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...
Tagged: week 5
Teachers: you can use the ModPo method of collaborative close reading in your classrooms!
Are you a teacher searching for a way of enable full participation of your students in the sometimes daunting work of reading and discussing a poem? It might seem obvious, especially in a post...
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...
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...
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”:
Jerome Rothenberg on Stein’s “A Shawl”
When Jerome last visited the Writers House, we sat down with him to talk about Gertrude Stein’s “A Shawl.” We’ve now added that video to ModPoPLUS week 4 among the Gertrude Stein resources. Here...
Edwin Rolfe’s “Season of Death” added to week 5/chapter 3 (communist poets)
Edwin Rolfe, a member of the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) in the 1930s, wrote a poem about the Depression called “Season of Death.” This poem and a video of our discussion of...