I've been teaching this course for about six weeks now, and I'm encountering a number of issues.

The first major issue is boredom. Students are getting bored of their long poem topics, which is certainly a natural and normal thing. So, what I've been trying to do is disrupt the routine of the workshop--rather than gathering into small groups and suggesting line-edits or suggesting how a poem "works" within the context of other pieces, I've suggested process-oriented group projects, i.e. cutting and pasting lines. Collage. Translation.

Do any of you have other strategies for combating the doldrums o a long poem project? What are they? Do share!

Getting them to explain how their poems "happened" -- from the "ligne donee" through its fleshing in terms of the context, central objectifying image, the gestalt of the images, and generally "how the poem came about" and "why".

There is a blog called: How a Poem Happens. You might want them to answer the questions asked by Brodeur. I see that he lists you down as one of the poets he features in his blog.

I have posted several "Teaching Poetry" techni ques in my Ambit's Gambit blog in the 2009 archive.

If Poetry Reading (Dramatic Reading of their poems) does not solve the boredom, nothing will short of your flummoxing them with conceits and oxymorons and oral reading of their poems ala Dylan Thomas (baritone and all).

Albert