Form and Theory of Poetry

HYBRID FORMS

ENG 410 Form and Theory of Poetry

Spring 2025 / MW 12:00-1:15pm / In person / KUY 409

Kumu: Noʻu Revilla (she/her)                                   Office Location: Kuykendall 719

Email: nrevilla@hawaii.edu (1-2 days response)      Student Hours: MON, 1:30-2:30 in person

 

 

Course Desciption

What are the “rules” of poetry? Who came up with these rules and what happens when we “break” them or create new ones? Are hybrid forms just about rebellion, or do they also insist on collaboration, intimacy, and worldbuilding? In this WI course, we will read, discuss, and create hybrid forms that straddle the genres of poetry and creative nonfiction (even a little fiction). We will study writers whose works transgress genre boundaries and refuse to comply with business-as-usual storytelling.

Our semester will begin with prose poems, which Abigail Beckel and Kathleen Rooney argue are more than just poetry without line breaks; they are “little boxes that can contain big things.”[1] Next we will study burning haibun, epistolary poetry, hermit crab, experiments with text and images, and the lyric essay. Monica Ong’s Silent Anatomies models several of these hybrid forms and will serve as one of two core texts in this class. Students are required to purchase a print copy of Silent Anatomies, which is available through its publisher Kore Press (estimate $25 plus shipping). Full-length texts like Silent Anatomies will be placed in conversation with shorter creative works as well as craft essays, interviews, book reviews, and literary criticism, many of which are housed in the second required book of our course: Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres.

By the end of the semester, students should expect to produce a portfolio of revised and polished material that could potentially be ready to publish in a literary magazine or journal, like Ānuenue Review, the undergraduate literary journal of UH-Mānoa. While the class will be generative for students who enjoy creative writing, all who wish to think, create, and build community outside of “the box” are welcome. Come join us!

 

 

Student Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course students should be able to:

  • recognize and discuss with confidence various forms and techniques of hybrid works and apply them in their own writing
  • develop a consistent creative practice that includes play, endurance, revision, community, reflection, and gratitude
  • produce a portfolio of hybrid work that is revised, alive, and audacious
  • place their own writing in conversation with a longer, global history of hybrid works
  • articulate an original poetics of hybridity
  • evaluate the significance of hybridity in cultural, political, and artistic contexts
  • contribute consistent and meaningful feedback to a writing community

 

 

Course Expenses

Majority of the course readings will be available as PDFs or hyperlinks via Laulima. In addition to a hawaii.edu email and regular access to the Internet, students are required to have a dedicated course notebook, a pen or pencil for every class, and the following books in their print forms:

  • Marcela Sulak and Jacqueline Kolosov, editors, Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres, Rose Metal Press, 2015
  • Monica Ong, Silent Anatomies, Kore Press, 2015

I don’t want course expenses to be the only reason you don’t join our writing community. You may borrow copies of these books from Hamilton Library or brainstorm alternatives with me.

 

 

Major Assignments

Students will produce a significant amount of writing (at least 4,000 words) such that the course fulfills the requirements of its mandatory WI Focus designation.

 

Five Writing Experiments

  • Experiment with burning haibun
  • Experiment with epistolary poetry
  • Experiment with hermit crab
  • Experiment with text and images
  • Experiment with lyric essay

 

Three Reading Responses (500 words each, reader’s choice)

Reading responses will be due on the day we are discussing the assigned work in class. The assignment, which may respond to one or multiple readings, should begin with two sentences of summary and no more. Highlight moments that resonate, challenge, provoke, or inspire you. Analyze how craft choices shaped a specific passage or the work at large. Reflect on how the reading(s) relates to your own writing, previous readings, or current events. Placing course texts in conversation with ourselves and longer, global histories is important. However, please remember that majority of the reading response should demonstrate critical engagement with content, craft, and/or context of the selected reading. To connect the assignment with class discussion, please conclude reading responses with four thoughtful questions for your peers. All students must sign up for reading responses within the first two weeks of class.

 

Book Club

Bookclub is a peer review activity in which students read their work out loud in a group and engage with questions about craft or how the work is constructed. First, students are divided into small groups. Next, each student takes a turn sharing the text of their draft and reading their draft out loud. When each student is finished reading their work, each of their peers will respond according to a practice we agree on in class. Book Club strives to build a safe and brave writing community by offering a serious chance to practice reading your work out loud and talking about your process. You will also practice listening with respect and curiosity to the work of your peers and develop generative workshop skills that you can apply after our course ends. Another important goal of Book Club is to motivate each other to get back into our drafts and keep writing. We are here to meet each other where we are right now; we are not here to make everyone sound or think or write the same. What a dreary world that would be. To receive full credit, you must attend class, read your draft out loud, respectfully engage with your peers, and compose a short reflection (100-150 words) of the peer review experience. The reflection is due on Laulima > Assignments.

 

Portfolio

  • Title page
  • Dedication page
  • Acknoweledgements section
  • Revised and polished versions of all writing experiments
  • For one of the six writing experiments, you must supply a complete revision sequence: first draft with my feedback, formal reflection on feedback and plans for revision (250 words), second draft, portfolio draft, reflection on how your revision practice changed during the semester (500 words)
  • Artist statement (500 words)

 

 

 

[1] Beckel, Abigail and Kathleen Rooney. “Field Notes: A Preface.” The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice. Edited by Gary L. McDowell and F. Daniel Rzicknek, Rose Metal Press, 2010, pp. xi- xiv.