Year 11 English Studies
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Text Analysis Oral Task
Heinemann poetry 2: oral commentary and the creation of a digital photo-poem
You must choose a poem from Heinemann poetry 2 – a different one from other members of the class
– to prepare an audiovisual presentation of it (a digital photo-poem), followed by a commentary
which presents an explanation of your digital photo-poem, along with an appropriate and well-argued
interpretation of the poem upon which it is based. The total time should be 5 minutes, including the
digital photo-poem (maximum 2 min.).
Commentary – MATTER (< 5 min.)
SACE Assessment Design Criteria – Knowledge and Understanding (2 & 3) and Analysis(2):
The content of your commentary should
 cover a clear articulation of the poem's situation;
 identify its theme or general meaning (ideas and feelings expressed);
 be able to trace the development of the theme through the stages of the poem (eg. Each verse of Heaney 's “
Digging” builds on the previous one's treatment of the speaker's memories of his father and grandfather, enriched by
images of the dignity of labour and linked by the title’s burgeoning metaphor);
 describe the voice or occasionally voices that the poet gives the speaker and why (eg. Plath’s “The Applicant” relies
heavily on the language and tone of both a bureaucrat and a salesman to express her critique of modern marriage);
 explain how the poem’s style contributes to all or most of the above.
Style* is really the use and synthesis of any number of techniques for getting meaning across to readers in the most
effective way. The following list covers the most common poetic techniques, which can be used in any number of
combinations and emphases DEPENDING ON WHAT BEST EXPRESSES A POEM'S MEANING.
Rhythm
Tone of voice
Rhyme
Atmosphere and mood
Alliteration
Punning
Repetition
Pattern
Emphasis and surprise, breaking the pattern
Juxtaposition of images
Metaphor, simile, metonymy, paradox and other forms of figurative language
*Refer to the Poetry Review booklet and this handout’s appendix with my model commentary on Bruce Dawe’s
“After You, Gary Cooper”.
Commentary – METHOD
SACE Assessment Design Criteria – Application (2):
This is generally up to you, BUT I recommend a brief general introduction to your “digital photo-poem” that will give
the audience some basic information to engage their interest (eg. Title, author and why you chose it - but being “short” or
having “crib notes on it” will not impress).
After showing the digital photo-poem itself, you should try to deliver a well-structured argument that persuades the
audience to accept your reading or interpretation of the poem. For this you will probably need to construct a short essay
that could follow the features of the Matter outlined above. HOWEVER, you must incorporate a discussion of style into
the main issues and theme of the poem. For example, if the theme of “The Sun Rising” is the all encompassing nature of
sexual love, and its particular use of metaphysical conceits is a key issue, then specific examples of metaphors, hyperbole,
rhyme, etc. need to be used in support of this view as you explain how the theme is developed from a particular situation,
speaker, and tone. DO NOT LIST THEM AS IF CHECKING OFF A SHOPPING LIST!
Commentary – MANNER
SACE Assessment Design Criteria – Communication (1):
Your commentary should be delivered in a clear, articulate and interesting way that directly engages the audience (standing
up and making eye contact being the most obvious techniques for achieving the latter).
Digital photo-poem (< 2 min.)
SACE Assessment Design Criteria – Knowledge and Understanding (1), Application (1) and Communication (2):
The digital photo-poem should reflect the sound and meaning of the poem by how well you create the drama, rhythm and
sense of the poetic lines in your reading, as well as your choice of music, images and editing. REMEMBER to follow
punctuation and the rhythm of the words, NOT line endings when pausing or changing the pace of your reading. Your
tone of voice should also reflect the tone of the poem, although sometimes the speaker's tone may be different from that
of the author / poem (eg. The Duke in “My Last Duchess” is disapproving of his ex-wife but the poem is not). The ideas,
values and beliefs explored in the poem must also be clearly and imaginatively represented by appropriate images and
music. The appropriate style and structure of a digital photo-poem is one that uses such images, editing and music to audio
visually enhance the original poem’s form and meaning in a clear and effective way.
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10% of Semester 2 SACE assessment
Form and Meaning
The real ideas of a poem are not those that occur to the poet
before he writes his poem, but rather those that appear in his work
afterward, whether by design or by accident. Content stems from
form, and not vice versa. Every form produces its own idea, its
own vision of the world. Form has meaning; and, what is more, in
the realm of art only form possesses meaning. The meaning of a
poem does not lie in what the poet wanted to say, but in what the
poem actually says. What we think we are saying and what we are
really saying are two quite different things.
Octavio Paz
From Alternating Current, translated from the Spanish by Helen R Lane, Wildwood House, 1974
Using Photo Story 3 for Windows:
(free downloadable software from Microsoft for Windows XP computers; available in P1.19 from the START menu via
“Other Programs” and “Visual Editors”)
Open the program and click on the appropriate option such as Begin a new story. Press Next and you
will find yourself in Import and arrange your pictures.
Import your pictures from the folder where you have stored them. (It’s a good idea to have organised
all the pictures you want to use in your project beforehand and placed them in a separate folder, but
you can always import more at a later stage.)
Click and drag the pictures into the order you wish them to appear.
At this stage you can also remove black borders around your photos or edit them or leave that till later
– it might not be necessary.
Press Next and move into the Add a title to your pictures mode. Now you can place titles on any of the
pictures. Try different fonts, different colours and different positions on the screen. You may also like
to use different effects on the slides, such as Coloured Pencil, or Sepia. When you are happy with your
titles, press Next.
Now you can narrate your story and customise the motion on the screen. It is useful to type what you
are going to say into the box to read from as you record it, or cut and paste it in if you have already
written your script before you started. Speak clearly and loudly into the microphone. Check on the
sound quality by pressing Preview. If you wish to redo it, Press the Delete Narration button and
record again.
The default length of time for a slide is 5 seconds, but if you speak for longer than this it will adjust,
and if you wish it to be shorter or longer then click on Customize Motion and then Number of seconds
to display the picture and make the adjustment.
When you have finished recording your narration on each slide as desired press Next. You may now
choose to Add background music. Just go to Select Music and import it from the folder where you
have kept it. Alternatively you could click on Create Music and use the music they already have in the
program. If, after previewing the project you don’t like it, then press Delete Music and find some
alternative music. Check that the volume in the background music is quite low or it will be hard to
hear your narration.
Remember that if you wish to revisit any earlier stage in your construction of your project, just press
Back until you are at your desired stage.
An alternative to recording your narration separately on every slide is to prerecord your narration and
mix it with some background music using a program like Audacity (free downloadable software).
Then just import this file as your background music and adjust the length of your slides to fit your
narration by going back to the Customise motion stage of the program.
Once you have previewed your project and are completely happy with it, Save your story for playback
on your computer. Specify its file name (the poem’s title) and location (in your home directory on the
J drive) in then press Save Movie. The movie making process at the end of this may take some time,
depending on the length of your movie and size of files (images, sounds, etc.) that you have used.
If this last process is not followed, you will NOT be able to play your film on any other computer,
even if you have been conscientiously saving your project as you have worked on it. This merely
saves your project as a PS (photo story) file which is NOT a video format.
Play your project using Windows Media Player and enjoy!
Adapted from an assignment using Photo Story 3 designed by A.M. Robertson, Wilderness School
After You, Gary Cooper…
One of the main things I would say
(off-hand, of course) about this
awkward proposition known as
Life, is that it can be a bit of a
bastard if you don't happen to have
the basic formula for facing it
ready to hand – packed on the hip,
butt out, with trigger tied back
like a Colt forty-five
– and your insurance premiums paid up.
Particularly since Life,
that taciturn hero with the steel-blue eye,
though certainly not chain-lightening
on the draw, can usually overcome
what bystanders, if safely out of earshot, might call
a marked deficiency
by pumping an awful lot of hot lead
in your general direction once he does clear leather.
Personally, I'm damn glad
I won't ever be any closer
To the old Wild West than
Ranch Night at the local theatre,
because I'd a hell of a lot sooner
let Life have it where it'll do most good
from around the nearest corner,
than parade the dusty Main Street
of some anonymous cow-town, taking
a long shade of odds on a one-way trip
to Boot Hill, just for the sake of looking good for twenty
gunsmoke-glorious seconds…
Bruce Dawe
After You, Gary Cooper…
A model commentary
The central conceit of this poem is to imagine life as a confrontation, in the metaphorical terms of a Wild
West shootout. As the title suggests, its speaker prefers to offer the dubious glory of living one’s life as a
hero to someone else, specifically a Hollywood actor, whose name invokes an allusion to High Noon, his
most famous cowboy role as the reluctant amateur sheriff saving a community of worthless townsfolk.
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INTRODUCTION
The form of the poem is a kind of meditative rather than dramatic monologue, reinforced by the speaker’s
conversational working out of an idea – namely, that “life … can be a bit of a bastard”. Dawe maintains this
casual, man-in-the-street philosophising through the use of parenthetic phrases like “off-hand, of course”, or
such informal expressions as “Personally, I’m damn glad…” The effect of this mode of address to the reader
is to reinforce the speaker’s attitude of knowing reticence, a tone which supports his central idea that its better
to hang back and avoid risks than speak up in bold declarative statements in the face of “an awful lot of hot
lead”.
Dawe’s use of diction skilfully combines a plethora of references to the culture of Hollywood westerns –
“Main Street’; “Boot Hill”; “Colt forty-five” – with the self-effacing slang of an Australian idiom – “a long
shade of odds”; “safely out of earshot”; “a bit of a bastard” – as well as the more contemporary language of
our risk conscious urban world – “the basic formula”; “insurance premiums”; “a marked deficiency”. The
poem’s success in fact lies in the way Dawe has managed to integrate these three different language types into
a single voice, while still taking advantage of their unique qualities. The laconic Australian slang punctuates
with irony what are in fact three quite long-winded sentences, setting off not only the intellectual tone of “this
awkward proposition” but also the inflated Hollywood machismo of “packed on the hip, butt out, with trigger
tied back like a Colt forty-five”. The latter metaphor(mula) beautifully expresses this also through its punchy
rhythm and coarse alliterative monosyllables that almost cry out for an American cowboy’s accent. But this
macho rhythmic pattern doesn’t awkwardly intrude, despite the use of hyphenated punctuation to insert it in
the sentence. Its alliteration is prepared for in the more elongated phrasing that precedes it, with the blend of
repeated ‘b’, ‘h’ and ‘f’ sounds.
EXPOSITION
The use of imagery, like the poem’s rhythm and diction, is smoothly incorporated into the speaker’s overall
argument that life is a little more complex and risky than a Hollywood western. Personifying Life as “that
taciturn hero with the steel-blue eye” and characterising its ‘solution’ as a metaphorical gunslinger’s trusty
weapon, Dawe suggests that representations of life as a heroic confrontation between the individual and fate
are dangerous oversimplifications. Even the ironic qualification of the ‘hero’ as something less than mythical
in his prowess – “certainly not chain-lightning on the draw” – deftly marries the proverbial notion of life’s
tediousness with its ability to surprise “once he does clear leather”.
The final stanza picks up the extended metaphor of the traditional “dusty Main Street” shoot out, while
reminding us that it comes from Hollywood stereotypes – “Ranch Night at the local theatre”. Although the
speaker clearly emphasizes an ironic desire for anonymity, preferring to take life “from around the nearest
corner” rather than on “parade”, two statements seem to bear the fuller weight of the poem’s impact. His
intention to “let Life have it where it’ll do most good” is immediately followed by the corner reference,
implying that the “most good” in life is to be found around it, not in the Main Street. But the proper sense of
the sentence is that the “most good” refers to where Life ‘gets it’, not where we are when we ‘dish it out’.
However, the ambiguity is surely intentional and the best interpretation seems to be that we won’t find the
most good in life by imitating Hollywood stereotypes of heroism. The poem’s final line reinforces this with
its implication of short-lived fame and vanity, where “for the sake of looking good” life is reduced to “twenty
gunsmoke-glorious seconds…”
imagery = key poetic terms
monologue = other important technical terms
CONCLUSION