Option 1 — Do a close reading of the following passage from William Carlos Williams’ Spring and All (1923). (By close reading, I mean focus in on particular words and phrases and the way they build a symbolic pattern that supports the writer’s argument.) Quote one of the readings for this week (Tichi or Jones, for example) to explain how Williams conceives imagination and poetic composition in gendered ways, related to waste, efficiency, and flow.

Option 2 — Compare the two versions of modernity presented this week: the earlier European versus the later American version. How are economy, waste, and artistic composition figured differently by Baudelaire and William Carlos Williams (or some other modern American artist-figure from the 1920-30s)? What does waste represent in each context, and is it more or less valued in the European or American context? Use quotes from at least one of the readings to support your argument.

Prompt 1: In her article, “The Death of Nature and the Apotheosis of Trash….,” Patricia Yaeger writes:

[A]n old opposition between nature and culture has been displaced in postmodern art by a preoccupation with trash: the result of weird and commodity-based intermingling. If nature once represented the before (creating culture as child, product, or second nature) and if detritus represented the after (that which was marginalized, repressed, or tossed away), these representations have lost their appeal. We are born into a detritus strewn world, and the nature that buffets us is never culture’s opposite. (Yaeger 323)

How do you make sense of what Yaeger means by this? In your analysis, pull in an example from elsewhere in her essay, or from the Calvino or Scanlan readings.

Alternative Prompt: Write a self-portrait as a waster or garbage producer. Some thing you might include (though you can approach this however you like and you do not need to answer all – or any – of these questions): What do you collect and why? What do you throw out that other people might keep? What do you keep or buy or find that other people might throw out? What makes you decide to value something? Have you ever changed your approach to waste? You may think of the Calvino article as a kind of inspiration.