Adapted by Mr. Griffin

Introduction to Poetry

Poetic expression is hard to define and even harder to label since in itself it can comprise so many styles, ideas, lengths and forms.

In this class we will focus on these poetic aspects:

Idea and Emotion

Type and Form

Style of the Line

Concise Word Choice

Why study poetry?Poetry is the most ancient form of

keeping history.In ancient times the elders were

venerated and told stories of the tribe, and great people in their history. Rhyming often made it easier to remember.

When we read, recite and write poetry, we are taking part in one of the oldest traditions in human history.

Understanding poetry can also help us write better in all other forms of writing.

IT is not uncommon for students to write poetry for their own enjoyment.

Why is this so? Why do some teens write and/or read poems?

“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering - these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love - these are what we stay alive for.”

Mr. Keating, played by Robin Williams in the movie Dead Poet’s Society

Idea and EmotionPoetry is the one type of writing that truly comes from an emotional response to an image, an event or experience, or a memory. Most poets say they are inspired to write a poem."A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a home-sickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words.”-Robert Frost

“If you know what you are going to write when you’re writing a poem, it’s going to be average.” –Derek Walcott

Emotion- Some poets begin writing a poem for an emotional release.

Idea- Some poets begin writing a poem because they are inspired by something they’ve experienced.

What are typical emotions and topics shown in poetry?

Are there bad poetry topics?

Answer on paper: What does a poem need to look like and contain to be a

poem? Things to think about in your answer:

Do most poems rhyme?

Are poems about emotions?

Are poems a certain length?

What is the goal of a poem?

Can poets ignore grammar rules like capital letters and punctuation?

Can poems be funny?

What types of word choice or language do you see in poems?

IS THIS A POEM?

A Supermarket In Californiaby Allan Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15306

Is this a poem?

Coming Up by Ani DiFranco

Our father who art in a penthouseSits in his 37th floor suiteAnd swivels to gaze downAt the city he made me inHe allows me to stand andSolicit graffiti untilHe needs the land I stand onI in my darkened thresholdAm pawing through my pocketsThe receipts, the bus schedulesThe urgent napkin poemsThe matchbook phone numbersAll of which laundering has renderedPulpy and strangeLoose change and a keyAsk meGo ahead, ask me if I careI got the answer hereI wrote it down somewhereI just gotta find it

Is This A Poem??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY2VYg-qKWU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG24ohpacDk

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fairAnd having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that, the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:two roads diverged in a wood, and I --I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

Is This A Poem?

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk endsAnd before the street begins,And there the grass grows soft and white,And there the sun burns crimson bright,And there the moon-bird rests from his flightTo cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows blackAnd the dark street winds and bends.Past the pits where the asphalt flowers growWe shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,And watch where the chalk-white arrows goTo the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,For the children, they mark, and the children, they knowThe place where the sidewalk ends

The answer ?They are all poems.

When you write a poem, it should have a subject, a goal, a tone, and a flow. It should contain specific, condensed word choice and literary devices like metaphor, simile and imagery.

If I asked you to write a poem right now, how would you write a

poem?

One way is to follow a specific formula.

Another way is to just write.

On the next five slides pick one or more pictures and write what comes to mind. Try to write it

as a poem.

Type and Form

There are MANY different types or forms of poems. Some fit a specific format and some fit a specific theme.

Some examples of format poems:

Acrostic: a word or set of words is written down the page and each line starts with that letter.

Sonnet: 14 lines of iambic pentameter, with a specific rhyme scheme and intro/conclusion style.

Sestina: Each stanza must use the same end words as the first stanza, but in a different pattern each time.

More Formats

Haiku- A three line poem with specific syllable lengths of 5-7-5.

Limerick- Usually a funny poem with a AABBA rhyme scheme and specific syllable length.

Villanelle- A poem where certain lines are repeated to make more of a refrain

Pantoum: Each stanza reuses different lines in a specific pattern from the previous stanzas.

“Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed,And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Haiku:

Falling to the ground,

I watch a leaf settle down

In a bed of brown.

Limerick:

There once was a lady named Cager,Who as the result of a wager,Consented to fartThe entire oboe partOf Mozart's quartet in F-major.

Types of poems written based on themes:

Elegy: A poem about something lost

Ode: A poem celebrating something

Road: A poem about a time of travel

Metaphor: The whole poem is a metaphor

Object Obsession: A poem written about an object

Narrative: A poem that tells a story

Ballad: A narrative poem with a refrain, usually about love

Prose: A poem written more like a paragraph

O Captain, My Captain – An ElegyMy Captain does not answer, his lips are pale

and still,My father does not feel my arm, he has no

pulse nor will,The ship is anchored safe and sound, its

voyage closed and done;From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in

with object won;Exult Oh shores, and ring Oh bells!But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck by Captain lies,Fallen Cold and dead

Walt Whitman – Any guesses on who this was about?

Ode on a Grecian UrnThou still unravished bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,Sylvan historian, who canst thus expressA flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shapeOf deities or mortals, or of both,In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leaveThy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve;She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;And, happy melodist, unwearied,Forever piping songs forever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,Forever panting, and forever young;All breathing human passion far above,That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?To what green altar, O mysterious priest,Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed? What little town by river or sea shore,Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?And, little town, thy streets for evermoreWill silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attidude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought,With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thoughtAs doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste,Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woeThan ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

John Keats

What does all that mean?"Ode on a Grecian Urn" is based on a series

of paradoxes and opposites: the discrepancy between the urn with its

frozen images and the dynamic life portrayed on the urn,

the human and changeable versus the immortal and permanent,

participation versus observation,

life versus art.

Metaphor Poem Master of PuppetsHatfield/Ulrich (altered)

End of passion play Crumbling away I'm your source of self-destruction

Veins that pump with fear Sucking darkest clear Leading on your death's construction

Taste me you will see More is all you need Dedicated to How I'm killing you

Come crawling faster Obey your master Your life burns faster Obey your master Master

Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams

Pain monopoly Blinded by me You can't see a thing Just call my name 'cause I'll hear you scream

Needlework the way Never you betray Life of death becoming clearer

Ritual misery Chop your breakfast on a mirror

Taste me you will see More is all you need Dedicated to How I'm killing you Blinded by me You can't see a thing Just call my name 'cause I'll hear you scream

Master, master Where's the dreams that I've been after?

Master, master Promised only lies

Laughter, laughter All I hear or see is laughter

Laughter, laughter Laughing at my cries

FIX ME!

Master of Puppets analysis

What is the “Master of Puppets” the song refers to?

Style of the Line

As a poet you want to think about how you will write your lines:

Are you following a formula?

If not do you want it have a “beat” or more natural flow?

When will you make a new line?

How will you divide your poem?

Some poems, and especially songs will have a specific rhythm. You can feel it (like the beat in music). Many rhyming poems have a rhythm or beat.

“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe is an example of a poem that relies heavily on a specific rhythm and rhyme. It is also a narrative poem (one that tells a story).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXU3RfB7308

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -Only this, and nothing more.‘

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrowFrom my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -Nameless here for evermore.

Poems without a specific rhythm or beat are called Free Verse.

• Invented in the 1800s by Walt Whitman

• Usually Non-rhyming

• Line breaks and line lengths are up to the poet.

• It is the most popular form used by contemporary poets today.

From “Song of Myself” from the book Leaves of Grasshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm-n9wFZMiE

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

The ideas in a poem are organized by line breaks and stanzas.

Stanza- is like a poetry paragraph.

Following is an example of a poem with stanzas

“Momma Chopped Off Her Toe”

By C. S. Griffin

Momma chopped off her toe! what do I do? what should I say?Well, she's runnin around cussin', I guess she’s okayI always thought choppin' wood was men’s work anyway but she said it was America circa ninteen hundred eight twoand whatever a man could do, a woman could certainly do tooSo she wore polyester pants, floral blouse and flip flop shoes She said she could do it, and she proved she really couldA regular lumber-jill she was, out there choppin’ that woodShe looked fine, from in the air conditioning, where I stood. It’s been three decades or more and I still just don’t rightly knowhow a body could let an axe head drop down on their own big toeFrom the porch, to the bathroom, to the kitchen I watched her go I didn’t know what she was doing, but then again, neither did sheit has to be a shock to see linoleum where a toe is supposed to be"Told you girls don’t chop wood", I managed to say finally My lashed hide reminds me never to say that againThat day I learned something about women and men'I told ya so' feels real good; but silence is golden

Lets talk about thatThere were six stanzas in this poemEach stanza all rhymed with each other,

though this is not required of a stanza.What do you think the author was trying to

say with this poem?

Concise Word Choice

“Poets must seek “complex” thoughts and feelings and compress such complexity into a single moment.” –Ezra Pound

Some people write out their feelings when they are having a hard time. Pretend you can take all of those words and feelings into your hand. Squeeze them as hard as you can. What leaks through your fingers is the essence; that is what you use to write a poem. -Ms. K

Sensory Language and Visual Imagery

Since most poems express emotions and ideas, a writer must SHOW what is being written about. Poets and song writers use visual imagery and sensory language to show ideas.

Sensory language is using words that appeal to the five senses. Showing what something sounds, smells, tastes, looks, and feels like.

Visual imagery is “painting a picture with words.” Visual imagery uses aspects of sensory language, specifically sight, to recreate images, ideas and emotions. Strong verbs and specific adjectives/ adverbs are used.

Example of Sensory Language and Visual Imagery

“The Round” by Stanley Kunitz

Light splashed this morningon the shell-pink anemonesswaying on their tall stems;down blue-spiked Veronicalight flowed in rivuletsover the humps of the honeybees;this morning I saw light kissthe silk of the rosesin their second flowering,my late bloomersflushed with their brandy.A curious gladness shook me…

Blue- personificationGold – visual imagery

The Student by Ted Kooser

The green shell of his back pack makes him lean Gold- visual imagery

into wave after wave of responsibility, Red- simile

and he swings his stiff arms and cupped hands,

paddling ahead. He has extended his neck

to its full length, and his chin, hard as a beak,

breaks the cold surf. He’s got his baseball cap on

backward as up he crawls, out of the froth

of a hangover and onto the sand of the future,

and lumbers, heavy with hope, into the library.

My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breathCould make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pansSlid from the kitchen shelf;My mother's countenanceCould not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wristWas battered on one knuckle;

At every step you missedMy right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my headWith a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bedStill clinging to your shirt.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/18045

Pick one picture and describe it using the five senses:

One of the hardest things about writing poetry is making a topic that has already been written about seem new. Derek Walcott helps answer this question.

“Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.”Salvatore Quasimodo

Therefore, poetry must come alive in a way that makes readers feel as if they are experiencing events and emotions for the first time. Everyone has had relationship troubles, mourned the death of a loved one, or witnessed injustice. How do you write about your experience so the reader sees it as their own?

Showing VS. Telling

If your emotion is sadness, how do you show us?

If your emotion is happiness, how do you show us?

Girlfriend

My girlfriend broke my heart.She crushed my soul.She destroyed my being.

She is with another.She has betrayed me.I wish she could see,How miserable she has made me.

She will never know,What I can show,She will be lost somedayKnowing that what we had will not stay.

I want her backBut understand our relationship would lack.

Someday,She will know.

Is this a good poem?

How can it be made better?

Tonight I can write the saddest lines By Pablo NerudaTonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shatteredand the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my armsI kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.The night is shattered and she is not with me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXHPk-ctoYY

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.Escribir, por ejemplo : 'La noche está estrellada,y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos'.El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.Her void. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my armsmy soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me sufferand these the last verses that I write for her.

Lonely

I wish I wasn’t lonely.I wish I could escape my loneliness.I would run fast.I would leaveAnd my loneliness wouldn’t be able to find me.

IS THIS A GOOD POEM?

What would you add or change to make it better?

“The Rider” by Naomi Shihab Nye

A boy told meif he roller-skated fast enoughhis loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heardfor trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonightpedaling hard down King William Streetis if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your lonelinesspanting behind you on some street cornerwhile you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,pink petals that have never felt loneliness,no matter how slowly they fell.

I feel pain.I wish to sleep forever.I wish I could go on.I want to be strong, but can’t.I will tell myself to keep going.

My heart has been crushed.It is in little pieces.

All I feel is darkness.My life is empty.Can you show me the way?

Is this a good poem?

How can it be made better?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/strand.html

Lines for Winterby Mark Strand for Ros Krauss

Tell yourself as it gets cold and gray falls from the air that you will go on walking, hearing the same tune no matter where you find yourself— inside the dome of dark or under the cracking white of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow. Tonight as it gets cold tell yourself what you know which is nothing but the tune your bones play as you keep going. And you will be able for once to lie down under the small fire of winter stars. And if it happens that you cannot go on or turn back and you find yourself where you will be at the end, tell yourself in that final flowing of cold through your limbs that you love what you are.

l

Figurative LanguagePoetry and songs frequently use figurative language. Figurative language uses comparisons, description, and explanation to help the reader understand. There are many types of figurative language. The most common forms found in poetry and songs are:

Simile

Metaphor

Personification

SimileUsing like or as to compare two different things.

Examples:

Her hair was as orange as a carrot

Life is like a box of chocolates…

He would stride off, sending patterns of frosty air before him like the smoke of a cigar.

Apply Yourself! by Kathy Appelt

“Apply yourself!” was all he ever heard,as if he could wrap himself around his homework like a Band-Aid around a cutas if he could glue his fingers to his Spanish vocabulary words, paper feathers on his fingertipsas if he could nail his palms to Economicsas if he could plug his whole being into the good grade machineryas if he could tape his head to the linoleumas if he could paste his butt to the deskas if he could spread his gray matter onto the test sheet like peanut butter on toastas if algorithms and battles and presidents and theorems and scales and pep rallies and maps and cosines and Bunsen burners and hurricane charts and bills of rights and dangling participles and dress codes and all that filled his notebook could stick to his thin body like flies to flypaper, his fragile wings pinned to the poisonous strip as if all that matters and will matter is to add it all up and fill out the application…as if that mattered at all, as if that mattered at all…or all at once…as if that was all that mattered.

The Derelict by Sharon Olds Orange- simile

He passes me on the street, his hair

matted, skin polished with grime,

muttering, suit stained and stiffened—

and yet he is so young, his blond beard like a

sign of beauty and power. But his hands,

strangely flat, as if nerveless, hands that

flap slightly as he walks, like hands of

someone who has had polio, hands,

that cannot be used. I smell the waste of his

piss, I see the ingot of his beard,

and think of my younger brother, his beauty,

coinage and voltage of his beard, his life

he is not using, like a violinist whose

hands have been crushed so he cannot play—

I who was there at the crushing of his hands

and helped to crush them.

HELLO, I MUST BE GOING by Ms. KlandermanWhen we finally took her cigarettes away Orange- simileNana tried to smoke chicken bones, lightingeach gnarled end with matches we forgot tocheck her pocket for. “You’re a sweetie” washer mantra, repeated like her old blue parakeetshe forgot to feed, and it died slowly, like thesmile from her face as she sat inthe blue velour chair, staring out the front windowlike she was watching a Garbo movie.When we came to bring her groceries,those bags like birthday presents,she would hike up her sweat pantslike an umpire contemplating a play andwander to the kitchen, her fingers playing with theedge of her t-shirt, and peer throughblue eyes, as clean as a slate, as we pulledcans of fruit cocktail and snack cakes magic-like frombrown paper sacks. She had the looks of Marilyn,never left the house in any shoes but heels, evenironed Boompa’s boxers until her mind moved on andforgot to leave a note. When we came over todayshe looked through me like I was a pane of glass. Myface like one she saw once in a magazine ad,or in the crowd at St. John’s Sunday mass.She asked me who I was, her voice like the hello youspeak into the phone, distant and hollow like shewas across a lake. The glimmer of recognition inher face like a dying ember stoked for the last timebefore burning out altogether. She put her handsup to her ashen face, devoid of the makeup shecaked on like Tammy Faye, and felt for her once prettyeyes, that broke a hundred hearts, as they betrayedher with tears, splashing down her face, surprising herlike rain on someone else’s cheeks.

Now practice your own similes:The dog wagged his tail like…The tree swayed in the wind like…The night was as dark as…The music from the fifth grade band concert

sounded like…The girl’s face was red as a….His legs moved as fast as…

MetaphorA direct comparison between two things. A is B.

Examples:

The stars are eye candy.

Freedom is a breakfast food.

Their love is the slap of a baseball in a mitt.

“All I Need” By Radiohead

This song uses metaphors.

I'm the next actWaiting in the wings

I'm an animalTrapped in your hot car

I am all the daysThat you choose to ignore

You are all I needYou are all I needI'm in the middle of your pictureLying in the reeds

I'm a mothWho just wants to share your light

I'm just an insectTrying to get out of the night

I only stick with youBecause there are no others

You are all I needYou're all I needI'm in the middle of your pictureLying in the reeds

It's all wrongIt's all rightIt's all wrong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdrCalO5BDs

Sometimes they are written directly-

Life is a rollercoaster

Life= A is

Rollercoaster= B

Sometimes the form of “is” is left out.-

Her face,a picture of bliss, gazed at the ocean.

Face=APicture of bliss=B

Night Letter to the Reader by Billy Collins

I get up from the tangled bed and go outside, Pink - metaphora bird leaving its nest,a snail taking a holiday from its shell,

but only to stand on the lawn,an ordinary insomniacamid the growth systems of gardens and woods.

If I were younger, I might be thinking about something I heard at a party,about an unusual car,

or the press of Saturday night,but as it is, I am simply conscious,an animal in pajamas,

sensing only the pale humidityof the night and the slight zephyrsthat stir the tops of trees.

The dog has followed me outand stands a little ahead,her nose lifted as if she were inhaling

the tall white flowers,

visible tonight in the darkened garden,

and there was something else I wanted to tell you,

something about the warm orange light

in the windows of the house,

but now I am wondering if you are even listening

and why I bother to tell you these things

that will never make a difference,

flecks of ash, tiny chips of ice.

But this is all I want to do—

tell you that up in the woods

a few night birds were calling,

the grass was cold and wet on my bare feet,

and that at one point, the moon,

looking like the top of Shakespeare’s

famous forehead,

appeared, quite unexpectedly,

illuminating a band of moving clouds.

Orange- Simile

Poems for Blok, 1by Marina Tsvetaeva

Your name is a—bird in my hand, a piece of ice on my tongue. The lips' quick opening. Your name—five letters. A ball caught in flight, a silver bell in my mouth.

A stone thrown into a silent lake is—the sound of your name. The light click of hooves at night —your name. Your name at my temple —shrill click of a cocked gun.

Your name—impossible— kiss on my eyes, the chill of closed eyelids. Your name—a kiss of snow. Blue gulp of icy spring water. With your name—sleep deepens.

Now try writing a metaphor sequence:Complete the following in your journal.

Pick a noun:

Your name is….Your face is…Your car is…Your dog is…Your mom is…Your friend is…

Now try to write FIVE metaphors that directly compare your noun to another noun.

PersonificationComparing the action/idea/emotion etc. of something non-human to something human.

Examples:

The podium proudly stood in front of the class room.

The fire rushed back into every closet and felt of the clothes that hung there.

Under the Harvest Moonby Carl Sandburg

Under the harvest moon, When the soft silver Drips shimmering Over the garden nights, Death, the gray mocker, Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers.

Under the summer roses When the flagrant crimson Lurks in the dusk Of the wild red leaves, Love, with little hands, Comes and touches you With a thousand memories, And asks you Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

Blue = personification

Apple Pies b - KlandermanI like how she could peelthe skin of each appleso it came off in one long crimson strand Orange= similelike Christmas ribbon, Blue= personificationand the way the kitchen walls Green= sensory detail and/orclung to the cinnamon smell visual imagerythree days later,and the way the oven sighedthe breath of the baking crustI’d see her roll out to the thicknessof the old silver dollars she kept in the jewelry box next to her bed.She’d scoop the sliced appleseach shaped in a fruity grinwet with sugarinto the tin bed of the panand cover it with a blanket of dough,then tuck it in slowlyturning and pinching until it was sealed,her tongue stuck into the corner of her mouth,flour like a line of latitudeprinted across the front of her red sweatshirt.I like how she’d bend her knees,those knobby bumps poking from cut-offs,as she watched her creation bornthrough the thick glass of the oven door.

“ACROSS THE UNIVERSE” by THE BEATLESWords are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cupThey slither wildly as they slip away across the universePools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mindPossessing and caressing meJai Guru Deva OM

Nothing's gonna change my world x4

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyesThey call me on and on across the universeThoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter boxThey tumble blindly as they make their way across the universeJai Guru Deva OM

Nothing's gonna change my world x4

Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing through my open earsInciting and inviting meLimitless undying love which shines around me like a million sunsIt calls me on and on, across the universeJai Guru Deva OM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj-4t9drUlM

“Fog” by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes outon little cat feet.It sits lookingover harbor and cityon silent haunchesand then moves on.

The easiest way to add personification is:

1. To give the non-human thing an emotion, state of being or quality that humans have

From “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury

The clock screamed its morning alarm as if it were afraid nobody could hear it.

From “The Victims” by Sharon Olds

The black noses of your shoes with their large pores.

From “How it Is” by Maxine Kumin

The dog at the center of my life recognizes/ you’ve come to visit, he’s ecstatic.

From “Feeding Time” by Maxine Kumin

Horses are waiting./Each enters his box/in the order they’ve all/agreed on,…cat supervises from the molding cove.

2. Make it do something it cannot (use an action verb)

From “Sonnet 18” by William ShakespeareNor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

From “Lines for Winter” by Mark Strandtell yourself what you know which is nothing but the tune your bones play

From “The Round” by Stanley KunitzI saw light kissthe silk of the roses

From “Across the Universe” by Lennon/McCartneySounds of laughter shades of life are ringing through my open earsInciting and inviting me

3. Imbed it in a simile or metaphor

From “Across the Universe” written by Lennon and McCartneyThoughts meander like a restless wind (simile)

From “Under the Harvest Moon” by Carl SandburgDeath, the gray mocker, (metaphor)

From “The Derelict” by Sharon Olds

blond beard like a sign of beauty and power. (simile)

From “Under a Harvest Moon” by Carl Sandburg

Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers. (metaphor)

Symbols as thematic word choice

Symbols are words, ideas etc. used to represent something else or an idea.

Symbols are used often in poetry. A word, a phrase or the whole poem could be a symbol.

Cough - C.S. GriffinI see trachea, bronchus, bronchioles’Towering over me, full of nestsAncient oak, earth’s breathing apparatusI’m a parasite under my mother’s breastChop down her lungs one at a timeLike a killing cancer, deep in her chestI’m human; I see it, by right its mineTo reap and use as I see bestFestering for years, I wonder if there will be a timeWhen I am coughed up, and spit out.

Do trees look like lungs (trachea, bronchioles, bronchus)?

In this poem, what are humans symbolic of?

What could the ‘cough’ be symbolic of?Why does the author not rhyme the last

line?

The Cure by Ginger Andrews

Lying around all daywith some strange new deep blueweekend funk, I'm not really asleepwhen my sister callsto say she's just hung upfrom talking with Aunt Berthawho is 89 and ill but managingto take care of Uncle Frankwho is completely bed ridden.Aunt Bert saysit's snowing there in Arkansas,on Catfish Lane, and she hasn't beenable to walk out to their mailbox.She's been sufferingfrom a bad case of the mulleygrubs.The cure for the mulleygrubs,she tells my sister,is to get up and bake a cake.If that doesn't do it, put on a red dress.

(mulleygrubs=depression)

Look at the similes in this poem.

What do you think the similes represent about

the symbolism in this poem?

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

“A Dream Deferred”

by

Langston Hughes

Answer this question :

“A Dream Deferred” symbolizes…

Look at the similes, imagery and metaphors in this poem.

What do you think they represent about

the symbolism in this poem?

The Guild by Sharon Olds

Every night, as my grandfather satin the darkened room in front of the fire,the liquor like fire in his hand, his eyeglittering meaninglessly in the lightfrom the flames, his glass eye baleful and stony,a young man sat with himin silence and darkness, a college boy withwhite skin, unlined, a narrowbeautiful face, a broad domedforehead, and eyes amber as the resin from trees too young to be cut yet.This was his son, who sat, an apprentice,night after night, his glass of coalsnext to the old man’s glass of coals,and he drank when the old man drank, and he learnedthe craft of oblivion—the young mannot yet cruel, his hair dark as thesoil that feeds the tree’s roots,that son who would come to be in his turnbetter at this than the teacher, the apprenticewho would pass his master in cruelty and oblivion,drinking steadily by the flames in the blackness,that young man my father.

Answer this question

“The Guild” symbolizes…

Sounds of Poetry as word choice

Poets can pick certain words to make their poetry sound a certain way.

Alliteration- Repetitive consonant sounds at the beginnings of words

Examples: Peter Piper picked a peck…

Lazy living led Leonard to loath labor…

Purpose: gives words “pep and pop” by emphasizing their sound

Assonance- Repetitive vowel sounds within words

Examples: Avid fan in the grand stand… Tony dropped a bowling ball on his toe.

Purpose: helps making your words flow in a musically pleasing way.

Onomatopoeia- Words that sound like what they are describing

Examples: splash, splat, pop, woof, meow…

Purpose: It realistically describes the sound using the real sound.

Rhyme-The repetition of the accented vowel sounds and all succeeding sounds

Examples- mouse/house, basement/casement,

June/spoon

Purposes- Rhyme gives specific flow, can connect ideas together. Typically seen in children’s poetry, humor or light verse (Hallmark cards).

Rhyme Scheme:

A way to label a pattern of rhyme occurring throughout a poem.

The cat was really big. AHe ate lots of mice. BHe liked to wear a wig. AHe chewed on some dice. B

Some poems require a certain rhyme scheme (limericks and sonnets for example.)

Rhymezone.com is website for rhyming.

Examples of Rhyming Poems

Ogden Nash-The King of funny rhyme

“Celery”

Celery, raw Develops the jaw, But celery, stewed, Is more quietly chewed.

“The Wasp”

The wasp and all his numerous family

I look upon as a major calamity. He throws open his nest with prodigality, But I distrust his waspitality.

“Whatif” by Shel Silverstein

Last night, while I lay thinking here,some Whatifs crawled inside my earand pranced and partied all night longand sang their same old Whatif song:Whatif I'm dumb in school?Whatif they've closed the swimming pool?Whatif I get beat up?Whatif there's poison in my cup?Whatif I start to cry?Whatif I get sick and die?Whatif I flunk that test?Whatif green hair grows on my chest?

Whatif nobody likes me?Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?Whatif I don't grow taller?Whatif my head starts getting smaller?Whatif the fish won't bite?Whatif the wind tears up my kite?Whatif they start a war?Whatif my parents get divorced?Whatif the bus is late?Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight?Whatif I tear my pants?Whatif I never learn to dance?Everything seems well, and then

the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

End of Unit TestThere are two options for this test.You may write a poem, or take the test