Poetry – Part One
Student Name: ___________________________________________
As a group, you will each be assigned a poem. Use the class time provided to answer the
following about your assigned poem. While you can work together, each of you will have to
have your own copy of answers:
1. What type of poem is your poem? What are the characteristics that fit it into that
category?
2. Discuss the rhyme scheme of your poem. Why, do you feel, the author used that type of
rhyme scheme? Is it effective?
3. Find three examples of figurative language in your poem and explain them fully, using
examples from the poem.
4. Most of these poems have a similar theme. What is the message of your poem? Giving
examples from the poem, explain how the author has developed that message.
5. Create a visual to illustrate your poem.
In the class to follow, you will form a different group and teach your classmates about your
poem. Be ready to discuss with and learn from them.
Poem One:
The Summer I Was Sixteen
Geraldine Connolly
The turquoise pool rose up to meet us,
its slide a silver afterthought down which
we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.
We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.
Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted
up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool
lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,
we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete,
danced to the low beat of "Duke of Earl".
Past cherry colas, hot-dogs, Dreamsicles,
we came to the counter where bees staggered
into root beer cups and drowned. We gobbled
cotton candy torches, sweet as furtive kisses,
shared on benches beneath summer shadows.
Cherry. Elm. Sycamore. We spread our chenille
blankets across grass, pressed radios to our ears,
mouthing the old words, then loosened
thin bikini straps and rubbed baby oil with iodine
across sunburned shoulders, tossing a glance
through the chain link at an improbable world.
Poem Two:
Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale
Jane Yolen
I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Cinder Elephant,
Sleeping Tubby,
Snow Weight,
where the princess is not
anorexic, wasp-waisted,
flinging herself down the stairs.
I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Hansel and Great,
Repoundsel,
Bounty and the Beast,
where the beauty
has a pillowed breast,
and fingers plump as sausage.
I am thinking of a fairy tale
that is not yet written,
for a teller not yet born,
for a listener not yet conceived,
for a world not yet won,
where everything round is good:
the sun, wheels, cookies, and the princess.
Poem Three:
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Emily Dickinson
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish -- you know!
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Poem Four:
A Dream
Edgar Allan Poe
In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departedBut a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afarWhat could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?
Poem Five
Stop all the clocks, put out the telephone
W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aero planes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Poem Six:
"We're Going To Be Friends"
Jack White
Fall is here, hear the yell
back to school, ring the bell
brand new shoes, walking blues
climb the fence, books and pens
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
Walk with me, Suzy Lee
through the park and by the tree
we will rest upon the ground
and look at all the bugs we found
safely walk to school without a sound
safely walk to school without a sound
Here we are, no one else
we walked to school all by ourselves
there's dirt on our uniforms
from chasing all the ants and worms
we clean up and now it's time to learn
we clean up and now it's time to learn
Numbers, letters, learn to spell
nouns, and books, and show and tell
playtime we will throw the ball
back to class, through the hall
teacher marks our height against the wall
teacher marks our height against the wall
We don't notice any time pass
we don't notice anything
we sit side by side in every class
teacher thinks that I sound funny
but she likes the way you sing
Tonight I'll dream while I'm in bed
when silly thoughts go through my head
about the bugs and alphabet
and when I wake tomorrow I'll bet
that you and I will walk together again
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
Yes I can tell that we are gonna be friends.