Name: _____________________________________________________________________
February 2015
Course/Instructor/Period: _______________________________________________
Analyzing Poetry
UNIT SCHEDULE
Monday
Tuesday
26
Wednesday
27
Thursday
28
Friday
29
Distribute poetry
terms.
30
Focus:
Meter and Imagery
Focus:
Prosody
HW:
1. Read “Aunt
Jennifer’s Tigers”
and “So Much
Happiness.”
2. RR#4 and #5
2
Poetry Terms Quiz
Focus:
Imagery
HW:
1. Read “Mother to
Son” and “Promise of
Spring.”
2. RR #7 and #8
3
HW:
1. Read “This is a
Photo…”
2. RR #6
3. Study for Terms
Quiz
4
Focus:
Metaphor and
Personification
Focus:
Form Poetry
HW:
1. Read excerpt from
HW:
1. Read “I am
Offering…” and “Do
Not Go…”
2. RR #11 and #12
5
Focus:
Form Poetry
Focus:
Spoken Word Poetry
“Ode on…” and
haikus by Basho,
Buson, Shiki, Kato
HW:
1. Reading journals
due tomorrow; be
ready. 
Shuson, Soseki.
2. RR #9 and #10
9
6
RR Journals Due!
10
Focus:
Student-Directed
Focus:
Student-Directed
HW:
1. Find a poem;
bring a printed hard
copy to class on
Tuesday.
HW:
1. Find a poem;
bring a printed hard
copy to class on
Wednesday.
11
Focus:
Student-Directed
HW:
1. Choose a poem a
poem to analyze
using any* critical
literary theory of
your choice.
12
Minilesson:
Writing a Strong
Claim
Note: Electronic
copies not accepted.
13
Teacher-Led Small
Group Instruction
Writing Workshop
Writing Workshop
HW:
1. Continue working;
analysis due at end
of class on F 1/13.
Poetry Analysis Due!
Note: Electronic
Note: Electronic
*Except Reader’s Response.
copies not accepted.
copies not accepted.
*The above “Unit Schedule” is subject to revision, based on student need and school closures.
UNIT ASSIGNMENTS AND DUE DATES
1. Poetry Terms Quiz
2. Read and annotate assigned poems.
3. Reader’s Response Journals #4-#12
4. Bring poems for discussion.
5. Poetry Analysis
HW:
1. Find a poem;
bring a printed hard
copy to class on
Monday.
No HW over break!
Due: M 2/2
Due: Daily
Due: Daily, collected on F 2/6
Due: M 2/9 — W 2/11
Due: F 2/13
READER’S RESPONSE JOURNALS (#4-#12)
[Due: Daily, collected on F 2/6]
For every poem you read, you must complete one of the following written exercises:
1. What do you like about the poem? Why?
2. What do you dislike about the poem? Why?
3. What surprised you in the poem? Why?
4. What do you think the poem is about? Cite evidence.
5. What figurative language do you see in the poem? What effect does it have on you?
6. What elements of prosody do you see in the poem? What effect do they have on you?
7. Write a poem inspired by the poem you just read.
Note for 2/3: Pick two of the haiku and answer ONE of the above prompts based on them.
Sample Reading Journal Scoring Guide:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
POETRY ANALYSIS
[Due: F 2/13 by the end of class]
Note: Absence from class on 2/13 does not provide you with an extension on this assignment
once classes resume; it will be due in class the first day you return from your vacation.
Choose one of the poems that you (or a colleague) brought to class this week that you’re
interested in exploring further and choose one critical literary theory (Reader’s Response is still
not an option) to use as the lens for your analysis. Using that lens as a starting place, develop a
strong claim about your chosen poem and support it in a four (or five) paragraph essay. Make
sure you apply the information from Thursday’s lesson on writing strong claims (T 2/12).
Gerard Manley Hopkins: "The Windhover"
I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
Michael Stillman: “In Memoriam John Coltrane”
Listen to the coal
rolling, rolling through the cold
steady rain, wheel on
wheel, listen to the
turning of the wheels this night
black as coal dust, steel
on steel, listen to
these cars carry coal, listen
to the coal train roll.
Adrienne Rich: "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"
Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.
Aunt Jennifer's finger fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.
When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.
Naomi Shihab Nye: “So Much Happiness”
It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records…..
Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.
Margaret Atwood: “This Is a Photograph of Me”
It was taken some time ago
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;
then, as you scan
it, you can see something in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.
In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.
(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.
I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.
It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or how small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion.
but if you look long enough
eventually
you will see me.)
Langston Hughes: “Mother to Son”
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
Elaine George: “The Promise of Spring”
I
Will
Kiss you
While you sleep
Lady dressed in white
And melt your cold heart made of ice
Then
You
Will rise
Liquefied
High into the sky
And fall as raindrops from God’s eyes
To
The
Waiting
Buds below
Where now you will grow
With me – in the bloom of a rose
William Wordsworth:
excerpt from, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;-Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
Basho
From time to time
The clouds give rest
To the moon-beholders.
In the cicada’s cry
No sign can foretell
How soon it must die.
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
Buson
Over-ripe sushi,
The Master
Is full of regret.
Blowing from the west
Fallen leaves gather
In the east.
splash! Silence again.
No one travels
Along this way but I,
This autumn evening.
Shiki
Consider me
As one who loved poetry
And persimmons.
Kato Shuson
I kill an ant
and realize my three children
have been watching.
Soseki
Over the wintry
forest, winds howl in rage
with no leaves to blow.
My life,—
How much more of it
remains?
The night is brief.
Toward those short trees
We saw a hawk
descending
On a day in spring.
Jimmy Santiago Baca: “I Am Offering this Poem”
I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat
when winter comes to cover you,
or like a pair of thick socks
the cold cannot bite through,
I love you,
I have nothing else to give you,
so it is a pot full of yellow corn
to warm your belly in winter,
it is a scarf for your head, to wear
over your hair, to tie up around your face,
I love you,
Keep it, treasure this as you would
if you were lost, needing direction,
in the wilderness life becomes when mature;
and in the corner of your drawer,
tucked away like a cabin or hogan
in dense trees, come knocking,
and I will answer, give you directions,
and let you warm yourself by this fire,
rest by this fire, and make you feel safe
I love you,
It’s all I have to give,
and all anyone needs to live,
and to go on living inside,
when the world outside
no longer cares if you live or die;
remember,
I love you.
Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night”
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
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.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
"Little Margaret", traditional, performed by the Carolina Chocolate Drops
Little Margaret is sitting in her high hall
chair
Unfold, unfold those snow white robes
Be they ever so fine
Combing back her long yellow hair
For I want to kiss those cold, cold lips
Saw sweet William and his new made bride
For I know they'll never kiss mine
Riding up the road so near
Three times he kissed her cold, cold hand
She threw down her ivory comb
Twice he kissed her cheek
Threw back her long yellow hair
And once he kissed her cold, cold lips
Said "I'll go down and bid them farewell
And he fell in her arms asleep
And I'll nevermore go there"
It was late in the night
They were fast asleep
Little Margaret appeared all dressed in
white
Standing at their bed feet
Saying "How do you like your snow white
pillow?
How do you like your sheet?
Saying how do you like that pretty, fair maid
Who lays in your arms asleep?"
"Very well do I like my snow white pillow
Well do I like my sheet
Much better do I like that pretty, fair maid
Who stands at my bed feet"
He called a servant man to go
Saddled the dappled roan
And he rode for her father's house that
night
Knocked on the door alone
Said "Is little Margaret in her room,
Or is she in the hall?"
"Little Margaret is in her cold black coffin
With her face turned toward the wall"