Kisii University

Dr.Christopher Okemwa

Lit 124: Creative writing (Poetry & Drama)

Introduces students to the fundamentals of writing poetry and drama. The focus of this
course will be on the craft of writing poetic and dramatic discourse and building lasting habits to
nurture that fickle and elusive—yet sublime—spirit, the Muse. Attention to the conception,
design, and execution both of the whole work and elements of figurative language,
characterization, dialogue, point of view, and poetic structure, as well as other elements of the
craft will be explored. Students will also be exposed representative works from each genre.

Course Objectives:
 Students will learn to apply course material, develop specific skills (research, oral and
written skills), competencies, and points of view needed by professionals in the field of
literature and communication.
 Students will produce poems or drama pieces that are original, yet engage in an effective and
rewarding conversation with the traditions of literature.
 Students will be able to articulate an awareness of the relationship between their individual
works and the tradition.
 Students will be able to present their own literary works—and the works of others—orally in
a public forum with the ability to bring the written word to life for an audience.
 Students demonstrate and apply knowledge of language structure, conventions, media
techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and non-print
texts.
Course Assignments (also daily schedule below):
By the end of the term you have to:
 Put together a poetry portfolio for our review. The portfolio will consist of, in this order:
1) one sonnet or quatrain-styled ballad (strict form); 2) 2 imagist (with sharp imagery and
clear, sharp language) or free-style poems; 3) one response/mimic poem (any form); 4) 3
thematically connected poems (any form); 5) one poem about poetry or artistic creation
(any form).
 Write an original dramatic story with believable characters and dialogue (see daily
schedule for writing prompts/activities for places to begin).
Assigned Poetry Exercises (which could be used to complete the above course requirement):
Exercise #1: This will is a memory exercise designed to let you recall a significant
moment from your past. Remember as many details as you can, to focus on actual images
and things you can perceive with your senses. We’re beginning with autobiographical
detail because any life becomes rich and complicated when looked at closely. Recounting
the mysteries of your own life may give a source of ideas to tap for the lives of other
“speakers” in future poems. Your objective with this exercise is to write a poem that
 LIT 124 Syllabus 2

arouses a reader’s interest and that contains vivid evocations illuminated by sensory
impressions.
Exercise #2: Choose one of the following: Abecederian, Pantoum, Villanelle, Sestina or
blank verse (best suited for narrative), or syllabics (normative or variable; keep lines 12
syllables and under). The purpose of this exercise is to concentrate on shaping your lines,
providing your poems the structure that makes a poem a poem. Please see the models in
the poetry packet provided.
Exercise #3:
In this assignment you will write a persona poem. Persona poems are like dramatic
monologues or first-person narrators in fiction—you, the author, don’t speak the poem in
your own voice but in the voice of another. Inhabit that other perspective, develop his/her
voice, and speak from it a poem of his/her character. The purpose of this exercise is to
free ourselves from our own habits of mind and to develop empathy with those unlike
ourselves. You will of course draw from your own experiences to write this poem, but
concentrate on making your persona as authentic and “other” as possible. Models:
“Mummy of a Lady,” “We Real Cool.”

Recommended Texts:
Fish, Stanley, How to Read a Sentence: And How to Write One
Sellers, Heather. The Practice of Creative Writing. MacMillan Learning, 2017.
Okot P’Bitek, Song of Lawino and Song of Ocal. Waveland Press, 2013.
Plays: Imbuga, Francis. Betrayal in the City. East African Publishers, 1976.
Okemwa, Christopher. Otenyo, the Great Warrior of the Abagusii, Nsemia, 2017.
Okemwa, Christopher. Purgatorius Ignis. Nsemia, 2018
Okemwa, Christopher. Ominous Clouds, Nsemia,2019
Okemwa, Christopher. Pieta. Yerevan Lusakn, 2019
Shakespeare, William, Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare, William. Othello.
A good dictionary
**Other supplementary materials will be provided.
A notebook that is unique to this course.

Unit 1: Poetry

Objectives: Students will demonstrate an ability to create an original dramatic story with
believable characters and dialogue by writing and revising an original ten-minute scene.

Learning outcomes
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
 Understand the common techniques underlying free verse and traditional forms of poetry.
 Model skills acquired through the course in their own writing.
 Identify personal experiences that can be used when writing poems.
 Understand the basic terminology and practical elements of poetry.
 LIT 124 Syllabus 3

Scheduled Activities
Date In-Class Discussion Writing Activities
Poetry
28/5/2019  Introduction to 1. Create a list of 25 moving images you hope
course/definition to use for this workshop. Number them one
 Finding Focus: Subjects to twenty-five. Play the story of your life,
for Writing – Beginning from age five to now, so that item number
with what you know: one is the first image you see. Don’t strain
A. Family as Subject too hard—you are just practicing noticing
B. Grief/ “Death” how your image making mind works.
C. Witnessing What’s the first little movie of yourself can
D. Nature you see? (e.g., your first day of school?
Your first dance? Kiss?) Move through your
life, naming the little movies that star you.
How transformative are these movies? If you
think of something, but you can’t see it in
your mind’s eye, don’t put it down on your
list. Reread your list. Which entries seem the
most interesting for writing? Which create an
image in your mind’s eye? Place a star by
those.
2. Choose any one of the images you listed in
Activity 1 that focuses on either a “desire,”
“death,” or a want and then draft your own
poem. It doesn’t have to conform to any
particular form at this point, but should
incorporate images.
4/6/2019  A Poet’s Craft: Principles 1. What images obsess you? What do you think
of Images about when you are daydreaming? What kind of
 Simile, Metaphor, images do you find yourself returning to or
Personification, Music of seeking comfort? What object, person, place, and
the line and etc. picture could you look at for hours and not get
 Meter, rhyme and Form bored? Look at one of your obsessive pictures
and describe it intimately. Do it in prose,
quickly; don’t worry about making it a poem yet.
Then contrast it with an image that you repress
continually, that you really fight. Describe the
second image just as closely. Once you have
done that, try joining the two images; mingle
them as Hummer does in his poem below and
what happens (please see the handout).
2. Write a poem about a disturbing experience,
using lots of unified similes, taking “Feared
Drowned” as a model (for samples, see poems
on handout #1). Then write a second poem on
the same experience, only using as many
 LIT 124 Syllabus 4

different similes as possible for what the

experience was like; that is, keep changing the
comparison: It was like . . . or else it was
like . . .”
3. Write a brief seven-to-ten-line poem with an
abstract title: Loneliness, Desire, Ecstasy,
Suffering, Pleasure. Make the poem a metaphor
for the title, without using the abstraction poem
(for samples, see poems on handout #1).
4. Write a brief seven-to-ten-line poem with an
abstract title: Loneliness, Desire, Ecstasy,
Suffering, Pleasure. Make the poem a metaphor
for the title, without using the abstraction poem
(for samples, see poems on handout #1).
5. Describe an activity – cleaning house, fishing,
painting, a picture, bathing child, dancing,
cooking a meal – which could serve as a
metaphor for your life, for how you are in the
world.
6. Write a “negative simile” poem: “It wasn’t like
_____________, or ____________ . . .”

11/6/2019  Pattern by Ear: Rhyme 1. Using repeated words from the following list,
and Echoes (consonants write a chant that seems rhythmically interesting
and Vowels); Rhyme & and has a sense of closure. Don’t worry about
Meter, Rhyme, what it means; just create something that feels
Repetition: Villanelle, complete. Let the words trigger the direction of
Pantoum and etc. the poem; you don’t need to use all of them, and
 Energy of Revision you can add as many words as you need.
(Smoke, angels, mirrors, regret, moonless,
pleasure, rose, glittering, face, oblivion, burning,
strip, breaking, smoldering, hotel
2. Write a poem that begins and ends with the same
line. The reader should feel differently about the
second time s/he encounters it, because of what
has happened in the poem.
3. Try writing either a villanelle or pantoum. Allow
your repeated lines to natural conform to your
intended purpose.
 LIT 124 Syllabus 5

Unit 2: Drama
Objectives: Students will demonstrate an ability to create an original dramatic story with
believable characters and dialogue by writing and revising an original ten-minute scene.

Learning Outcomes: Upon completion of this unit student’s will:

 Understand the fundaments of playwriting.
 Use dramatic techniques to explore ideas, issues and dramatic texts;
 Convey character and atmosphere in scripted plays or improvisations;
 Appreciate the structure and organization of plays;
 Evaluate and analyze the structure, meaning and impact of plays they have studied, read/or
watched or in which they have taken part.

Writing Assignments:
Playwriting
Date Class Discussion Writing Activities
18-  Definition of 1. Write a short play that follows formula entirely. Allow
06- Genre & Basics yourself only one line of dialogue for each structural
2019  The structure of element. That is, allow one line for the event, one line to
Formula: reveal the protagonist, one to reveal the protagonist, one line
Beginning, to revel the antagonist, one line for the disturbance, one line
Middle, & End for the major decision, and etc.
 Plot Driven 2. Romeo and Juliet begins with an event, the gang fight. What
Structure other events could Shakespeare have used to begin the play?
Examine the reason each might or might not have used to
begin the play. For example:
Possible beginnings :( a) It could have begun with the event
that started the two families warring;
(b) The play could begin with Rosaline (Romeo’s previous
love interest) and Romeo breaking up; and (c) It could have
begun with Romeo proclaiming his need to fall in love.

Now, try the same exercise with your play. List several
possible opening events. Why would each be a natural place
to begin your story? Does each contain the essence of the
story?
3. List the conflicts/crises, complications, and obstacles
contained within your play idea. There are no set rules as to
how many conflicts you need. You must decide: Do you
have enough to sustain the middle of your play?
25- Character is the best 1. Write a short scene in which you find positive motivation
06- plot there is!! for what the antagonist in your story idea does. Don’t
2019 merely justify emotions and actions, but try to find a part of
yourself similar to the character.
2. Write a scene in which your protagonist and antagonist are
in conflict. Make sure the reader’s sympathy falls with the
 LIT 124 Syllabus 6

antagonist because his or her positive motivations are now

clear. (The key to this exercise is to rewrite the scene as
little as possible)
3. Select a character in your story idea with whom you have
the least in common. Attempt to find events, an emotion, or
motivation in your life that you could substitute for the
character’s own events, emotion, or motivation.
02- Form Writing: 1. Draw up a list of plot points for your play idea. Do the plot
07- -Dramatic Principles points come from the characters or from formula?
2019 -Characters, action, Chart your play’s plot-structure as compared with the standard
conflict/crisis, truth, formula. Where do you follow formula, where do you differ?
spectacle, unity Use the following chart to plot the differences.
-Developing an idea
with Plot points
-Scenario-Writing-
Rewriting
Fundamental to a play
through which
characters reveal
themselves
FORMULA FORM
BEGINNING
Event:
Protagonist &
Antagonist:
Disturbance:
Decision:

MIDDLE
Conflict:
Crises:
Obstacles:
Complication:
Dark Moment

END
Enlightenment:
Climax:
Catharsis

IJA/2019