The Creative Assignment is in two parts: (1)A "pastiche," or a stylistic imitation of another text. You will choose a work by one of the poets we are reading, and then identify one or more elements of the work to transform in some way; write your own poem, modelled after the original text. Your imitation, or pastiche, need not be longer than a page or two. Also, notice that in a sense you will "copy" the original, but since you are changing content and overall form, it is not at all "plagiarism." You will have broad creative latitude in the design and direction of your pastiche. (2) I will not directly grade the Pastiche (imitation) itself (though it must be "sincerely attempted"). Instead, I will grade the accompanying Defense: a description of the process you followed, and of the outcome. Use these bullet points in developing your Defense (perhaps one paragraph per bullet point): · A detailed explanation of your choice for the primary text you have imitated · A definition of the particular elements you tried to imitate · A description of the creative process you followed · An account of the challenges you encountered, and how you dealt with them · Your own opinion of the resulting imitation · A summary of the resulting insights regarding the primary work, and creative effort in general · Put a page break after your Pastiche, then start the Defense on a new page. Put both in the same file. The Defense should be around 600 words, minimum. Take a look at the sample Pastiche & Defense assignments I have provided. They are on the Lectures and Announcements forum. Essentially, this is an exercise in analysis but from a different angle. You need to identify specific formal and thematic characteristics of a text. But then, you will attempt to transfer a fewof them to a text of your own creation. Take a look at how Raleigh responds to Marlowe --see "A Passionate Shepherd to His Love"and "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd.  Then, look at a poem like "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden. Among many other characteristics, it presents a male speaker who tells of a father, somewhat strict and disciplined, with whom  the speaker, now probably an adult and the father perhaps dead, had a troubled, uncommunicative relationship. You can create a poem that will also remember back to a recurring, that is, a habitual, experience with your father or mother, or a grandparent, or some other authority figure (you can vary the basic elements); you will perhaps try as well to capture the split consciousness: the earlier lack of appreciation, the present tone of regret; and you might also carry over some of the other, more formal devices: the use of sounds to capture some psychological aspect of the person or situation (notice the "k" sounds in the Hayden poem), or the concluding question ("What did I know, what did I know?") that also includes some key word of double significance ("office," that is partly religious and partly about the disciplined,dutifu l matters .

1. The Creative Assignment is in two parts:
(1)A "pastiche," or a stylistic imitation of another text. You will
choose a work by one of the poets we are reading, and then
identify one or more elements of the work to transform in some
way; write your own poem, modelled after the original text.
Your imitation, or pastiche, need not be longer than a page or
two. Also, notice that in a sense you will "copy" the original,
but since you are changing content and overall form, it is not at
all "plagiarism." You will have broad creative latitude in the
design and direction of your pastiche.
(2) I will not directly grade the Pastiche (imitation) itself
(though it must be "sincerely attempted"). Instead, I will grade
the accompanying Defense: a description of the process you
followed, and of the outcome. Use these bullet points in
developing your Defense (perhaps one paragraph per bullet
point):
·
A detailed explanation of your choice for the primary text you
have imitated
·
A definition of the particular elements you tried to imitate
·
A description of the creative process you followed
·
An account of the challenges you encountered, and how you
dealt with them
·
Your own opinion of the resulting imitation
·
A summary of the resulting insights regarding the primary work,
and creative effort in
general
·
Put a page break after your Pastiche, then start the Defense on a
new page. Put both in the same file. The Defense should be

2. around 600 words, minimum.
Take a look at the sample Pastiche & Defense assignments I
have provided. They are on the Lectures and Announcements
forum.
Essentially, this is an exercise in analysis but from a different
angle. You need to identify specific formal and thematic
characteristics of a text. But then, you will attempt to transfer a
fewof them to a text of your own creation.
Take a look at how Raleigh responds to Marlowe --see "A
Passionate Shepherd to His Love"and "The Nymph's Reply to
the Shepherd.
Then, look at a poem like "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert
Hayden. Among many other characteristics, it presents a male
speaker who tells of a father, somewhat strict and disciplined,
with whom the speaker, now probably an adult and the father
perhaps dead, had a troubled, uncommunicative relationship.
You can create a poem that will also remember back to a
recurring, that is, a habitual, experience with your father or
mother, or a grandparent, or some other authority figure (you
can vary the basic elements); you will perhaps try as well to
capture the split consciousness: the earlier lack of appreciation,
the present tone of regret; and you might also carry over some
of the other, more formal devices: the use of sounds to capture
some psychological aspect of the person or situation (notice the
"k" sounds in the Hayden poem), or the concluding question
("What did I know, what did I know?") that also includes some
key word of double significance ("office," that is partly
religious and partly about the disciplined,dutifu l matters the
son remembers of his father. Everything else in your poem will
be your own,although you might perhaps borrow elements from
yet another poem or story. But there is a great deal of flexibility
(that is, creativity and responsibility) in the way you choose
what elements to imitate. You could imitate, or even copy
verbatim, a crucial (or concluding, or initiating) line or two
from a text, but change almost everything else. From Hayden's
poem, you might borrow only the memory of a recurring

3. domestic experience, and perhaps the regretful (orother
emotional) rhetorical question at the end. But your speaker
might be the father, or the wife,or an outside observe--that's up
to you. We don't even need to see overt connections between
your text and the primary, imitated text--although I expect you
to let me know in your defense
what text you worked from. Many writers start by imitating a
beloved (or a challenging, or infuriating) primary text, and end
up with something no longer recognizable as a pastiche at all.
All writers would most likely trace at least some aspects of
their writing, and many of their works, to something they read
and were struck by (positively as well as negatively). If you
work with a story, most likely your piece will be fragmentary,
or at least a short- short story. You might focus on a passage
demonstrated dialogue, character description, climactic
confliction, interior monologue, setting of scene, or something
else specific. But again, the choice is yours.The grade will be
based on how well your write, and on how fully and insightfully
you present the description of your process in the Defense. You
should submit the finished Creative Assignment as one file
electronically via the "Assignments" tool on the Eagle Online
web site. No late submissions will be accepted unless you
communicate wi th me and receive approval. I recommend
saving your work regularly as you work on the computer; print
out a hard copy for yourself when you submit the project to me
EXAMPLE:
Pastiche
Hanging Out at the Pool in San Antonio, Texas
To the side of me I see a dark spider, Crawling up his
masterful web, Blowing like a stray leaf in the brief wind. Over
the walkway beside the bronze casita; The children play 5
Into the sunset of dusk. To my left, In a pool chair just to the
side of me, My boyfriend Relaxing in the gentle breeze,
10 I relax my chair, as darkness comes upon us, A few raindrops
hit the umbrella, I have not lived my life right.

4. Defense
I have imitated a poem by James Wright called “Lying in a
Hammock at William Duffy’s
Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota.” I chose this poem because of
the ending. This man is relaxing
in a hammock looking at all of nature around him and the last
line of the poem is, “I have wasted
my life.” This poem reminded me of my trip to San Antonio
where I just sat at the pool all day
lounging and watching everything around me. At the end of
the night I have pondered so much
about like I had realized I needed to turn my life around the
very same way James Wright wrote a
poem about.
In my poem I chose to imitate the style of writing Wright
used. The first twelve lines of
the poem describe beautiful scenery and the last line is just
thrown in there about what he had
been thinking about the whole time he was watching the
scenery. The poem has a very
melancholy tone. In line three Wright used a simile, so I did
too. I described how the spider was
“blowing like a stray leaf in the wind.” Wright’s poem also did
not rhyme. It was more
descriptive and straightforward. Before almost every noun
there was a descriptive adjective in
Wright’s poem. The last two words of the first four lines in
“Lying in a Hammock” were
adjective then noun. I also chose to do the same in my
imitation. I used adjectives like dark,
masterful, stray, bronze, and brief.
The creative process I followed was first finding a poem or
short story that I enjoyed.
When I came across Wright’s poem it really got my
imagination going. I was thinking about the

5. last time I have relaxed so much with nothing to do but ponder
life. I think jotted down things I
saw while I was laying by the pool because Wright’s poem is
descriptive of the scenery around
him. After jotting down some descriptive scenery, I used
Wright’s poem as a guideline and put
my own together. My imitation was the same number of lines
as Wright’s poem also. Because I
noticed the simile in line three I made my own simile. The last
line is probably the most
important to thins poem and I had to make sure it would have
the same impact as the original
poem. Because I have been pondering life lately and if I have
been doing the right thing, the
ending to my poem left with the thought that I haven’t been
living my life right.
One of the challenges I encountered when writing my imitation
was the amount of
adjectives Wright used. A few examples are “bronze butterfly,
black trunk, green shadow, empty
house, two pines.” Basically before all of my nouns I had to
add an adjective to my poem. Also
because Wright used a simile in line three I had the challenge
of coming up with a simile in the
same place. The title was easy to imitate because it was what
he was doing and then where. So I
was lying by the pool in San Antonio, Texas, just like he was
lying in a hammock in Pine Island,
Minnesota.
My imitation of “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s
Farm in Pine Island,
Minnesota” was effective. By using the style Wright used and
the surprise of the last line, my
poem was melancholy and life changing too. I am not too
much of a creative person. I normally
am factual and to the point. I’d rather write scientifically, but

6. after writing this poem by imitating
another one I feel that I can write creatively and feel that my
poem was pretty creative.
Definition
Pastiche Definition
Pastiche is a literary piece that imitates another famous literary
work of another writer. Unlike
parody
, its purpose is not to mock but to honor the literary piece it
imitates.
This literary device is generally employed to imitate a piece of
literary work light-heartedly but in a respectful manner. The
term pastiche also applies to a literary work that is a wide
mixture of items such as themes, concepts and characters
imitated from different literary works. For instance, many of the
pastiche examples are in the form of detective novels that are
written in fashion of the original stories of “Sherlock Holmes”.
It features either “Sherlock Holmes” or a main character like
him.
Pastiche Examples in Literature
Example #1
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” is a
tragicomedy
written by Tom Stoppard. It is one of the best examples of
pastiche. It develops upon two minor characters: “Rosencrantz”
and “Guildenstern.” These characters appear for a brief moment
in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. The title is taken from Hamlet’s Act
5, Scene 3 when a an ambassador from England announces,
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” The two characters,
standing behind the curtains, express their confusion on the
vents of the main play “Hamlet” enacted of the stage.
Pastiche Definition
Pastiche is a literary piece that imitates another famous literary
work of another writer. Unlike

7. parody
, its purpose is not to mock but to honor the literary piece it
imitates.
This literary device is generally employed to imitate a piece of
literary work light-heartedly but in a respectful manner. The
term pastiche also applies to a literary work that is a wide
mixture of items such as themes, concepts and characters
imitated from different literary works. For instance, many of the
pastiche examples are in the form of detective novels that are
written in fashion of the original stories of “Sherlock Holmes”.
It features either “Sherlock Holmes” or a main character like
him.
Pastiche Examples in Literature
Example #1
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” is a
tragicomedy
written by Tom Stoppard. It is one of the best examples of
pastiche. It develops upon two minor characters: “Rosencrantz”
and “Guildenstern.” These characters appear for a brief moment
in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. The title is taken from Hamlet’s Act
5, Scene 3 when a an ambassador from England announces,
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” The two characters,
standing behind the curtains, express their confusion on the
vents of the main play “Hamlet” enacted of the stage.