Writing the Brief Review:
Poetry Readings, Panels, and Presentations
By David Cope: [email protected]
Contents:

 Process of writing the Brief Review: 1-2
 Example: Taking Notes for Review of a Lecture: 3-4
 Example: Taking Notes for Review of a Reading: 4-5
 Sample Review: Beat Poet Sparks His Audience: 5-8
Sample Review: Romanian Poet/GRCC Alumna Reflects on Poetry and Politics: 8-9
Step One: Setting up the document.
<Learn something about the poets/presenters before attending a panel or reading. See the poets’
bios and links on the conference website for starters.
<Your review should include MLA header, title of review, and a line at the top identifying the poets
or participants, title of the event, location, and date. You may single space this reference, and place
it between the title and the review. Note that this documentation deviates from MLA references in
some ways; it is the kind of identifying tag placed at the front of a review, not a Works Cited
reference. Two examples:
Patricia Clark, Barbara Saunier, Kim Wyngarden, and G. F. Korreck. “Writing, Editing, Sharing Your
Work: Poetic Community.” Panel. The Grand Rapids Poets’ Conference. Grand Rapids
Community College. 108 Sneden Hall. 2 April 2012. 1:30-2:35.
Linda Nemec Foster, L. S. Klatt, and Miriam Pederson. Poetry Reading. The Grand Rapids Poets’
Conference. Grand Rapids Community College. 5 April 2012. 7:00-8:30.
Step Two: Research, note taking, and dialogue with others.
If you are attending a panel: as each poet speaks, take notes identifying what he/she is saying. If
you are not familiar with the claims, you will have an opportunity later to compare notes with other
students who attended the session, and to confer with your professor about what was said.
If you are attending a reading, try to keep track of the titles of the poems the poet reads, and
especially those poems that seemed to speak deeply about an issue, personal or otherwise. You
may want to question the poet after the reading to be sure of the title and for any other information
you might need.
If you are a second year (or 3rd or 4th year) student, you should keep track of images, tone, formal
devices (rhyme, rhythm, figures of speech) used by the poet. You may also comment on the poet’s
reading style and whether you found it effective—and why.
Note for all students writing reviews: poets’ reading styles range from the quiet, careful
presentation in which every word is absolutely clear, to performance of the work—dramatic
presentations emphasizing the emotion of the verse, as well as readings with musical or enacted
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accompaniment, or performance done in relation to artwork. What kind of performance does each
poet give, and does it “work” for you? Why? Why not?
If the poet comments his/her poems by way of introducing them, keep notes on it: do these those
comments illuminate the poems, or do you find them a distraction? Why?
Later, you should be able to work with other students and compare your perceptions with others,
and to “fact-check” them with your professor or with David Cope. Do keep in mind that when
writing a review, your opinions are important, though you should support them with evidence. As
Bob Dylan once said, “hold your judgment for yourself”—but be sure your position is supportable.
If you quote the poet or an online source on the poet, be sure to use parenthetical references and a
Works Cited citation for each source.
Step Three: drafting your review.
Once you have your notes in order, set up an outline and begin writing the review. Remember that
these reviews should take up at least two double-spaced pages, and that you will need to revise
them for organization, development, grammar and mechanics, and documentation. Professor
Maryann Lesert’s discussion of writing reviews may be helpful in this stage of the process
Reviews & the Classical Argument Structure
Many reviewers use a five-paragraph (or five essentials) format for meeting the
main goals of a written review.
A review is an argument: you introduce and define the work (description based on
a brief summary). This description may include parallels to similar works in the
genre and providing history/background information on the artist and the art form,
as needed, to help the reader understand the work.
At the close of the introduction, the reviewer focuses in on a thesis statement
(an attention-grabbing hook) that briefly summarizes an opinion of the work.
The reasons & support part of the reviewer’s argument (analysis), is built on careful
illustration: using concrete examples from the work to illustrate how the artist uses
the elements of the form (music, art, literature) to compose the work and to create
specific “issues” or themes or messages within the work.
Often, reviewers will then “zero-in” on a key moment or area of the [panel or reading:
poems that seemed particularly moving, or the claims made by a panelist, problematic
or troubling aspects of the performance or discussion].
Finally, the reviewer must come to a conclusion that passes judgment (evaluation)
based on a careful, final summary of the opinions and examples provided throughout
the review. This conclusion often examines how successful the artist was in carrying
out and expressing the purpose or the intent of the work.
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You should have in-class time for peer group revision, as well as opportunities to work with your
professor so that your review is clear, well-written, and carefully thought-out.
If your professor requires more than one review, follow the same pattern with the others. Turn in
your review or reviews on the stated due date.
Example: Taking Notes for Review of a Lecture
Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Lecture. Diversity Lecture Series. ATC Auditorium Grand Rapids
Community College. 26 October 1999. 1:00-2:00 p.m.
<The Problem of politics—it "stinks" and is "the product of our defects," yet we can't get along
without it: Yevtushenko hates "indifference to politics" and says writers must be politically aware,
realizing the leadership roles they must play in their nations.
In the Vietnam War, for example, American writers played a big part in stopping that war, yet said
nothing against bombing Yugoslavia—a fact Yevtushenko found disturbing.
<In US and Russia, one saw two very different wars in the official media: atrocities of Serbs in US,
atrocities of Albanians in Russia. In fact, in all such ethnic conflicts both sides are guilty of crimes
against humanity.
<NATO justifications for the bombing—"inevitable mistakes"—did not justify the bombing, but
excused it.
<The problem of the "dictatorship of money" that creates "hidden totalitarian systems": in Russia
after the fall of USSR, the politicians quickly learned the capitalist habits of using money to augment
their power, and even the intellectuals were swayed.
<In 1993, intellectuals supported Yeltsin when he gave the order to shell parliament: "they were
under the pressure of the idea of the lesser evil"—and the "omnipermissiveness" of moral choices
that grew from this ethical capitulation set the stage for the war in Chechnya.
<Yevtushenko insists that one needs to speak the truth, especially to your own comrades in arms—
otherwise your silence creates a complicity which leads to evil. What the intellectuals overlooked
in the parliament-shelling: inside were not only hardliners, but secretaries, plumbers, ordinary
workers: complicity with evil destroys innocents.
<Though he spent three years in the Russian parliament, Yevtushenko describes himself as a
"poetician, not politician."
<An aside on censorship and the current state of writing in Russia: little of interest in the past ten
years, where speech is far more free than before. The really vital writings came during the heavy
repression of totalitarian regime. Even Nabokov, at the end of his life, confided that he might have
been a greater writer if he had stayed in Russia—despite the repression, despite the deaths of so
many writers.
<"Pessimism is the easiest way to look cleverer than others" and yet is self-deception; yet optimism is often a simple-minded way to avoid confronting the hard realities of life. Yevtushenko
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recalls the writings of Yaroslav Smirnikov, a man who was broken in prison for his political views,
but who insisted that he was a "pessimistic optimist"—and taught Yevtushenko this more complex
view, to which he aspires. Yevtushenko describes himself as a "poet of love and shame"—his poems
often begin as testaments of love, but also of shame—as in "Babii Yar," a poem whose genesis came
with his shame at the Russian neglect of Jewish martyrs, which led him to speak out.
<After this, I went up and read portions of a Mayakovsky poem with Yevtushenko, I standing and
reading in English at microphone (reading a stanza or two at a time, stopped by Yevtushenko when
he felt I'd done enough for him to take over), he prowling the stage and reciting from memory, then
turning back to me for another set of lines in English.
Example: Taking Notes for Review of a Reading
Yevgeny Yevtushenk. Poetry Reading. Grand Rapids Community College Diversity Lecture
Series. Fountain Street Church. 26 October 1999. 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Notes on the poems:
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"Sleep My Beloved" was read/recited in both languages; it was interesting that he began with a
poem attempting to reconcile the lovers after an argument.
"The Execution of Stenka Razin"—a poem based on a Russian folk hero who defied the czar and
was beheaded for it. Shostakovich based a symphonic poem on this work.
For "I Love You More Than Nature," Yevtushenko came down off the stage and prowled the
audience, reciting directly to individual women in the audience.
"I would like" was a humorous poem reminding me, curiously enough, of Allen's "Ego
Confession," and brought a great deal of levity with it.
:Metamorphoses" looks at the various stages of life, using the names of Russian towns as
metaphors for each stage of life.
"Even if you are swimming alone" was perhaps the most quiet poem of the night, meditative.
"Goodbye Our Red Flag" was one of the two most poignant poems he read—sorrow at the loss
of ideals embodied in that flag, an indictment at the cruelties and suffering embodied in it, all
captured in the sense of people trampling over the flag and leaving it in the mud, as if they could
fool themselves into shedding history—the poem ending with questions as to what the new
tricolor would eventually embody, the burdens it would symbolize.
The new Paul Robeson poem really dealt with Robeson's learning Russian folksongs and singing
them in Russia, but also with his attempts to rescue the Jewish actor Mikhoels ("the best Lear
ever played in Russia"), who had been imprisoned in the Lubyanka Gulag. Robeson had
pretended to be naive, and kept asking the authorities what had happened to his friend
Mikhoels until they let the actor out to see him—emaciated, made up to look as if his cheeks had
healthy glow, broken by torture. Robeson was unable to save his friend, who later was killed by
truck in "accident," and of course Robeson himself was later tailed by Stalin's agents and, when
he returned to USA, put on blacklist as communist. Yevtushenko's poem insists that he did not
sing Russian songs in vain, that his gesture to his friend would live forever; read in tandem with
GRCC's Paul Robeson theatre director, Cedric Ward, this poem was the other deeply poignant
moment of the evening.
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Finally, "The City of Yes and The City of No" was a fit ending to the evening, bringing this
listener back to that day when, as a young man, I sat in my living room and first read this poem,
published in, I think, Life magazine: it was one of my first experiences of poetry's political
dimensions and the emotions embodied in the ways of emotional life growing from political
systems themselves.
<Summary preliminary to review, written as initial draft from notes:
After two lovely songs sung by Amy Frank, cantor at Temple Emanuel, Yevtushenko read for about
1 ½ hours, occasionally accompanied by Cedric Ward and Jeralyn Pinsky. He read some poems in
English himself, and with others followed the same pattern as he had with me, allowing the two
Americans to recite English translations before launching into his Russian originals from memory.
He was all over the stage, down among the audience, gesticulating, waltzing, even shaking his hips
when the lines called for it—his voice rising to shout to the rafters or growling in disgust,
descending to a whisper and chanting like an impassioned folk singer. The poems travelled from
declarations of and struggles with love to explorations of political rage and sorrow, the agonies of
the self in repression.
The line-up included:
Sleep, My Beloved (dual presentation)
The Execution of Stenka Razin (dual presentation)
I Love You More Than Nature (in English)
"I would like" (in English)
Metamorphoses (dual presentation)
"Even if you are swimming alone" (in English)
Goodbye Our Red Flag (in English)
A new poem, for Paul Robeson (dual presentation)
The City of Yes and the City of No (dual presentation)
Sample Review: Beat Poet Sparks His Audience
Allen Ginsberg. Two lectures. Applied Technology Center Auditorium. Grand Rapids
Community College. 19 February 1993. 1:00-3:00 p.m.
Allen spoke to a packed auditorium, mostly students and professors, but with a few press
reporters and local poets. In the first hour, Allen chanted the "Prajna Paramita Sutra" and spoke
about his political concerns, reading from his "New Democracy Wish List" (publ. New York Newsday,
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1-20- 93); he stated that "hyper-rationalization, hyper-industrialization & hyper-technology create
chaos," citing military industrial complexes, worldwide pollution, command economies that place
profit before the planet's real needs as examples of the principle. He also focused on his concerns
about censorship and claimed that only the freedom to say what one thinks will restore sanity to
governments and societies across the globe; citing J. Edgar Hoover as an example, he showed how
the fear of revealing one's true self can distort national priorities and create a complex web of
denial in which crime and homophobic behavior flourish.
Allen also spoke about political correctness, questioning the audience about the problem of
allowing free speech when that free speech involves hatred of gays and minorities; his position is
that governments should "punish deeds, not words." He later responded to questions about writing
and revision, stating the following principles: (1) "lean towards tolerance of your first drafts,"
depending on them while at the same time revising to eliminate abstraction and to substitute detail.
(2) focus your awareness as Kerouac did, by constantly working in the details of the scene and
situation; as a result of Kerouac's practice, "everything [comes] from the heart." Finally, he
answered a question about arts subsidies, saying that he believes in "democratic appreciation of the
arts, even if less-than-great poets get the subsidies." He also posed a question: if one should
eliminate subsidies for arts, shouldn't one also eliminate subsidies for Marine Corps marching
bands? Finally, he reminded the audience that "normal western developed nations spend much
more on the arts than we do. . . there is nothing wrong with government arts subsidies."
In the second hour, Allen answered many questions about writing and about his Buddhist
religious practice. First, he pointed out the usefulness of one's dreams as providing materials for
one's art, saying that he writes out dreams he remembers, and that those that seem to tell complete
stories often can be transcribed directly as poems. To a question regarding the relationship of
poetry to music, he claimed that the bond between the two arts goes back to the beginnings of the
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forms—citing the 12,000 year old Australian Aborigine practice, Homer, Greek choruses that sang
and danced, African practices, and such modern forms as African American blues and poet
composers such as Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Allen pointed out that even in spoken form, words
have a musicality in their sounds. A good poet will be conscious of pitch, and "vocalization is an
essential attribute of the poem."
He next answered questions about fundamentalist Christianity and balancing the literary
canon. Allen first separated fundamentalists into two groups—"libertarian fundamentalists" and a
group he labeled "Stalinists" who "have tried to deny me my fundamental rights to speak my mind."
He pointed out that this second group, which includes the likes of Senator Jesse Helms, presents an
agenda using language remarkably similar to the language used by Nazis, Stalinists and Maoists in
that all four have attempted to "impose their absolutist views on others" and censor freedom of
expression by claiming that those works they disagree with are examples of "spiritual corruption"
practiced by "degenerate individualists." To the question of balancing the literary canon, Allen
responded by naming numerous texts that should be included in teaching literature; among these,
he named "The Heart Sutra," the Hindu Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana, the poems and biography of
Milarepa (the Tibetan saint), Lao-Tze, the work of Kabir, African trickster tales and Native American
coyote tales, the Australian Aborigine epic, and others, including the earliest written epic,
Gilgamesh.
Finally, a student asked him if he saw a conflict between the western "extroverted" mindset
and the "introverted" eastern mindset in his Buddhist practice.
Allen first pointed out that
Buddhist practice was not a turning inward or denial of the outer reality, explaining that meditation
quiets the mind and allows one to increase sensory appreciation. The point is to increase one's
aware-ness in order to return to the world and help alleviate the suffering that is everywhere. He
gave the audience basic instructions on sitting posture ("spine straight, eyes open—neither overly
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focused nor unfocused; pay attention to the breath exhaling; accept the fact that you cannot
concentrate exclusively on that, and sometimes will wander into your thoughts—return to
attentive-ness to the breath when you become aware"); after this, the poet and entire audience sat
silently for three minutes together.
Allen ended the second hour with descriptions of the "ground"—mental attentiveness and
tuning—necessary for the process of writing. Quoting Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, he said that the
first thought that comes into one's mind is the place to start, and stated that one should develop a
looseness and acceptance of "one thought following another without hyper-logical or artificially
linear progression." Allen cited Keats' idea of "negative capability"—acceptance of contradictions
and negations as being necessary to containing a whole vision; he quoted Creeley's idea that "form
is never more than an extension of content," and explored Wordsworth's "spots of time"—moments
of vividness located in ordinary experience but raised to epiphany by attentiveness to details.
Sample Review: Romanian Poet/GRCC Alumna Reflects on Politics and Poetry
Carmen Bugan. Two lectures. Grand Rapids Community College. ATC Conference Room,
9:30-10:30; ATC Auditorium. 21 March 2003. 1:30-3:30.
GRCC alumna, poet and Oxford University PhD Carmen Bugan spoke to assembled faculty,
students, and interested people on a variety of topics in her two presentations. She began by
addressing the problem of writing under political and psychological duress, reading from those
poems detailing her father's civil disobedience and imprisonment during the tyrannical Ceaucescu
regime in Romania. In her remarks following the reading, she spoke directly about the problem of
war and the feelings it arouses in writers; Carmen believes poetic propaganda—poems driven
merely by anger at perceived injustice, cruelty or oppression—does not create poetry that endures
or speaks most deeply about such experiences. Instead, quoting from Seamus Heaney's Nobel Prize
lecture, "Crediting Poetry," she suggested that the "necessary poetry . . . touch[es] the base of our
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sympathetic nature while taking in at the same time the unsympathetic reality of the world to
which that nature is constantly exposed." The poet who witnesses historical duress must "take
some distance from anger so that he or she will create a space where the conflict itself is presented
in its authenticity; when the poet keeps his or her political statement in the background, the poem
is allowed to raise deeper issues about the nature of the political conflict."
She read examples by Heaney, Milosz, and Cope to illustrate how "attention to minute
particulars"—paying attention to the images war creates rather than becoming trapped in an angry
rant—gives one that perspective. Carmen also spoke about the need for human dignity in telling a
personal story of historical duress: "the poet," she said, "must avoid self-pity or rage." This she
discussed in relation to her own manuscript, Crossing the Carpathians, which over the years has
moved from a poetry of rage and condemnation (what happened to her family in Romania) to a
calmer, less emotional work which takes in aesthetic considerations by suppressing her own
condemning and angry voice. Carmen stated that she owes some aspects of her approach to her
reading of East European poetry in translation and, more recently, to studying the work of Seamus
Heaney.
In her later sessions, Carmen addressed the spiritual journey that has marked the second
stage of her career, leaving the political estrangement and heartache of her youth to create a new
life with a new language. Reading her poems written on a 71 mile hike along the Dorset coast and
her poem set in Holywell Cemetery, she talked about the need to recreate oneself out of difficult
circumstances. Faced with many kinds of solitudes (exile, lost love, and contemplation of one's
death), one must probe the vision "on the side of forgetting": her poem "January, Holywell
Cemetery" ends with the image of spring flowers growing from the place where the stone cross has
uprooted itself.