You will present two oral poetry explications this semester. The first will be 5 minutes in length and worth 5% of your grade. This presentation should take place between mid September and mid October, and your topic should be chosen from List #1 for that period. The second will be 10 minutes in length and worth 10% of your semester grade. This presentation should take place between mid October and mid November, and, likewise, your topic should be chosen from List #2. So that we don't have any two people working on the same poem, please look over these lists, spend a little time reading a bit ahead, and then sign up for the poems you want to explicate. You may sign up for one at a time or both at once.
Please sign up for your first presentation by 9/8, for your second by 10/1.
To fulfill each assignment, you will read to the class a short poem or a passage from a longer poem and then explicate that poem or passage. Your reading should be practiced and presented in such a way as to make the most of the emotional/dramatic/aural qualities of the piece. For the first of these assignments, try to keep the reading itself to a period of about 2 minutes or less; for the second, 3-4 minutes. After reading the poem, present a clear statement of your main ideas about the text, and then support your ideas with both evidence and explanation, making the best of the time allotted. (Obviously, the ten-minute presentation will be more detailed and in-depth than the five-minute.) Round out your presentation with a clear summary of your "take" on the poem. Make the most of your presentation by offering a prepared and articulate explication of the poem, by demonstrating personal poise and confidence, and by displaying a mastery of the material (to the extent that such is possible). Finally, be prepared to lead any discussion of the poem and/or your explication that might follow your presentation.
You can approach your explication from any critical angle you choose, exploring the poem with reference to your own reader response, the author's biography, the poem's moment in history (and/or literary history), its rhetorical devices, its relationship to some –ism such as neo-classicism or romanticism or feminism, and so on. The best presentations/papers will probably use a blend of approaches in providing as rich an explication as possible.
You will receive both written and oral evaluations of each performance.