Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Amended Schedule 4.29.14

We finish and review presentations this week; however....

1. Ars Poetica (#4 poem) Due Tomorrow (last day of National Poetry Month) See previous blog post.

 2. Poems and Poets Presentation Test (pushed from Friday to Monday) to WEDNESDAY May 7th

 3. Form Poem (#3 poem) - (extension) Due Next Friday (if you haven't done it yet).

 4. BUY - Sandra Cisnero's  The House on Mango Street - see link.  


Please MAKE SURE THAT your presentation is posted to your blog:

IF YOU NEED TO POST A POWER POINT - CHECK OUT SLIDESHARE.com


 If you missed class...your classmates should have posted their presentations - talk to classmates for notes.

See the pages of your classmates:

Z-Block
  1. Jason http://poetrytimewithjmills.blogspot.com
  2. Tristan http://mccomt17.blogspot.com
  3. Nina http://ninalindapoetry.blogspot.com
  4. Ed http://ezmoney1999.blogspot.com
  5. Mimi http://mimidelisserpoetry.blogspot.com
  6. Kelly http://flynnk22.blogspot.com
  7. Sarah W. http://wingsm17.blogspot.com
  8. Colin http://poetrybyjc.blogspot.com
  9. Sydneyhttp://sydneynicolepoems.blogspot.com
  10. Emma H. http://emmagrace2.blogspot.com
  11. Emma S. http://seib17.blogspot.com
  12. Shannon http://theplaceofpoetry.blogspot.com
  13. Ben http://poetrybyben1.blogspot.com
  14. Philip P. http://poetrywithpersaud22.blogspot.com
  15. Philip T. http://poetryphilip21.blogspot.com
  16. Denny http://dennyhpoetry.blogspot.co
  17. Abhay http://poetrybyabhay.blogspot.com
  18. Heidi http://heidijz.blogspot.com
F- Block:
  1. Ryan http://ryanspoetrypage.blogspot.com
  2. Nick http://namoctober.blogspot.com
  3. Ashley http://lowbam17.blogspot.com
  4. Nico http://electronpoweredpoetry.blogspot.com
  5. Dan http://poetrycornerbydan.blogspot.com
  6. Lee Lee http://leeslimitlessliterature.blogspot.com/
  7. Cam http://vanhce17.blogspot.com
  8. Dylan http://everdt17.blogspot.com
  9. Will http://purtwc17.blogspot.com
  10. Lily http://9lilypoemsonpoems.blogspot.com
  11. Jake http://gfgjkgjkg.blogspot.com
  12. Kayla http://poemskaylacostalas.blogspot.com
  13. Gossen http://likeagoss.blogspot.com
  14. Connor http://poetrybyconnor.blogspot.com
  15. Bobby http://taketwofrazier.blogspot.com
  16. Corinne http://czpoetry17.blogspot.com
  17. Sarah K. http://sarahkpoetry.blogspot.com
  18. Felicia http://zhufl17.blogspot.com

Tomorrow, Wednesday, April 30th - Your Ars Poetica is Due


What is an "Ars Poetica"?

From poets.org: 

Perhaps one of the most famous American examples is Archibald MacLeish‘s "Ars Poetica":
A poem should palpable and mute 
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb, 

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—
 
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
Written in part as a response to the highly rhetorical nature of English poetry at the start of the twentieth century, MacLeish’s piece states the Modernist perspective: “a poem should not mean / but be.”


My simple answer: A poem about poetry. 

Write your poem about poetry. 

Does Poetry Matter? Can we assume that it does?



Marianne Moore begins her poem "Peotry" with an ironic statement: 


 I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
       all this fiddle.
    Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
       discovers in
    it after all, a place for the genuine.

Read more of Moore's "Poetry"

How do you define poetry? 

I am not concerned about rhyme scheme or length.

I would like a thoughtful reflection in verse.

Show us - don't tell us - what you think poetry is.

Consider incorporating some of these Elements of Poetry:






Please bring a HARD COPY - and post to YOUR blog. 
Inspire your classmates.


A few definitions of poetry you might appreciate - feel free to blend into your poem:
  Follow Kevin's board The Poet's Life: Why Poetry Matters on Pinterest.

Consider how all writing is persuasive...

Sell us your definition of poetry.

Well worth watching this... Animated Presentation:

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Best Advice - and HWK

HWK:

1. Record your poem from today - use vocaroo.com.
               a. Click to "Record" below.
               b. Click to "Save"
               c. Click "Embed"
               d. Copy and Paste HTML to your poetry blog

2. Embed it into your post with your poem (you should have done that already).

3. Work on your poetry presentation!

We need SIX volunteers for Friday.

Powered by Vocaroo Voice Recorder


Be Sure to click "Accept" below (make sure your computer has Adobe Flash Player):

You can also try these...


  • Free online voice recorder - SpeakPipe

    https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder
    SpeakPipe voice recorder allows you to create an audio recording directly from a browser by using your microphone. The recording is produced locally on your ...
  • Morphbox: Online Voice Recorder and Message Sharing

    morphbox.com/
    Morphbox is a free online voice recorder and message sharing site. You can record a message, morph your voice, then share your it with others via Facebook, 


  • In-Class: 

    Writing Prompt: Best Advice - write it in verse. 

    We listened to Patti Smith...click for more.






    From Brainpickings: Patti Smith’s Advice on Life



    When you proceed on your course, never forget you are not alone. You have friends and family, but you also have you ancestors. Your ancestors sing in your blood. Call to them. Their strength through the ages will come into you. And then there are your spiritual ancestors. Call on them. They have set themselves up through human history to be at your disposal. Jesus, he said, “I am with you always, even into the end of the world,Allen Ginsburg, Walt Whitman — they are with you. Choose the one you wish to walk with and he or she will walk with you. Don’t forget that you are not alone.
    She ends by recounting the advice her father gave her, bringing it all back to the bigger point behind her seemingly silly dental care counsel:
    When I left home, I asked my father what advice he could give me. My father was very intelligent, very well-read — he read all the great books, all the great philosophers. But when I asked his advice, he told me one thing: Be happy. It’s all he said. So simple. I’m telling you, these simple things — taking care of your teeth, being happy — they will be your greatest allies. Because when you’re happy, you ignite that little flame that tells you and reminds you who you are. And it will ignite, it will animate your enthusiasm for things — it will enforce your work.
    Be happy, take care of your teeth, always let your conscience be your guide.

    Bonus from Brain Pickings - click to read more:

    Illustrated Flowcharts to Find Answers to Life’s Big Questions




    Tuesday, April 22, 2014

    HWK - this week


    Tuesday: Poetry Terms Test

    Wednesday: Poem of Choice - Post and Bring HARD COPY of YOUR POEM

    Thursday: In Computer Lab - Work on Presentations

    Friday: Poetry Presentations begin... Volunteers to go first?




    Poem of Choice - Due Wednesday.
    Post to your poetry blog, 
    and a printed HARD COPY - BEFORE CLASS!

    Apply the elements of poetry including figurative language and the senses to create imagery:

                G = gustatory (taste)
                O = organic (internal sensation)
    A = auditory (sound)
                T = tactile (touch)       
    V = visual
                O = olfactory (smell)
                K = kinesthetic (movement)


    Consider the choices you make in terms of the structure of the poem (stanzas, line breaks, format) and the sounds of the words (alliteration, consonance, assonance plus connotation and denotation).

    Monday, April 21, 2014

    Poetry Presentations

    For your poetry Presentation of 5-7 minutes, you are required to present...

    1. your poem and
    2. your poet;
    3. however, you must have a digital visual medium - PowerPoint, iMovie, Prezi, etc.

    The options in terms of which digital visual medium are up to you.

    You can give an oral presentation with PowerPoint Slides - or go further and make a Prezi or iMovie.

    You must post your presentation to your blog - and YouTube if need be.

    The order is up to you: What works best for you?

    You can talk poem, then bio,  and explain the poem - or

    Explain the poem, share the poem, and teach us about the poet.

    Bottom line question: In 5-7 minutes, what do you want us to know
    about your poet
    and poem that makes both more interesting to your classmates?



    Questions to Consider:

    • Where did your poet grow up?
    • Where did your poet go to school?
    • What inspired your poet to write poetry? 
    • How does your poet define poetry? What is his or her ars peotica?
    • What other poets influenced your poet to write poetry?
    • Who has your poet influenced? 
    • Was your poet a part of a school or movement? See this Poetry Timeline.

    On your blog, post links to the biography of your poet - curate a few interesting points with hyperlinks.

    • Note the imagery and symbolism: select images 
    • Note the theme and motifs
    • Note the figurative language:
    • Note the alliteration, assonance, consonance, meter 
    • Note the allusions or references
    • Note the rhyme scheme, form, enjambment etc.
    • Note the tone - and shifts in tone

    If you're looking for inspiration or "How to" Videos....Google it - and check youtube!
    Tremendous resources are available! 
    If you find a good one, please email it and I will share it below...

    Thanks to Ashley for sharing: 




    Need help with Prezi? 

    Here's a good video that I discovered via Twitter:


    Some inspiration of video with words:

     

    Poetry Terms Test Tuesday - and Poem Due Wednesday

    TEST: Tuesday - revised list of terms to know and identify in poems. 

    Hint may wish to (re)read these poems - I will chose examples from Quizlet - and this list:

    1. Roethke, "My Papa's Waltz"  - Presented by Jason

    2. Sexton, "Her Kind

    3. Olds, "Rite of Passage"(with AudioPresented by Tristan

    4. Williams"This Is Just to SayPresented by Ashley

    5. Eliot, "The Winter Evening Settles Down"  Presented by Ed

    6. Tennyson, "The Eagle"   Presented by Colin and Connor 

    7. Rich, "Aunt Jennifer's TigersPresented by Emma H

    8. Browning, "My Last Duchess" (with Audio) Presented by Felicia and Heidi

    9. Plath, “Metaphors”  Presented by Ben

    10. Lawrence, “Piano” Presented by Nico and Shannon

    11. Bottoms, "Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt" (Handout—this is not in the book)
    Presented by Philip P

    12. Frost, "Out, Out-" - Post by Mr. O'Brien

    13. Shakespeare, "Shall I Compare Thee..." - Post by Mr. O'Brien


    Poem of Choice - Due Wednesday.
    Apply the elements of poetry including figurative language and the senses to create imagery:


                G = gustatory (taste)
                O = organic (internal sensation)
    A = auditory (sound)
                T = tactile (touch)       
    V = visual
                O = olfactory (smell)
                K = kinesthetic (movement)


    Consider the choices you make in terms of the structure of the poem (stanzas, line breaks, format) and the sounds of the words (alliteration, consonance, assonance plus connotation and denotation).


    Metaphor: one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea, or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two.

    "she is a fen of stagnant waters"- London (Wordsworth)

    Simile: an explicit comparison between 2 different things, actions, or feelings, using the words 'as' or 'like'

    "Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay" 
    - Do not go Gentle into that Good Night (Thomas)

    Personification: a figure of speech by which animals, abstract ideas, or inanimate things are referred to as if they were human.
    "Press close bare-bosom'd night"
     "cool- breath'd earth!" - Song of Myself (Whitman)
    Oxymoron: a figure of speech that combines two contradicting terms in a compressed paradox
    " O Death in Life..." - Tears, Idle Tears (Tennyson)
    Paradox: a statement or expression so surprisingly self contradictory as to provoke use into seeking another sense or context in which it would be true
    "a novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons" - Song of Myself (Whitman)
    Juxtaposition: placing two contrasting ideas side by side

    "... blinding sight" - Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night (Thomas)
    \
    Pun: an expression that achieves emphasis or humour by contriving an ambiguity, two distinct meanings being suggested either by the same word or by 2 similar sounding words

    "And every fair from fair sometimes declines" - Can I compare thee to a summer's Day (Shakespeare)

    Theme: a salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work's treatment of its subject matter; a recurring topic in a number of literary work

    If you follow what God tells you to do, you will go to heaven- The Chimney Sweeper (Song of Innocence)

    Tone: a vague critical term usually designating the mood or atmosphere of a work. Adjectives: romantic, nostalgic, ironic, sardonic, etc. See blog for list.

    The Chimney Sweeper- Song of Experience- Dark Tone

    Irony: a subtly humorous perception of inconsistency, in which an apparently straightforward statement or event is undermined by its context so as to give it a very different significance.

    My Papa's Waltz (Roethke)- title is ironic because the dad's "dance" is very rough, unlike the waltz

    Metonymy: a figure of speech that replaces the name of one thing with the name of something else closely associated with it

    "... altar, sword, and pen" [*stand for church, army, and other scholars*] - London (Wordsworth)


    Apostrophe: a rhetorical figure in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person, or an abstraction or inanimate object

    " 'Doth God exact day- labor, light denied?' I fondly asked" - When I considered how my light is spent (Milton)

    Parallel structure/ parallelism: the arrangement of similarly constructed clauses, sentences, or verse lines in a pairing or other sequence suggesting some correspondence between them

    "And their sun does never shine,
     And their fields are bleak & bare,
     And their ways are fill'd with thorns" 
    - Holy Thursday, Songs of Experience (Blake) 


    Rhetorical Shift/ volta: a change in tone, attitude, speaker, subject etc. in a poem
    "Rage, rage, Rage against the dying of the light.
    And you, my father, there on the sad height,
    Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I Pray." 
    - Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" by Dylan
    [ Shift between "the light" and "And you, my father"]
    Inversion: the reversal of the normally expected order of words.
    said she 
    End- stopped: brought to a pause at which the end of a verse coincides with the completion of a sentence, clause, or other independent unit of syntax
    I sat under the jacaranda, catching
    the petals in my palm, enclosing them
    until my fist was another lantern
    hiding a small and bitter flame.- The Girl who loved the Sky by Anita Endrezze
    Enjambment: the running over of the sense and grammatical structure from one verse line or couplet to the next without a punctuated pause.

    Onomatopoeia the use of words that seem to imitate the sounds they refer to
    (Whack, fizz)

    alliteration the repetition of the same sounds- usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllables

    "Whiskey, waltzing, wrist" "battered, beat, bed" 
    "My Papa's Waltz" Theodore Roethke

    consonance the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighbouring words whose vowel sounds are different
    "Infant's tear... Marraige hearse" - London (blake)
    [tear and hearse have the similar -ear spelling but are said in 2 different manners]

    assonance repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds
    "returning chide" and "light denied"- When I consider how my light is spent (Milton)
    or
    Hit or miss

    half rhyme/ slant rhyme a rhyme that doesnt exactly rhyme

    "Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
    they rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind" (pronounced Wined) - The Chimney Sweeper, Song of Innocence (Blake

    end rhyme rhyme occurring at the ends of verse lines
    "Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
    By the stream and o'er the mead"  
    "The Lamb" , Song of Innocence William Blake

    Internal Rhyme: Two or more rhyme within the same line or verse
     I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores

    Plus: Example of Scansion of Iambic Pentameter in Macbeth



    Tuesday, April 15, 2014

    Writing into the Future: HWK

    In-class writing prompt: 
    Write a poem (for your eyes only):
    "A letter to your future ___________________"
    (Fill in the blank - future spouse, child, grandchild, generations, etc.)

    You may choose - or discover that words/lines from this prompt will end up in your poem next Wednesday. 

    Austin Kleoon on NPR
    HWK: Find a news article - cut it out/print it out -
    and blackout words with a Sharpie/marker -
    and make a new poem. 

    Take inspiration from Austin Kleon's book Blackout 

    From Amazon Review
    Instead of starting with a blank page, poet Austin Kleon grabs the New York Times and a permanent marker and eliminates the words he doesn’t need. (NPR's Morning Edition) 
    One can imagine taking up blackout poetry on their daily bus commute in place of sudoku or the crossword puzzle. (Toronto's National Post) 
    Sort of like Michelangelo carving away the marble that imprisoned what he saw within. (Cleveland Plain Dealer) 
    “…a kind of Rorschach approach to reading newspapers…” (Wall Street Journal) 
    “Highbrow/brilliant…It’s better than it sounds.” (New York magazine)

    “[The poems] resurrect the newspaper when everyone else is declaring it dead…like a cross between magnetic refrigerator poetry and enigmatic ransom notes, funny and zen-like, collages of found art…” (The New Yorker) 
    “Some of the results are hilarious, some are profound and even unsettling, but they are never bland or boring.”
    — Ephemerist 
    Newspaper article + sharpie = Newspaper Blackout Poetry: Instead of starting with a blank page, poet Austin Kleon grabs a newspaper and a permanent marker and eliminates the words he doesn’t need. Fans of Not Quite What I Was Planning andPost Secret will love these unique and compelling poems culled from Austin’s popular website.
    More blackout poems - examples.

    POEMS read in class today:



    People of the future
    while you are reading these poems, remember
    you didn't write them, 
    I did. 



    To those born later

    I

    Truly I live in dark times!
    Frank speech is naĂŻve. A smooth forehead 

    Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs 
    Has simply not yet heard
    The terrible news.


    What kind of times are these, when
    To talk about trees is almost a crime
    Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
    When the man over there calmly crossing the street
    Is already perhaps beyond the reach of his friends                    10 

    Who are in need?

    It’s true that I still earn my daily bread
    But, believe me, that’s only an accident. Nothing
    I do gives me the right to eat my fill.
    By chance I've been spared. (If my luck breaks, I'm lost.)


    They say to me: Eat and drink! Be glad you have it!
    But how can I eat and drink if I snatch what I eat
    From the starving
    And my glass of water belongs to someone dying of thirst?

    And yet I eat and drink.                                                                         20

    I would also like to be wise.
    In the old books it says what wisdom is:
    To shun the strife of the world and to live out
    Your brief time without fear
    Also to get along without violence
    To return good for evil
    Not to fulfill your desires but to forget them
    Is accounted wise.
    All this I cannot do.
    Truly, I live in dark times.                                                                      30


    II

    I came to the cities in a time of disorder 

    When hunger reigned.
    I came among men in a time of revolt 

    And I rebelled with them.
    So passed my time
    Given to me on earth.


    I ate my food between battles
    I lay down to sleep among murderers
    I practiced love carelessly
    And I had little patience for nature’s beauty.                                 40 
    So passed my time
    Given to me on earth.


    All roads led into the mire in my time.
    My tongue betrayed me to the butchers.
    There was little I could do. But those is power 

    Sat safer without me: that was my hope.
    So passed my time
    Given to me on earth.


    Our forces were slight. Our goal
    Lay far in the distance                                                                            50 

    Clearly visible, though I myself
    Was unlikely to reach it.
    So passed my time
    Given to me on earth.


    III
    You who will emerge from the flood
    In which we have gone under
    Bring to mind
    When you speak of our failings
    Bring to mind also the dark times
    That you have escaped.                                                                          60

    Changing countries more often than our shoes, 
    We went through the class wars, despairing 
    When there was only injustice, no outrage.

    And yet we realized:
    Hatred, even of meanness
    Contorts the features.
    Anger, even against injustice
    Makes the voice hoarse. O,
    We who wanted to prepare the ground for friendship 

    Could not ourselves be friendly.                                                        70

    But you, when the time comes at last 
    When man is helper to man
    Think of us
    With forbearance.
                                                                                                                 [1940] 

    Brecht Biography

    A Phone Call to the Future


    1.
    Who says science fiction
    is only set in the future?
    After a while, the story that looks least
    believable is the past.
    The console television with three channels.
    Black and white picture. Manual controls:
    the dial clicks when you turn it, like the oven.
    You have to get up and walk somewhere to change things.
    You have to leave the house to mail a letter. 
    Waiting for letters. The phone rings: you're not there.
    You'll never know. The phone rings, and you are,
    there's only one, you have to stand or sit
    plugged into it, a cord
    confines you to the room where everyone
    is also having dinner.
    Hang up the phone. The family's having dinner. 
    Waiting for dinner. You bake things in the oven.
    Or Mother does. That's how it always is.
    She sets the temperature: it takes an hour. 
    The patience of the past.
    The typewriter forgives its own mistakes.
    You type on top sheet, carbon, onion skin.
    The third is yours, a record of typeovers,
    clotted and homemade-looking, like the seams
    on dresses cut out on the dining table.
    The sewing machine. The wanting to look nice.
    Girls who made their dresses for the dance.

    2.
    This was the fifties: as far back as I go.
    Some of it lasted decades.
    That's why I remember it so clearly. 
    Also because, as I lie in a motel room
    sometime in 2004, scrolling
    through seventy-seven channels on my back
    (there ought to be more — this is a cheap motel room),
    I can revisit evidence, hear it ringing.
    My life is movies, and tells itself in phones. 
    The rotary phone, so dangerously languid
    and loud when the invalid must dial the police.
    The killer coming up the stairs can hear it.
    The detective ducks into a handy phone booth
    to call his sidekick. Now at least there's touch tone.
    But wait, the killer's waiting in the booth
    to try to strangle him with the handy cord.
    The cordless phone, first noted in the crook
    of the neck of the secretary
    as she pulls life-saving files.
    Files come in drawers, not in the computer.
    Then funny computers, big and slow as ovens.
    Now the reporter's running with a cell phone
    larger than his head,
    if you count the antenna. 
    They're Martians, all of these people,
    perhaps the strangest being the most recent.
    I bought that phone. I thought it was so modern.
    Phones shrinking year by year, as stealthily
    as children growing.

    3.
    It's the end of the world.
    Or people are managing, after the conflagration.
    After the epidemic. The global thaw.
    Everyone's stunned. Nobody combs his hair.
    Or it's a century later, and although
    New York is gone, and love, and everyone
    is a robot or a clone, or some combination, 
    you have to admire the technology of the future.
    When you want to call somebody, you just think it.
    Your dreams are filmed. Without a camera.
    You can scroll through the actual things that happened,
    and nobody disagrees. No memory.
    No point of view. None of it necessary. 
    Past the time when the standard thing to say
    is that, no matter what, the human endures.
    That whatever humans make of themselves
    is therefore human.
    Past the transitional time
    when humanity as we know it was there to say that.
    Past the time we meant well but were wrong.
    It's less than that, not any more a concept.
    Past the time when mourning was a concept. 
    Of course, such a projection,
    however much I believe it, is sentimental —
    belief being sentimental.
    The thought of a woman born
    in the fictional fifties. 
    That's what I mean. We were Martians. Nothing's stranger
    than our patience, our humanity, inhumanity.
    Our worrying about robots. Earplug cell phones
    that make us seem to be walking about like loonies
    talking to ourselves. Perhaps we are. 
    All of it was so quaint. And I was there.
    Poetry was there; we tried to write it.

    Mary Jo Salter
    The Georgia Review
    Special Focus: Creatures
    Volume LIX, Number 3
    Fall 2005 

    Look to the Future

    BY RUTH STONE
    To you born into violence,
    the wars of the red ant are nothing;
    you, in the heart of the eruption.

    I am speaking from immeasurable grass blades.
    You, there on the rubble,
    what is the river of vapor to you?

    You who are helpless as small birds
    downed on the ice pack.
    You who are spoiled as
    commercial fruit by the medfly.

    To you the machine guns.
    To you the semen of fire,
    the birth of the maggot in the corpse.

    You, to whom we send these gifts;
    at the heart of light we are crushed together.
    When the sun dies we will become one.
    Ruth Stone, “Look to the Future” from Simplicity. Copyright © 1995 by Ruth Stone. Reprinted with the permission of Paris Press, Inc.
    Source: Simplicity (1995)

    Monday, April 14, 2014

    Is this going to be on the test? Poetry Month Assessments

    Poem #1 Due Monday, April 14th

    Poetry Term Test on Tuesday, April 22nd 

    Poem #2 Poem of Choice Due Wednesday, April 23rd

    Poetry Presentations: 
    5-7 minutes beginning April 24th

    Presentations, Thursday, April 24th:

    1.
    2.
    3.
    4.
    5.
    6.


    Presentations, Friday, April 25th

    1.
    2.
    3.
    4
    5.
    6.

    Poem #3, Choose a Form - Due Monday, April 28th 

    Presentations, Tuesday, April 29th

    1.
    2.
    3.
    4.
    5.
    6.

    Poem # 4, Due April 30th, Ars Poetica Due (A poem about poetry)

    Final Poetry Test, May 2nd, May 2nd - Know your poets and poems (or at least the poets and poems that were presented and blogged by your classmates - I will give you hints along the way).

    FYI - More Literary Terms that are good to know!



    Saturday, April 12, 2014

    The Elements of Poetry: Poem Due Monday


    BY MARK STRAND
    Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
    There is no happiness like mine.
    I have been eating poetry.

    The librarian does not believe what she sees.
    Her eyes are sad
    and she walks with her hands in her dress.

    The poems are gone.
    The light is dim.
    The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

    Their eyeballs roll,
    their blond legs burn like brush.
    The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

    She does not understand.
    When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
    she screams.

    I am a new man.
    I snarl at her and bark.
    I romp with joy in the bookish dark.
    Mark Strand, “Eating Poetry” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1979, 1980 by Mark Strand. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

    Source: Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991)



    For Monday, as you know, I would like you to write a poem. You may take inspiration for your poem from the Day of Silence videos or you can focus on your lists of fears and/or desires.

    You're familiar with different forms - the form you choose is up to you (the length is up to you. 

     In order to write a poem that has depth, you may want to review the elements of poetry (below) and incorporate some into your poem.

    Bottomline: Write a thoughtful poem with thoughtful choices. 
    Be sure to post to your blog - and print your poem for MONDAY.


    Metaphor: one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea, or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two.

    "she is a fen of stagnant waters"- London (Wordsworth)

    Simile: an explicit comparison between 2 different things, actions, or feelings, using the words 'as' or 'like'

    "Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay" 
    - Do not go Gentle into that Good Night (Thomas)

    Personification: a figure of speech by which animals, abstract ideas, or inanimate things are referred to as if they were human.
    "Press close bare-bosom'd night"
     "cool- breath'd earth!" - Song of Myself (Whitman)
    Oxymoron: a figure of speech that combines two contradicting terms in a compressed paradox
    " O Death in Life..." - Tears, Idle Tears (Tennyson)
    Paradox: a statement or expression so surprisingly self contradictory as to provoke use into seeking another sense or context in which it would be true
    "a novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons" - Song of Myself (Whitman)
    Juxtaposition: placing two contrasting ideas side by side

    "... blinding sight" - Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night (Thomas)
    \
    Pun: an expression that achieves emphasis or humour by contriving an ambiguity, two distinct meanings being suggested either by the same word or by 2 similar sounding words

    "And every fair from fair sometimes declines" - Can I compare thee to a summer's Day (Shakespeare)

    Theme: a salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work's treatment of its subject matter; a recurring topic in a number of literary work

    If you follow what God tells you to do, you will go to heaven- The Chimney Sweeper (Song of Innocence)

    Tone: a vague critical term usually designating the mood or atmosphere of a work. Adjectives: romantic, nostalgic, ironic, sardonic, etc. See blog for list.

    The Chimney Sweeper- Song of Experience- Dark Tone

    Irony: a subtly humorous perception of inconsistency, in which an apparently straightforward statement or event is undermined by its context so as to give it a very different significance.

    My Papa's Waltz (Roethke)- title is ironic because the dad's "dance" is very rough, unlike the waltz

    Metonymy: a figure of speech that replaces the name of one thing with the name of something else closely associated with it

    "... altar, sword, and pen" [*stand for church, army, and other scholars*] - London (Wordsworth)


    Apostrophe: a rhetorical figure in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person, or an abstraction or inanimate object

    " 'Doth God exact day- labor, light denied?' I fondly asked" - When I considered how my light is spent (Milton)

    Parallel structure/ parallelism: the arrangement of similarly constructed clauses, sentences, or verse lines in a pairing or other sequence suggesting some correspondence between them

    "And their sun does never shine,
     And their fields are bleak & bare,
     And their ways are fill'd with thorns" 
    - Holy Thursday, Songs of Experience (Blake) 


    Rhetorical Shift/ volta: a change in tone, attitude, speaker, subject etc. in a poem
    "Rage, rage, Rage against the dying of the light.
    And you, my father, there on the sad height,
    Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I Pray." 
    - Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" by Dylan
    [ Shift between "the light" and "And you, my father"]
    Inversion: the reversal of the normally expected order of words.
    said she 
    End- stopped: brought to a pause at which the end of a verse coincides with the completion of a sentence, clause, or other independent unit of syntax
    I sat under the jacaranda, catching
    the petals in my palm, enclosing them
    until my fist was another lantern
    hiding a small and bitter flame.- The Girl who loved the Sky by Anita Endrezze
    Enjambment: the running over of the sense and grammatical structure from one verse line or couplet to the next without a punctuated pause.

    Onomatopoeia the use of words that seem to imitate the sounds they refer to
    (Whack, fizz)

    alliteration the repetition of the same sounds- usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllables

    "Whiskey, waltzing, wrist" "battered, beat, bed" 
    "My Papa's Waltz" Theodore Roethke

    consonance the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighbouring words whose vowel sounds are different
    "Infant's tear... Marraige hearse" - London (blake)
    [tear and hearse have the similar -ear spelling but are said in 2 different manners]

    assonance repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds
    "returning chide" and "light denied"- When I consider how my light is spent (Milton)
    or
    Hit or miss

    half rhyme/ slant rhyme a rhyme that doesnt exactly rhyme

    "Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
    they rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind" (pronounced Wined) - The Chimney Sweeper, Song of Innocence (Blake

    end rhyme rhyme occurring at the ends of verse lines
    "Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
    By the stream and o'er the mead"  
    "The Lamb" , Song of Innocence William Blake

    Internal Rhyme: Two or more rhyme within the same line or verse
     I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores

    Plus: Example of Scansion of Iambic Pentameter in Macbeth