Poetics of Consciousness

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/james-schuyler

We made the point that Elizabeth's Bishops poems seek to map the mind as it works (indeed the map is one of her favorite tropes). James Schuyler takes this imulse to a more intense level in his discursive poems that seem to work as the mind works, shifting from one idea to the next.

But Schuyler's pomes are craftier than they look and the best ones are anything but loosely structured. The best way to find the underlying structure is to look for motifs and think about how they mean in the larger context of the poem.

Reading Dining Out Doung and Frank (page 692) and write about 500 words in which you find one motif that interests you. Tie it into your reading of the poem's theme. Cut and paste your response inot the comment column below. Limit to 4000 characters.

Michael Chabon's first book of essays covers a topic most critical to BC and the college prep program there: what does it mean to be a man?

Chabon's insightful, often playful, always beautifully written essays frame a series of autobiographical stories within the idea of contemporary manhood. In Honors 10th grade, we listened to Chabon read and we have written drafts of our own responses to the fascinating question.