This has been a good week. After so much worry about health, my symptoms seem to be giving me a break this week, for which I am very thankful. Still no appointment for tests, but I have turned a page, moved into an upbeat mode.

Ron Silliman in blogging workshop (Photo credit: pesbo) Credit Pearl Pirie

And then there is MODPO!  This was week 8 out of 10. It was an assignment week, and the week we studied L.A.N.G.U.A.G.E. poets, including Ron Silliman, whom I met when he was in Ottawa back in March. Fascinating encyclopedic knowledge of poetry, American yes, but also Canadian. We looked at his Albany and BART poems, and had the pleasure of his participation on the discussion forums.

We studied several sections of Lyn Heijinian’s My Life, Bob Perelman‘s Chronic Meanings, and In a Restless World Like This Is, by Charles Bernstein,

English: American poet Charles Bernstein at Writers’ and Literary Translators’ International Conference (Stockholm, June 30, 2008) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

who also participated in our forums. We then moved on to Emily Dickinson‘s My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun as a featured poem in the Susan Howe book, My Emily Dickinson. We heard a Poem Talk discussion of that one.

Emily Dickinson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of course, for each poem and poet, there are audio recordings if available, often recorded Poem Talks, and a video discussion by Al Filreis and his TAs to close read or share their opinions (both, actually!) on the poems.

Coming this week we are taking a look at chance operations as a poetic constraint, and will then do the final assignment. It sounds interesting, and there is much speculation of exactly what we will be asked to do. That info comes to us at the stroke of midnight EST tonight. It will either relate to the mesostic form created by of John Cage, or Bernadette Mayer’s Experiment.  More about that next time!