sharp as a Knife.
Please pick up the photocopied reviews of Bringhurst's Haida translations from outside my office door.
Click here for an interview with Bringhurst on typography.
Click here for a profile of Robert Bringhurst.
Click here for a description of the Robert Bringhurst fonds in the UBC archives.
Click here for the description of Bringhurst's translation of Ghandl from the website for the Griffin Poetry Prize (2001).
Click here for a review of The Elements of Typographic Style.
Click here for "Cutting Both Ways: Robert Bringhurst and Haida Literature" by me, Kevin McNeilly.
Click here for a review of a collection of essays on Magic Realism that contains a piece by Bringhurst.
Click here for a review by Robert Bringhurst of Douglas Cole's biography of Franz Boas.
Click here for a collaborative editorial from a Canadian Literature issue on the archive; my bit quotes Bringhurst.
February 11
Robert Bringhurst
Seminar Presentations: Katherine McLeod, Jennifer Spiegel
Please read Ursa Major.
Please pick up the photocopies of "The Old in Their Knowing" from the folder outside my office door, and read the poems for class (especially "Herakleitos," "Of the Snaring of Birds" and "Parmenides."
Click here for an extensive bibliography of Bringhurst's works and criticism on his writing, at the University of Manitoba "Canadian Literature Archive."
Click here for a description of a Bringhurst lecture at Stanford University.
Click here for the Gaspereau Press announcement of the publication of Ursa Major.
Click here for a set of "customer reviews" (akin to those on amazon.com) of Bringhurst's work, from the U.K. (This might provide the beginning for a survey on general public responses to his work.)
Click here for an informal summary of a Bringhurst lecture on typography.
February 16-20
MIDTERM BREAK: NO CLASSES
February 25
Anne Carson
Seminar Presentations: Jordana Greenblatt, Brook Houglum
Short essay due in class.
Click here for the Knopf page on Anne Carson (with blurbs).
Click here for Carson's citation for the 2001 Griffin Poetry Prize.
Click here for a brief page on Carson at the Academy of American Poets site.
Click here for Carson's poen "Helen."
Click here for MAKE BIG MONEY: BECOME A CANADIAN POET by Dennis Loy Johnson
Click here for a photo of Carson on the "Literary Montreal" site.
Click here for a review of Men in the Off Hours by Kate Moses.
Click here for "The Acid Tongue: The Potts calling the Carson black"
Click here for a drawing of Carson by David Levine.
Click here for a review of Anne Carson's Economy of the Unlost & Men in the Off Hours, by Jeffery Beam.
Click here for "Geraldine McKenzie reviews Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red.
Click here for a review of "The Beautiful Husband" [sic].
Click here fora review of The Beauty of the Husband.
Click here for "Five Fairly Short Talks on Anne Carson," by me.
March 3
Anne Carson
Seminar Presentations: Shasta Grenier
March 10
George Elliott Clarke
Seminar Presentations: Eric Tung, Heather Arvidson
Click here for a brief biography of George Elliott Clarke.
Click here for a brief article on Clarke by Kirk Johnson.
Click here for "An Unimpoverished Style: the Poetry of George Elliott Clarke," by M. Travis Lane.
Click here for a descrioption of George and Rue, a novel by Clarke (forthcoming).
Click here for a review of Execution Poems from The Danforth Review.
Click here for a review of Blue from The Danforth Review.
Click here for a description of Quebecite, Clarke's jazz-opera with D.D. Jackson, at the Gaspereau Press site.
Click here for "George Elliott Clarke's song" by rob mclennan.
Click here for a video clip of a public interview with Clarke here at U.B.C. in the summer of 2002.
Click here for T O   J U A N I T A   P L E A S A N T S by George Elliott Clarke.
Click here for "Cool Politics: Styles of Honour in Malcolm X and Miles Davis" by George Elliott Clarke.
March 17
George Elliott Clarke
Seminar Presentations: Jim Moore, Jennifer Delisle
March 24
Don McKay
Seminar Presentation: Maia Joseph
Click here for "Be-wildering: The Poetry of Don McKay" by Stan Dragland.
March 31
Tim Lilburn
Please read Kill-site, the essay by Lilburn in Thinking and Singing, and "The Canoe People" by Don McKay (in Vis-a-Vis).
Click here for Tim Lilburn's homepage.
Click here for a description of "Conversation and Silence," a poetry symposium organized by Lilburn and McKay.
Click here for "THE GRASS IS EPIC: TIM LILBURN'S MOOSEWOOD SANDHILLS" by Brian Bartlett.
Click here for TOCs from recent issues of The Malahat Review, one of which contains a review of Lilburn.
April 7
New Poets, Projects
Please let me know ahead of time which poets you want to read, so that we have time to find copies of their poems. So far, people have suggested we look at poems by Lisa Robertson, Carmine Starnino, Karen Solie, Ken Babstock and Charles Wright.
Term paper due in class.
Click here for a topic sheet for the term paper.