HWK for WED: Return to Your Posts

"Poetry is conversation..." #whypoetrymatters Jay Parini writes: pic.twitter.com/ICob9bjVNj
— Why Poetry (@WhyPoetry) March 18, 2014

Thank you for your time and effort on your posts.

I will post a comprehensive list soon with links for everyone's pages.


For Wednesday's HOMEWORK: 30 minutes max. 

I would now like you to return to any 3 of your 8 posts - and post the following:

1. A reading: Embed a Youtube Video of a reading of one of your selected poems.

                You may not find a youtube video for your 8 posts - but try your best...and then...
                Consider a 9th post (and/or form) where you post a poem that has youtube reading.
             

2. Biography: Research the biography of one of the poets. Optional: include a picture.
In your own words, tell an interesting story about that poet. Consider these questions:
Why does your poet write poetry?
What is the back story to the poem that poet wrote in your example?

3. Vocabulary: Find three words from any of your poems and create hyperlinks to images or definitions (click examples for Dryad in "Ode to a Nightingale" - Wikipedia is fine for this),
so that the reader of the poem can better understand it.

PLEASE be mindful of your time: do NOT take more than 30 minutes with this - I understand you have other work to do. Be focused do your best.

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A few thoughts behind this assignment...

Frustrations with poetry may stem from simple ignorance.

We may not hear the musicality - the rhythm, the meter, the tone - in a poem.
That is why it's helpful to hear a poet read his or her poem.

We may not understand where the poet comes from - beyond born, raised, died.
How does a poet's life experience shape her or his poetry?
What's their story?
Learn a person's story and you'll understand more than just a poem.

We may not understand a word or a reference or catch a subtle allusion.
We may not see the imagery if we don't know what to picture in our mind's eye.

So in short: Google it.

Be curious.

Hear a poem.
Understand someone's story.
See a poem through vocabulary.

Realize a poem may represent a person's deepest thoughts like a Shakespearean soliloquy.

And remember you may someday forget you learned Lethe - is one of the five rivers in Hades.
But poetry might remind you - and even remind you of what is important.

If you know that if you drink from the water from the River Lethe, you will experience complete forgetfulness like in Men in Black or Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.

And you will get the joke in Billy Collin's poem below: