Poems of Celebration
It’s not true that all poems
are depressing!

Odes can:
Celebrate
Commemorate
Meditate on people, events, or,
in Neruda’s case, ordinary
objects
A Brief History of the Ode

 Originally
 Formally structured
 Written for choruses in Greek plays to sing or chant
Pindaric Odes

 Chorus speaks and moves left, speaks again and
moves right, finishes with a third response
 Left = strophe
Same stanza form
 Right = antistrophe
 Final response = epode = different form
 Pindaric odes were celebratory and heroic
Example:

Excerpt from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to the West
Wind”
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
Horatian Ode

 Short lyric poems (lyric poems express thought or
feelings rather than telling a story)
 Stanzas of 2-4 lines
 In the manner of the Roman poet Horace
 intimate and reflective rather than celebratory and
heroic
 Often addressed to a friend and deal with
friendship, love, and the practice of poetry.
Example:

 An extract from 'Ode to a Nightingale'
by John Keats (1795-1821)
 My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of the happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
(A)
(B)
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
(C)
(D)
(E)
Cowleyan Ode

 Used by modern poets such as Neruda
 Modern odes may be humorous, but still
commemorate the beauty poets find in unexpected
places
 With the Cowleyan Ode, the ode is freed from
formal constraints of rhyme and meter and stanza
pattern
 Neruda uses short-lined free verse for his odes
Neruda’s Odes

 Listen to the odes
Ode to the Watermelon


 What is he comparing the watermelon to?
 What is the relationship between the people in the
poem and the watermelon like? Support ideas with
text.
 How does the poem move, progress, from
beginning to end?
 How would you define the tone and mood of this
poem?
Ode to a Chestnut on
the Ground


 What is different about the form of address Neruda
uses in this poem? How does he address the
chestnut? How is this similar to, different from the
last poem, and how does the mood of the poem
change with this choice?
 Can you find any humor in this poem?
 How does the poem move from beginning to end?
 Is the chestnut “just a seed,” or is it more? Support
your ideas with text.
Ode to the Book (I)


 What do you make of this poem? How is it similar
to or different from the others?
 What is the book, according to Neruda? List all the
attributes of the book and draw a conclusion.
Reflection

 Which ode is your favorite and why?
 How are these poems similar to and different from
the other poems we’ve read by Neruda so far?
Invention: Write and illustrate
your own Ode

 Your turn! Using one of Neruda’s odes as a model,
choose your own ordinary object to celebrate!
 Like Neruda, try using short-lined free verse
 Like Neruda,
 Like Neruda, you may include humor, but also
celebrate the beauty you have found in an
unexpected place
 Due: Next Friday