Assignment for Paper 2 (Magazine Analysis)
Length: 1750-1900 words (not counting title and Works Cited)
Poetry often occupies adjacent spaces, In a book or e-book, it may abut another poem (or part of another poem) by the same or a different writer. On the web poems appear under an organization's banner and the navigation ribbon, often sharing the screen with images and biographical/historical information. In the double-page spreads of literary magazines, poems can appear alongside other poetry, or alongside narrative or nonfiction prose. In popular magazines we find poems adjacent to other forms of literature, to advertisements, to news articles, recipes--all manner of things. In popular magazines a poem might share the same thing with two or more of these things. In popular magazines the adjacent spaces where poetry resides may not seem literary at all. These spaces can shift our understanding of poetry's relationships to culture in unexpected ways.
For this assignment you’ll consider the extent to which women’s poetry reinforces and/or resists "the mainstream" by exploring work by (or about) a syllabus poet that appeared in 1 issue of a popular magazine. By mainstream I mean some overarching cultural convention that your magazine highlights (such as domesticity, consumer culture, gender, race, sexuality, beauty, romance, family, national identity, cosmopolitanism, the literary market/writers). I’m leaving the term flexible so you can tailor it to suit your particular interests. While you will focus on your magazine issue’s depiction your poet, you can also touch base with relevant poems we’ve read to develop your argument and establish key contexts.
Please note that you will not have room to discuss the entire magazine in your paper, so choose a cluster of thematically or otherwise related material across the array of poetry, fiction, feature articles, advertisements, letters to the editor, recipes, advice columns, etc. In your paper, restrict your focus to those materials that prove most crucial to your argument. In formulating your thesis, decide whether your poet's relevant work mostly coincides or conflicts with the magazine's depiction of your “mainstream.” You might also consider whether the poet's and magazine's depictions are consistent in and of themselves.
Documentation. MLA style. In the introduction, give the magazine's title, month & year. In body paragraphs, provide the page # for any magazine material you cite. If you assess an advertisement or other visual text in any depth, please attach a PDF or JPEG with your submission.
STEIN
An anonymous response to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons appeared in Atlantic Monthly.
Atlantic Monthly, September 1914 (“Flat Prose”)
Stein became a Life literary celebrity after WWII because she lived in Occupied Paris and was visited by GIs. She also toured Germany after the war.
Life, October 2, 1944 (“The Liberation of Gertrude Stein”)
Life, April 16, 1945 (“A War Is a War Is a War”)
Life, August 6, 1945 (“Off We All Went to See Germany,” by Stein)
Life, August 18, 1947 (“Speaking of Pictures”)
MILLAY
Edna St. Vincent Millay published several poems in Vanity Fair, and briefly served as a foreign correspondent for the magazine. Her prose pieces appeared under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd.
Vanity Fair, 1920: July, August & November
Vanity Fair, 1921: April, May, June, July, August, September, October
H.D.
Atlantic, April 1958
Nation, March 2, 1932
New Republic, January 1931
BROOKS
Although Ebony did not publish any of Gwendolyn Brooks’s poetry until 1968, she was one of the magazine’s literary celebrities from its beginning. She received the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Ebony, February 1949 (“Poets” article includes a photo of Brooks)
Ebony, February 1953 (“Celebrities Pick Their Favorite Heroes”)
Ebony, May 1953 (Brooks mentioned in photo-editorial on African American women)
Ebony, February 1959 (Brooks mentioned in photo-editorial on Black history)
*Ebony, May 1960 (“Why Some People are Lucky”) *this issue available online thru Google
Essence, April 1971 (Nikki Giovanni tribute to Brooks)
Harper’s: Feb. 1945 (“Five Poems”); Sep. 1959 (“The Explorer”); Dec. 1959 (“For Clarice”)
Jet, Feb. 25, 1971 (“Artists, Friends, Admirers Gather in Tribute…”) *available thru Google
The Nation: Sep. 24, 1949 (rev. of A Street in Bronzeville); Sep. 1, 1962 (rev. of The Bean Eaters)
New Yorker: Sep. 22, 1945 (rev. of A Street in Bronzeville); Dec. 17, 1949 (rev. of Annie Allen)
PLATH
Sylvia Plath began publishing in top American magazines as a college student. The August 3, 1963 issue of New Yorker has a tribute & 7 of her poems.
New Yorker: Aug. 9 & 11 Oct. of 1958; April 9 & 20 August of 1960; Aug. 3, 1963
Atlantic: August 1955 (“Circus in Three Rings”); January 1957 (“Pursuit”); August 1961 (“Words for a Nursery”); April 1963 (“Bee Box,” “Wintering”)
Harper’s: May 1954 (“Doomsday”); September 1954 (“To Eva Descending a Stair”); November 1954 (“Go Get the Goodly Squab”); July 1960 (“Mushrooms”); June 1961 (“You’re”)
SEXTON
Anne Sexton was a literary celebrity who won the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and toured with her jazz band.
Harper’s: May 1959 (“The Farmer’s Wife”); November 1959 (“Kind Sir, These Woods”; November 1961 (“To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph”); October 1963 (“Love Song”); June 1965 (“For the Year of the Insane,” in Four); December 1967 (“The Nude Swim”); January 1973 (“Red Roses”); July 1975 (“The Yellow Balloon”)
Atlantic: November 1968 (“You All Know the Story of the Other Woman”); March 1972 (“The Letting Down of the Hair”); December 1972 (“Praying on a 707”); May 1973 (“Faustus and I”)
Poems in New Republic: Dec. 11, 1971; February 12, 1972; February 26, 1972 (“The Hoarder”); September 28, 1974
DOVE
Rita Dove’s Pulitzer Prize (1987) and U.S. Poet Laureateship (1993-1995) boosted her profile in the media.
Ebony: Oct. 1987 (Pulitzer article), available on Google
*New Yorker: December 26, 1994 (“Vacation”); April 29, 1996 (“Incarnation in Phoenix”); Feb. 3, 2003 (“American Smooth”); Nov. 10, 2003 (“All Souls’”); (“Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove”); May 10, 2004; Jan. 25, 2021 (“Last Words”)
MLINKO
Ange Mlinko was Poetry Editor for The Nation from 2013-2016, and she is currently Poetry Editor of Subtropics.
New Yorker: May 4, 2009 (“Treatment”); Oct. 18, 2010 (“Bliss Street); Nov. 3, 2015 (“Supercell”)
The Nation: May 27, 2010 (“Prolixities Docked”); Sep. 2016; Jan 21, 2011 (essay “Languaging”); March 21, 2012 & April 9, 2012 (“Azure” & “Cicada”); March 23, 2015 (essay “The Dream Life of Desire”)
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