POETRY RETEST INFORMATION
Regina Keels
T.L. Hanna High School
Anderson, South Carolina
TEST RETAKE
A different test with five selections.
 Average of the two tests will be taken.
 Partner test. Justifications are required.
 Work from Bell to Bell.
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THE LOOK OF A POEM
Domestic Work, 1937
Natasha Trethewey
All week she's cleaned
someone else's house,
stared down her own face
in the shine of copperbottomed pots, polished
wood, toilets she'd pull
the lid to--that look saying
Let's make a change, girl.
But Sunday mornings are hers-church clothes starched
and hanging, a record spinning
on the console, the whole house
dancing. She raises the shades,
washes the rooms in light,
buckets of water, Octagon soap.
Cleanliness is next to godliness ...
Windows and doors flung wide,
curtains two-stepping
forward and back, neck bones
bumping in the pot, a choir
of clothes clapping on the line.
Nearer my God to Thee ...
She beats time on the rugs,
blows dust from the broom
like dandelion spores, each one
a wish for something better.
(From poetry180.org)
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131
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to myself alone.
And to be sure that is not false I swear,
A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,
One on another's neck, do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
SONNETS
"London, 1802"
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom,
power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the
sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
"Sonnet LXXIII"
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds
sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed by that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more
strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere
long.
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THE PURPOSE OF A POEM
The Weary Blues
Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking
back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a
Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other
night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . . He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues. With his
ebony hands on each ivory key He made that
poor piano moan with melody. O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool He
played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues! Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues! In a deep song voice with a
melancholy tone I heard that Negro sing, that
old piano moan— “Ain’t got nobody in all this
world, Ain’t got nobody but ma self. I’s gwine to
quit ma frownin’ And put ma troubles on the
shelf.”
(from Poetry.org)
The Unquiet Grave
Anonymous
I
‘The wind doth blow today, my love,
And a few small drops of rain;
I never had but one true-love;
In cold grave she was lain.
II
‘I’ll do as much for my true-love
As any young man may;
I’ll sit and mourn all at her grave
For a twelvemonth and a day.'
THE PURPOSE OF A POEM, CONTINUED
The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket
Robert Lowell, 1917 - 1977
(For Warren Winslow, Dead At Sea)
I
A brackish reach of shoal off Madaket-The sea was still breaking violently and night
Had steamed into our North Atlantic Fleet,
When the drowned sailor clutched the drag-net.
Light
Flashed from his matted head and marble feet,
He grappled at the net
With the coiled, hurdling muscles of his thighs:
The corpse was bloodless, a botch of reds and whites,
Its open, staring eyes
Were lustreless dead-lights
Or cabin-windows on a stranded hulk
Heavy with sand. We weight the body, close
Its eyes and heave it seaward whence it came,
Where the heel-headed dogfish barks its
nose
On Ahab’s void and forehead; and the
name
Is blocked in yellow chalk.
Sailors, who pitch this portent at the sea
Where dreadnaughts shall confess
Its hell-bent deity,
When you are powerless
To sand-bag this Atlantic bulwark, faced
By the earth-shaker, green, unwearied,
chaste
In his steel scales: ask for no Orphean
lute
To pluck life back. The guns of the
steeled fleet
Recoil and then repeat
The hoarse salute.
LITERARY TERMS
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Apostrophe
Consonance
Assonance
Alliteration
Enjambment
Couplet
Tercet
Quatrain
Cinquain
Hyperbole
Metaphor
Personification
Petrarchan sonnet
Shakespearean sonnet
THREE TYPES OF POEMS
Lyric Poem
 Dramatic Poem
 Narrative Poem
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A PRACTICE POEM
When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
HELPFUL WEBSITES
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/
http://www.poets.org/
Reading poetry helps to make it easier to
understand poetry. These websites offer more
information on the types of poetry we studied in
class.