Introduction to week 5 in 2024 (9/29/24)
Here is a copy of the announcement Al has just sent around to all ModPo people. If you are reading this and wonder why you didn’t receive it by email, please write to modpo@writing.upenn.edu...
Category: week 5
Adrienne Rich, “In a Classroom”
Talking of poetry, hauling the booksarm-full to the table where the headsbend or gaze upward, listening, reading aloud,talking of consonants, elision,caught in the how, oblivious of why:I look in your face, Jude,neither frowning nor...
C. D. Wright: 4 poems from “One Big Self”
Here are four poems from Wright’s book One Big Self that formed the basis of the conversation recorded in an episode of PoemTalk: “Count Heads”: LINK “Count Your Fingers”: LINK “I want to go...
Sylvia Plath’s “The Stones”
Here is the text of Sylvia Plath’s “The Stones.” This poem was discussed in episode #129 of the PoemTalk podcast series HERE. The Stones This is the city where men are mended.I lie on...
Erica Hunt gives the inaugural poem at Penn
Erica Hunt—a poet who is a dear friend of KWH, once the teacher of a full-semester course at the House, and a recent KWH Fellow, and whose poems are in the ModPo curriculum—gave the...
On Robert Frost’s “Birches” (filmed “on location”)
We’ve added Frost’s “Birches” to ModPoPLUS. This includes a rare 1936 recording of Frost performing the poem. And it includes a new “on location” video in which Laynie and I, along with Stephen Metcalf...
Frost’s wall today
A friend is staying near Frost’s farm and sent us these two photos of Frost’s wall, looking rather unmended.
Sylvia Plath poems & videos in ModPoPLUS week 5
ModPoPLUS for week 5 (“chapter 6”) deals with formalist poets of the 1950s, “neo-modernists” of the Cold War era, and also has a relatively new section on several confessional poets. Among the confessional poets...
ModPo Short: 1-minute video on Frost’s “For Once, Then, Something”
This is a 1-minute excerpt from a longer video featuring Al Filreis, standing in Biscuit Creek of New York State, talking about Robert Frost’s sonnet, “For Once, Then, Something”:
Aiden from Ireland performs & interprets “Mending Wall”
We continue to add new materials to our CCCR (Community Collaborative Close Readings) syllabus. The newest addition: Aiden Meade (Ireland), a 2020 ModPo participant, performs and interprets Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”: LINK TO VIDEO...