What is Poetry?
An introduction to poetry
Click on Hyperlinks to see video content
throughout the PowerPoint
Writing Prompt
We all lose things in life that are
uniquely special to us: a wool scarf
knitted by a beloved friend, a letter
opener that belonged to a grandfather,
a stuffed animal won for a daughter at
a state fair. Life moves forward and so
do we. We misplace the things we love.
We lose them. Write a poem about an
object that has disappeared from your
life.
Announcements!
• If you want to submit your work- poetry, flash fiction,
persuasive, nonfiction, or journalism to Best
American Teen Writing, the deadline is January 6th.
See Ms. Rolfe for details.
• Publishing is fun! Seriously, it is. One of my poems
came out in a book this week. Look here it is on
Amazon! Impressive!
Why study poetry? Mr. Keating can
answer this better than I can…
A Few Words from Billy Collins on
Writing/ Reading Poems
Is this poetry? What makes
it poetry?
How about this?
The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Or is this what we
normally think of?
But if that is poetry,
what’s this?
Or this? Jim Carroll "8
Fragments for Kurt Cobain"
A note on poetry…
I realize some of you are very afraid of poetry. I
realize some of you really hate poetry. I think hating
poetry is like hating music in general. There are so
many different kinds of poets and poems. I am certain
we will search until we find what speaks to you. All I
ask this six weeks is that you keep an open mind and
you try new things. Some of the things I will ask you to
do on the next slide you might groan about. I know I
dreaded analyzing poems in college. Seriously, Ezra
Pound almost gave me a nervous breakdown. But I
assure you, we will work through this process together
and it will help you. Analyzing poems is good for your
brain. Also, writing poems is fun. Trust me. It really is.
And the beauty of them is there are no rules and they
can be short!
A Few Things We’re Going to do this six weeks…
• We’re going to read and analyze poems so we can fully
understand how they are constructed. I am going to give you
a handout to help guide you in that process.
• You are going to pick one poet to study this six weeks. You will
pick one of their books to read during our SSR time. I promise
we’ll do it this time! You will write a short “close reading”
annotation on this poet. (Don’t worry, we’ll work on it in class!)
• Most classes will be structured with the Read, Write, Share
model. Meaning we read and analyze together, do an
assignment based on what we read and then we share with
one another. Sharing your work is an important part of the
writing process.
16 Bars for Kendrick
Lamar
Today’s Assignment
• Write “16 Bars” for someone you
admire.