Our prayer book defines prayer as "responding to God, with or without words" (BCP, p, 856). In prayer we open ourselves to relationship with God, to worship and praise the wonder of Creation, to struggle with the sins and perplexities of this life, to bring in the needs of the world, to listen and to enjoy God's loving presence. In this course we learn to "listen in" on the prayers of people who are skilled in using words and images, and to see what we can learn about prayer from the way that poets have discovered and responded to God's grace in their lives. Readings include poetry by George Herbert, John Donne, T.S. Eliot, Denise Levertov, Derek Walcott, Wendell Berry, Anne Porter, Kathleen Norris, and Lucille Clifton

Impestato, Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry Oxford #0195104005

Davies, ed. The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse Oxford ISBN#019281571

Lucille Clifton, The Terrible Stories* Boa Editions 9781880238370

Levertov, The Stream and the Sapphire 0811213544

Johnson, James Weldon, Godπs Trombones Penguin 0140184031

Recommended and on reserve in library

George Herbert (Paulist Classics of Western Spirituality)

John Donne (Paulilst Classics of Western Spirituality)

Levertov, Levertov, Candles in Babylon New Directions ISBN#0811208311

Auden, Selected Poems

Vassar Williams, If I had Wheels or Love

Kathleen Staudt, Anunciations: Poems out of Scripture

Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems Beacon Press, ISBN#0807068195

Anne Porter, An Altogether Different Language* Zoland Books 0944072453

Syllabus and links are also posted on a class website at http://www.wam.umd.edu/~kstaudt/VTSTA31.html

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES:

I. February 3: Introduction: poetry and prayer, the purpose of this course.

Poems of adoration/ prayer in daily life.

II: February 10: Poems of Struggle and Repentance (JOURNAL/REFLECTIONS due ; Group I, it's "your day" today.

III. February 17: Poems that Meditate on Scripture (JOURNAL/REFLECTIONS due (Group II, it's "your day" today)

IV. February 24: Poems that call to intercession: seeing and praying the world's suffering JOURNAL/REFLECTIONS due. (Group III, it's "your day" today)

V. March 3: Mystical Poetry: Poetry that reflects on the encounter with God (JOURNAL/REFLECTIONS due. Group IV, it's "your day" today)

VI. March 10: Final class: Poems of the Cross and Passion

Read poems in Impestato collected under the title "The Cross" and "Gesthemane" and "Another Annunciation," and (your option) other poems on the theme of the Passion and Easter in Staudt, Annunciations Also read (find in library or follow links given from class website): John Donne "Upon the Annunciation and Passion Falling on One Day, March 25, 1608" and "Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward." Auden, "Friday's Child" (scroll down to locate the text online); Henry Hart, "Bed of Nails." (JOURNAL/reflections due for all today: I'll lead discussion and meditation on the day's themes).

ASSIGNMENTS/CONDUCT OF COURSE:

PLEASE NOTE: Because the most important work of this class is reading and prayerful engagement with the texts assigned, some of you may choose to take it pass/fail, rather than for a grade. If you choose this option I will still expect you to turn in weekly journals and to do ONE of the two papers assigned under #2 and #3 below in order to receive credit for the course. If you choose to take the course pass/fail you must let Tami Shepherd, the registrar, know of your choice ASAP, and no later than February 7.

1. Participation, Reading and weekly 1-2 page Reflection (50% of your grade): The main point of this course is to invite you to read deeply and widely in poetry. My hope is that you will read 1-5 poems per day during each week of the course drawing your choices from the page of poems listed for the day. For weeks 2-6, (except when it is "your" week -- see #2 below) there will be a short piece of reflective writing due each day in class. Hand in a reflection/journal of 1-2 pages max, reflecting on your experience of reflecting prayerfully with 1-2 of the poems assigned for the week. My expectation is that you will settle on a poem, spend some time reading it prayerfully, drawing on some of the approaches discussed in class, and then spend at most 30-45 minutes writing, free-form but with clarity, a reflective response to your experience of that poem: You may want to keep an ongoing poetry journal write about several poems in any given week, but you are only required to give me 1-2 pages of writing each week!

The guidelines provided on the handout "How to read a Lyric Poem" may provide some structure for your approach to weekly reading, and you may use these guidelines to take notes for yourself on your reflection, but you don't have to! The reflection journals will be due in class, each week, and I'll have them back to you, with some comments, as soon as possible. Journals will not be graded but I will give you comments on them. Doing them is the important thing. They will count as part of a wholistic grade reflecting your class participation and engagement with the reading.

2. Short paper for "your" week (3-5 pages). (25%) Each of you (in pairs or a threesome) will take responsibility for reading through all the poems assigned for one of the weeks of the course. If more than one student is assigned for that week, try to connect with each other during the course of the week and divide up the list after you have read through it. The day that the reading for "your" week is assigned, turn in a paper in which you reflect on the experience of praying with poems on the week's theme (e.g. "Praying with poems that call to intercession; praying with poems that meditate on Scripture") What poems or poets particularly spoke to you? What kinds of reflections do these poems invite for you? How do they illuminate, focus, deepen, challenge the experience of prayer? What new insights do these poems offer about the experience of prayer? How might you use one of these poems to help others learn about this kind of prayer? (Choose from among these questions or take another approach) Use the poems, in other words, to write about your own experience of the kind of prayer being discussed. Write on 2-4 of the poems assigned for the week. Your paper is due the week that your poems are to be discussed in class, and you can expect to be used as a resource that day for class discussions. For example, I may ask you to share some of your experience of these poems with the class or to lead a small group discussion. Paper for "your" week is INSTEAD of a journal/reflection.

3. Final Paper on a poet's voice (3-5 pages (25%)) Choose one of the poets we've read, and read 3-5 poems by this poet. I encourage you to consider reading one of the poets collected in Impestato's anthology, and using poems from that anthology (I'll distribute copies of a good index to Impestato's book to help with this, but you may choose any poet whose work has been assigned for the class (except for the instructor!). Find out something about the poet's background and faith journey, and write a paper on "Praying with ___________" (fill in the blank on this poet). Your paper should be written with an eye to ministry: that is, it should invite a congregation or a small group of worshippers to engage prayerfully with the work of this poet, and you should draw on the text of the poems and use it to explore the experience of prayer in some way, letting the experience and words of the poet be your guide. The point of the assignment is for you to communicate some of what you've learned about praying with poetry for an audience appropriate to your ministry. My hope is that many of you will come out of this with a piece of writing you can actually use in some aspect of your ministry.

(DUE the first day of exams, MARCH 17 in my mailbox, by 12:00 noon).

GRADING CRITERIA:

An "A" paper is clearly written, in an appealing and engaging style. It is appropriate for its audience, and it makes good use both of matters discussed in class and of close reading of the texts at hand. It contains insights that illuminate the topic in fresh ways and that inspire and/or challenge the reader. If secondary sources are used they are cited appropriately. Proofreading has been done thoroughly and grammar and usage are appropriate and accurate.

A "B" paper makes its points clearly and makes good use of close textual reading. It is clearly written and its argument is easy to follow and helps the reader to understand more clearly the texts being discussed. If secondary sources are used they are cited appropriately. Proofreading has been done thoroughly and grammar and usage are appropriate and accurate.

A "C" paper is competently written but its point may be blurred by problems with style, organization, grammar and usage, or the lack of a focal point or argument.

I will try to return your first assignment promptly so that you have the feedback you need. If you need to rewrite a paper for a better grade I am open to that.
Dr. Kathleen Staudt

HOW TO READ A LYRIC POEM: guidelines for journaling and discussion preparation

1. Read the whole poem through at least twice-- silently once, then aloud. Listen to it as you read it, even if you are not sure you understand all of it -- even if it seems like gibberish to you

In your journal, answer these questions:

∑ what lines or phrases jump out at you, seem memorable, striking, "right," or even "wrong"?

∑ what would you say this poem is "about"?

2. Be sure you understand the sense of the poem as well as you can. Read it a sentence at a time. Look at how the poet uses image, metaphor, and analogies. Note places where you need clarification or explication and bring your questions to class.

3. Do you hear a "voice" in this poem? Who is speaking -- what is that person like? Does he/she seem to be like you or very different from you? How do you react to the voice in this poem? Where does it speak to you? Where does it put you off?

4. Try to enter into the mood of this poem: Read it again, preferably aloud, and see what stays with you, especially:

∑ sounds -- lines that seem especially right or musical

∑ images -- ways of seeing

∑ emotion -- how or where is feeling expressed

∑ what is the mood of this poem? How does it make you feel?

5. Your overall response: What does this poem invite you to see or perceive in a fresh way? Is there a fresh way here of imagining God or of responding to a sacred dimension in life? What emotion or insight does it focus and develop in a way that would not work as well in prose? What kind of "offering" does the poem seem to be making?

Reading a volume of poetry

It is probably a new experience for most of you to be asked to read a whole volume of poetry, from cover to cover. It is a different experience from reading a novel, of course, and invites different ways of thinking and hearing what the writer says. Here are some suggestions for you:

1. Look carefully at the title poem, which is meant to set the scene for the volume as a whole. Keep it in mind, and notice other places in the volume where some of its images or themes recur. Even if a volume of poetry is not tightly unified, there are often ideas that turn up in different poems, and the title poem can be a clue to this. Also read carefully the first and last poem of the volume, and of each section, and see whether there seems s to be any clear sense of theme or direction.

2. Read the volume fairly quickly, noting images or poems that seem to jump out at you, and pausing over poems that stop you and interest you for some reason. Make a note to revisit them.

If the volume is divided into sections, try to get a sense of why those poems are grouped in to that section. Within sections (or if there are no formal section divisions), look for groups of poems that seem to connect to each other, to form rough sequences. Think about why the poet has placed this group of short poems together. Identify important sequences within the volume.

3. Choose 5-6 poems (or 3-4 groups of poems) that seem to you to reflect important themes or to be beautifully written, and spend some time with them, using the journaling questions on poetry as a guidelines. Write your reflections in your journal.

4. When you're done with the whole volume, see if you can summarize for yourself the different themes and moods that the different sections of the volume represents Is there a direction or "plot" to it? Look back at some of the earlier poems and sections -- are they changed in light of the later ones? Does the volume seem to you to hang together as a "whole" or to be more of a "collection?"

I: Poems of ADORATION / Prayer in daily life

Gerard Manley Hopkins, " God's Grandeur" from Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press, 1970. p. 66. "As Kingfishers Catch Fire" and "In the Valley of the Elwy," pp. 249-50 in Oxford Book of Christian Verse. Also "Pied Beauty."

Anne Porter, ≥A List of Praises≤ from An Altogether Different Language. Zoland Books, pp. 61-2. ≥The First of May≤ p. 6. ≥The Shortest Days≤ p. 70

Denise Levertov, "The Acolyte," from Candles in Babylon. New York: New Directions, 1982, p. 69. ≥Intimations≤, from A Door in the Hive NY: New Directions, 1989, p.5. This Day" , from Oblique Prayers. New York, New Directions 1984, pp. 80-81 " New York, New Directions, 1984. (Other poems by Levertov at http://www.poemhunter.com/denise-levertov/poet-6681/

Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems (Beacon Press, 1992), ≥Morning Poem, ≥pp. 6-7. ≥Goldenrod,≤ pp. 17-18, "Why I Wake Early" (online)

Jane Kenyon, "Otherwise."

George Herbert, ≥The Elixir,≤ The Complete English Poems of George Herbert. Penguin: 1991. p. 174.

II POEMS OF STRUGGLE, REPENTANCE AND CONVERSION

John Donne, "A Hymn to God the Father," from Seventeenth Century Poetry: The Schools of Donne and Johnson, ed. Hugh Kenner. New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1964, pp. 65. I have modernized the spelling in transcribing this.

George Herbert, ≥Denial,≤ Complete English Poems (Penguin, 1991), pp. 73-4 ≥The Collar,≤ pp. 144-5.

Denise Levertov, "Oblique Prayer, " from Oblique Prayers. New York: New Directions, 1984, p. 82. "Flickering Mind," in The Stream and the Sapphire.

Derek Walcott -- "Dark August " from Collected Poems 1948-1984. New York: The Noonday Press - Farrar, Straus & Giroux, p. 329.

Wendell Berry, ≥Sabbaths≤ (I) from Sabbaths. New York: North Point, 1987. p. 5

Anne Porter, ≥A Short Testament.≤ An Altogether Different Language. Zoland. P. 34. Also in Oxford Book of Christian Verse pp. 265-6.

David Jones, "A,a,a Domine Deus," from The Sleeping Lord and Other Fragments. Faber and Faber, 1963. p.1.

In Oxford Book of Christian Verse, John Donne, "Thou Hast Made Me, and Shall thy Work Decay?" p 69 . John Milton, "Sonnet, on his Blindness," p. 97; R.S. Thomas, "The Porch," p. 283, "The Hand," p. 282.

T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday. (Read this using "How to Read a Lyric Poem" as your guide -- try not to be distracted by any allusions you don't understand: I will clarity some of these in class. But read this poem for its invitation into prayer and pay attention to parts of it that speak to you.

III POEMS THAT MEDITATE ON SCRIPTURE

Johnson, God's Trombones. Read through whole volume and pick one that especially speaks to you.

Clifton, "The Terrible Stories," section V: poems in the voice of David.

George Herbert, "The Pulley," Complete English Poems (Penguin 1991), p. 150.

Denise Levertov, from A Door in the Hive (New York: New Directions, 1989), "Annunciation", pp. 86-88. "St. Thomas Didymas," pp. 101-103. (Both are also in The Stream and the Sapphire, but "Annunciation" is abridged there.

Lucille Clifton ≠ poems about Mary, from "Two-Headed Woman" in Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980, New York: BOA Editions, 1987, pp. 196-203.

Charles Wesley, "Wrestling Jacob," in Oxford Book of Christian Verse, pp. 167-9.

Edwin Muir, "The Annunciation," Oxford Book of Christian Verse, p. 264.

Poems on the Annunciation and Nativity in Impestato, 101-108 and in section entitled "The Cross."

Jane Kenyon,

T.S. Eliot, "Journey of the Magi," Oxford Book of Christian Verse, pp. 260-1

Kathleen Henderson Staudt, "In the Cool of the Evening," "Sarah Laughed" and "A Gloss on Sarah's Laughter," "Martha" and others from Annunciations: Poems out of Scripture .

IV. POEMS THAT CALL TO INTERCESSION

Denise Levertov, from Candles in Babylon. New York: New Directions, 1982, "Candles in Babylon," p. 1, ""Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymas," pp.108-115.

Derek Walcott, "Negatives," p. 124. Collected Poems 1948-1984. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 124.

Pat Mora, "Senora X No More"

Mary Oliver, ≥ Singapore,≤ New and Selected Poems, p. 72. ( available online, quoted in full in a sermon by GaryE Smith, January 14 2001).

Lucille Clifton, poems in The Terrible Stories. Read the whole volume, using guidelines on "How to Read a Volume of Poetry."

R.S. Thomas, "The Hand," in Oxford Book of Christian Verse, pp. 282-3.

In Impestato anthology, poems arranged under the title "Injustice," especially Wendell Berry, "The Morning's News, " David Citino, "Whole Wheat, Decaf Black, a Morbid Curiosity," p. 88; David Craig, "Litany," pp. 89-90; Geoffrey Hill, "Shiloh Church, 1862; Twenty-three Thousand," p. 84; Maura Eichner, "Letter from Santa Cruz," pp. 78-80.

Kathleen Henderson Staudt, ≥Poems of a Survivor, ≤ Christianity and Literature, 47:4 (Summer 1998), 515-518.; "Holy Innocents," in Annunciations; Poems out of Scripture and online

V MYSTICAL POETRY/ THE ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

George Herbert, "Love" 3. Complete English Poems, p. 178 and Oxford Book of Christian Verse, p. 81.

Wendell Berry, "The Silence," Collected Poems 1957-82. North Point Press, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1996. pp. 156-7.

Clifton, "The Light that Came to Lucille Clifton" (sequence of poems), from "Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980, New York: BOA Editions, 1987, pp. 209-221.

Denise Levertov, "The Antiphon"; ". . . That Passeth All Understanding"; "Of Being," "Passages, " from Oblique Prayers, New York: New Directions, 1984, pp. 84-87.

Kathleen Norris, "Three Wisdom Poems," in Little Girls in Church . University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995, pp. 17-19

Kathleen Henderson Staudt, "Holy Spirit," "Evensong," and "The Servant at Cana."

In Anthologies:

Any poem from the section in Impestato, Upholding Mystery, entiteld "Presence." Particularly recommended: Levertov, "Midnight Gladness," p. 113; "Flickerin gMind," pp. 122-3; Scott Cairns, "Waking Here," p. 114; "And Also from the Son," p. 117; Les Murray, "The Man with the Hoe," pp. 118-120 ; Maura Eichner, "Summer," and "A Woman is Waiting for a Bus," pp. 121-2.

Any of the poems collected in Impestato under the heading The Leap.