Gotti's Son is a Commie
- Gottes Sohn ist kommen
- uns allen zu frommen
- hier auf dieser Erden
- in armen Gebärden,
- dass er uns von Sünde
- freie und entbinde.
The tutorials consisted of one-on-one meetings for a half hour every other week throughout the semester. I'd bring John works in progress for critique, and his suggestions were always most astute. One of the greatest compliments I've ever received as a writer was when he told me my short prose series "Bagatelles" was "frighteningly simple." He'd also suggest writers I should become familiar with, and the works he suggested were always compelling.
But in addition to critiquing the work I was generating on my own he also gave assignments. He's a big fan of fixed forms, and I wrote several pantoums under his tutelage. I also wrote a piece based on an Italian rebus. Another favorite assignment of his was to have his students write pseudo-translations of poems from languages they didn't know, a kind of surrealist exercise. I remember he once gave me a section of the Finnish Kalevala to work with.
I haven't worked with this last method for many years, but I decided to try it with an old German hymn (above), words by Johann Roh. Here's my version:
Gotti's son is a commie
and Allen's his foreman,
hair of diesel earth
in Armen's garden.
This is one fun Sunday:
fried and in bondage.
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Brooklyn College - Boylan Hall (west wing) 4th floor studios, common area (a.k.a granny's room).
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