Sunday, September 11, 2005
Book-length narratives
For my class this quarter, I think I'm going to have my students write a paper about an entire book, and I thought it would be interesting to have them write about a book-length sequence rather than a regular book of unconnected short poems. So I'm looking for suggestions of good, relatively student-friendly books with continuous narrative threads. Any ideas?
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7 comments:
Thomas & Beulah...or maybe the Maurice Manning book. I don't know how student-friendly it is but it would be fun and interesting for them even if they didn't get what the hell it was about.
I'm teaching Thomas & Beulah. Perhaps we could team up on this one. Can't wait to see you on Wednesday!! The 2 Buck Chuck is calling my name. I've missed the patio.
I love Maurice Manning's Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions, but would guess is too strange for students. Andrew Hudgins' AFter the Lost War, Louise's Meadowlands, Nick Flynn's Blind Huber, EBV's Kyrie, Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red. Looser narratives: Doty's Sweet Machine, 77 Dream Songs, Nick Flynn's Some Ether, Life Studies, maybe Richard Sikken's Crush.
Anyone for Letters to Wendy's?
Mary says Dean Young or Philip Levine's What Work Is have eached worked well for her in the past. Particularly if you are working with narrative at all. Thomas and Beaulah seems like it would be fun, and worked well in my graduate class. I would be wary of the Manning, though it's great. But I'm not sure how different our students are. I have some choice anecdotes.
marie howe's _what the living do_ is a wonderful book-length sequence. the poems are gorgeous-- i think it would be fun to teach.
ooh, or you could do franz wright's _walking to martha's vineyard_...
btw, i just friendster'd you.
xxoxo jesska
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