ProjectionsNYC: DUST - A SURVIVAL KIT, FALL 2001 by Hettie Jones

9/25

Two weeks breathing the dead
each breath marking each
stunning absence

ourselves as
coffin, winding sheet, urn
worm
but oh, of what is God made?

10/9

We lived among blossoming words
until some of them exploded, like one
human exploding another
say human again
try to feel the word
on your lips

10/23

The dead have dispersed
It has rained on them twice
they have drifted to sea
ascended in mist
Breathe them once again //
and begin

Course Syllabus

Class One: (Meet at 560 3rd Street.)
--Introductions and workshop overview. Go over the syllabus. Discuss the course themes and goals.
--Students bring digital cameras with accompanying manuals if they have them. Instruction on how to use the camera, flash, and download images to email to Amy.
--Read “Photograph from September 11” by Wislawa Szymborska
Photograph from September 11
--Read Hettie Jones’ “Dust—A Survival Kit” Dust- A Survival Kit
--Read an excerpt from C.K. Williams’ “War.”
--Discuss how omissions create imprints, absences carve presences, and negations affirm in these poems.
--Examine and discuss historic and contemporary photographs by artists Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, WeeGee, Arthur Leipzig, Alfred Steiglitz, and Edward Steichen, among others. Discuss how photographs can convey absences and imprints. Introductory instruction in composition and capturing a moment in the lens.
--Go over Writing Prompt 1 and next week’s meet-up details.
--Writing Prompt 1: Write a poem that uses omissions, line breaks, and/or breaths to communicate absences.

Class Two: (Meet at Ground Zero.)
Students take photographs of Ground Zero and jot down images and ideas for their poems.

Class Three: (Meet at 560 3rd Street.)
--Workshop Ground Zero poems and photographs.
--Give contextual background on Vladimir Mayakovsky and Russian Futurism and read his poem “Brooklyn Bridge.”
Brooklyn Bridge
--Read “The Bridge” by Derek Walcott.
The Bridge
--Contrast the ways in which the bridge functions as a symbol in these two poems, how the speakers project themselves onto the structure of the bridge, and their different relationships to the bridge. Discuss how the city’s landscape is sometimes an extension of the individual’s internal life (as in Mayakovsky’s poem), and sometimes in conflict with it (as in Walcott’s poem).
--Discuss the bridge as a liminal construction--a blurry boundary zone between two established and clear spatial areas, and the way in which both poems relate a liminal moment--a blurry boundary period between two segments of time.
--Relate this liminal point to the narrative arc of the course. How does the Brooklyn Bridge project from Ground Zero? How do these poems relate to those we read in Class One?
--Discuss photographs by Arthur Leipzig, Alfred Steiglitz, Edward Steichen, Berenice Abbott, Andre Kertesz, and Diane Cook. Discuss how these photographers use available light to create mood, and how students can emulate these techniques.
--Go over Writing Prompt 2 and next week’s meet-up details.
--Writing Prompt 2: Write a poem or a postcard story that projects a personal or fictional narrative onto the Brooklyn Bridge. Gaze at New York, the self, a relationship, the end of the world through the Brooklyn Bridge. This narrative can be an extension of the bridge’s imagery (as in Mayakovsky’s poem), or in conflict with it (as in Walcott’s poem).

Class Four: (Meet at the Brooklyn Bridge.)
Students take photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge and jot down images and ideas for their poems.

Class Five: (Meet at 560 3rd Street.)
--Workshop Brooklyn Bridge poems and photographs.
--Give students brief biographical background on Walt Whitman and how he urbanized poetry; then read Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
--Read Audre Lorde’s “A Trip on the Staten Island Ferry.”
--Discuss how Lorde’s poem extends and diverges from Whitman’s vision.
--Discuss the ferry as a liminal vehicle. Relate this week’s ferry poems to last week’s bridge poems.
-- Explore examples of candid/street photography, discussing photographs by Arthur Leipzig, Len Jenshal, Robert Frank, and Walker Evans. Discuss how these photographers effectively capture people in an environment, and how students can emulate these techniques in their ferry photographs. Go over the dos and don’ts of photographing people with and without their permission. Read and discuss an article about Robert Frank: Robert Frank reading
--Map the narrative arc of the course.
--Go over Writing Prompt 3 and next week’s meet-up details.
--Writing Prompt 3:
Option 1: Respond to Whitman’s call to future generations by writing an emulation of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” Weave a larger-than-life self--an embodiment of life eternally connected to the history and the future, all things and all people; seeing, hearing, feeling, and understanding everything--into the physical details of your ferry ride. Make bold pronouncements. Address future generations. Infuse meaning and metaphor into commonplace sights, occurrences, and interactions. Use long, cascading lines that speed along or stop suddenly, mimicking the city’s dense street life. Use anaphora (“I am,” “I see,” “I hear”), personification, contrast and likeness, catalogues, analogies, and sensory detail.
Option 2: Emulate “A Trip on the Staten Island Ferry” by writing a poem about your ferry ride in the form of a letter to someone. Find meaning in some small detail of life on the ferry; just as Lorde’s poem focuses on the shoe-shiners and the pigeons.

Class Six: (Meet at the Whitehall Terminal to take the Staten Island Ferry.)
Students take photographs of/from the Staten Island Ferry and jot down images and ideas for their poems.

Class Seven: (Meet at 560 3rd Street.)
--Students turn in final drafts of their Ground Zero and Brooklyn Bridge poems.
--Workshop ferry poems and photographs.
--Design anthology cover and layout.

Class Eight:
--Students turn in final drafts of their ferry poems and their ferry photographs.
--Finalize anthology layout.

Reading and Reception: (Meet at the 440 Gallery at 440 6th Avenue two weeks after Class Eight.)
Students receive copies of their published workshop anthologies and read their poems for their parents and friends at the 440 Gallery in Park Slope. Reception and refreshments afterwards.

ProjectionsNYC

DUST - A SURVIVAL KIT, FALL 2001 by Hettie Jones

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