Poetry
__________________________________
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!
By Edna St. Vincent Millay
Name: ________________________________________________
Class: _________________________________________________
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Poetry Unit Objectives:
1. You will learn to enjoy and understand poems by using close reading to unlock the deeper
meaning inside of them.
2. You will look closely at the structure of poems and consider how form, figurative language, word
choice, and sound devices influence the meaning of poems.
3. You will use all your understanding of poetry and the poems as models to try your hand at writing
your own poems.
Strategy for Close Reading Poetry:

First Reading—Read the poem straight through for enjoyment. Try not to worry about
understanding everything—just enjoy it!

Second Reading—Read for meaning. Be on the lookout for clues that will help you understand
the poem, especially words or phrases that suggest emotions or feelings. Annotate the text; mark
up the margins, noting these places. Also, jot down any questions that pop into your head while
you’re reading.

Third Reading—As you read, pay attention to rhyme scheme and sound (repeated sounds at the
end of each line, alliteration, repetition, and onomatopoeia), figurative language (simile, metaphor,
personification, hyperbole), and imagery (words that stimulate and create images in a sensory
manner, appealing to your five senses). Mark up the margins, making notes on these aspects of the
poem.

Fourth Reading—Now read the poem one last time. Consider mood (the feeling within the poem
or the feeling the poem evokes in you). As you read this time, make notes in the margins on how
the poem makes you feel. Think about images and sound again, and note anything new you
uncover. How do these techniques contribute to the meaning of the poem? Annotate the text with
notes on what you think the poet is trying to say. Last, try to answer any questions you noted
earlier.
By the end of this unit, you will be able to…
Define the following poetic terms, and identify their use in poetry:
Personification (poem 2)
Alliteration (6)
Rhyme (1)
Rhythm (3)
Onomatopoeia (6)
End rhyme (1)
Internal rhyme (6)
Stanza (5)
Symbol (4)
Simile (2)
Metaphor (2)
Hyperbole (9)
Free Verse (7)
Imagery (3)
Narrative poem (3)
Rhyme scheme (1)
Sound devices (6)
Figurative language (2)
Mood (2)
Symbolism (4)
Repetition (5)
Prose (3)
Ode (2)
Line (1)
Read, appreciate, comprehend, and write poetry using these poetic devices and techniques.
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Poem One: Cover Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
First Step: This is one of my all time favorite poems. I heard it and read it many times before I
learned the title of the poem. Use the close reading strategy outlined to read this poem and get to
know its meaning. Mark up the text in the white space around the poem.
Second Step: Poetic Terms
Line: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rhyme: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
End rhyme: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rhyme scheme: ______________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Step Three: Thinking Deeply/Literary Analysis
Now that you have gotten to know this poem, try your hand at giving it a title. What would you
title this poem? Try out a few sample titles in this space:
Choose the best of your tries and write it on the line provided for a title above the poem.
What does it mean if your “candle burns at both ends?” Use this space to develop your
understanding of this phrase. What do you think the poet is trying to say in this poem?
What is the metaphor in the phrase “my candle burns at both ends?” What does “my candle”
represent in this metaphor?
Step Four: Now try your own hand at a short poem that says something essential about your life
and your outlook on how to live life. Use the space below to write a first draft. Try saying
something big in four short lines:
1
Poem Two: “Ode to Pablo’s Tennis Shoes” by Gary Soto
Opener—Before you read the poem:
On the following lines, list a few everyday, common things for which you are grateful:
______________________________________ ________________________________________
______________________________________ _________________________________________
In the box below, draw a picture of one of your common things that shows how important it is—
make the common uncommon:
In a few sentences, explain why this “common thing” is so important to you:
2
“Ode to Pablo’s Tennis Shoes”
Gary Soto
They wait under Pablo’s bed,
Rain-beaten, sun-beaten,
A scuff of green
At their tips
From when he fell
In the school yard.
He fell leaping for a football
That sailed his way.
But Pablo fell and got up,
Green on his shoes,
With the football
Out of reach.
Now it’s night.
Pablo is in bed listening
To his mother laughing
to the Mexican novelas on TV.
His shoes, twin pets
That snuggle his toes,
Are under the bed.
He should have bathed,
But he didn’t.
(Dirt rolls from his palm,
Blades of grass
Tumble from his hair.)
He wants to be
Like his shoes,
A little dirty
From the road,
A little worn
From racing to the drinking fountain
A hundred times in one day.
It takes water
To make him go,
And his shoes to get him
There. He loves his shoes,
Cloth like a sail,
Rubber like
A lifeboat on rough sea.
Pablo is tired,
Sinking into the mattress.
His eyes sting from
Grass and long words in books.
He needs eight hours
Of sleep
To cool his shoes,
The tongues hanging
Out, exhausted.
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Response:
First Step: What did you notice about the poem? Use the close reading strategy to understand the
poem. Mark up the poem, and use the white space around the poem to note your impressions
about the poem’s form and meaning.
Step Two: Poetic Terms
Find and write definitions for the following terms
Ode: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mood: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Figurative language: _________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Metaphor: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Simile: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Personification: ______________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Step Three: Thinking Deeply/Literary Analysis
What is the mood of this poem? How do you feel when you read it? What tone of voice does the
“speaker” in the poem use?
Find one example of personification. How does the use of this device show us something about
Pablo? Jot down your thinking here.
Find one simile and explain what it means and tell what it reveals about Pablo.
4
When you read Soto’s poem carefully, you can learn a lot about Pablo. In some cases, the poet may
give us information directly. At other times, he may imply information about a subject. On the next
page use the T-Chart to record details about Pablo. In the left column, write what you learned
about Pablo from reading the poem in your own words. In the right column, write down the
evidence in exact words from the poem that supports your statements.
What you learned about Pablo
Quote that shows
Example:
Pablo likes sports, particularly football.
“He fell leaping for a football/That sailed his
way.”
Soto tells us a lot about Pablo by telling us about his shoes and his relationship with his shoes.
Can you picture his shoes? Can you picture Pablo? Is Soto’s use of figurative language to create
imagery an effective way to tell us about Pablo? Why? Jot down your thinking here:
:
StepFour: Share your thinking with your table group. Talk about this poem, its meaning, form, and
use of language. Jot down any new ideas you gain from your classmates’ insights.
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Step Five: Now it’s your turn to write an ode. Your ode can be about anything; one of your
everyday common objects, an ordinary object would be a good subject for your ode. View this
ordinary object in a new way, as Soto does in his poem. Go back to your notes from before you read
Soto’s poem and check back in with your ideas about why that everyday object is so important to
you. Try to appreciate the object’s underappreciated qualities and see what these qualities could
mean to you. Use this page to write a first draft of your poem.
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Step Six: Another Ode to Simple Things
Here is another ode to simply read, enjoy, and reflect on if you have time.
Ode to my Socks
by Pablo Neruda
Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
that she knit with her
shepherd's hands.
Two socks as soft
as rabbit fur.
I thrust my feet
inside them
as if they were
two
little boxes
knit from threads
of sunset
and sheepskin.
My feet were
two woolen
fish
in those outrageous socks,
two gangly,
navy-blue sharks
impaled
on a golden thread,
two giant blackbirds,
two cannons:
thus
were my feet
honored
by
those
heavenly
socks.
They were
so beautiful
I found my feet
unlovable
for the very first time,
like two crusty old
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that embroidered
fire,
those incandescent
socks.
Nevertheless
I fought
the sharp temptation
to put them away
the way schoolboys
put
fireflies in a bottle,
the way scholars
hoard
holy writ.
I fought
the mad urge
to lock them
in a golden
cage
and feed them birdseed
and morsels of pink melon
every day.
Like jungle
explorers
who deliver a young deer
of the rarest species
to the roasting spit
then wolf it down
in shame,
I stretched
my feet forward
and pulled on
those
gorgeous
socks,
and over them
my shoes.
So this is
the moral of my ode:
beauty is beauty
twice over
and good things are doubly
good
when you're talking about a pair of
wool
socks
in the dead of winter.
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Poem Three: “Cottontail” by George Bogin
Opener—Before you read the poem:
In the space below, examine an event in your life that affected you deeply. Think about something
you regret. Maybe you did something you didn’t want to do. Or you did something you knew you
shouldn’t do, and upon doing it, you regretted the action immediately. You can write about this
event in prose or you can create a visual image of the event.
Example: For me, I think about the time in first grade when I let a classmate take the blame for spilling a pot of paint that I spilled.
He had to stand in the corner of our classroom for thirty minutes. With each minute that passed, my guilt and regret grew and grew.
It became unbearable. Finally, I went up to Miss Queen, with her skunk-striped hair, almost like my own grey streak that I have
today, and confessed. She then replaced him with me. I had to stand in the corner for that same thirty minutes, and then for all the
time my classmate had already stood in the corner, another long seventeen minutes. The class continued around me. One reading
group after another met in a circle close by my corner, and I listened to Dick and Jane stories while tears pooled in my eyes and
started to drip down my face. When I remember this, still today, my stomach starts to roil and those old feelings of shame and regret
wash over me.
Cottontail
George Bogin
A couple of kids,
we went hunting for woodchucks
fifty years ago
in a farmer’s field.
No woodchucks
but we cornered
a terrified
little cottontail rabbit
in the angle
of two stone fences.
He was sitting up,
front paws together,
supplicating,
trembling
while we were deciding
whether to shoot him
or spare him.
I shot first
but missed,
thank god.
Then my friend fired
and killed him
and burst into tears.
I did too.
A little cottontail.
A haunter.
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Response:
First Step: What did you notice about the poem? Use the close reading strategy to understand the
poem. Mark up the poem, and use the white space around the poem to note your impressions
about the poem’s form and meaning.
Step Two: Poetic Terms
Find and write definitions for the following terms
Narrative poem: ______________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Imagery: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rhythm: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Prose: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Step Three: Thinking Deeply/Literary Analysis
What is the mood in Bogin’s poem?
Does the mood change as you move from lines 1-5 to lines 6-13? How?
Poets create images with words. Bogin develops a clear picture of the rabbit. What words most
help you to “see” this rabbit? Jot down those words here and use this space to draw what Bogin
helps you to see.
The rhythm in this poem is created through Bogin’s use of line breaks and punctuation. Look
closely at his choices. What do you notice? Why does he write the poem this way? Does the rhythm
of the poem have anything to do with the content of the poem? Use this space to jot down your
impressions about why this poet has written this poem in this way.
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Step Four: Share your thinking with your table group. Talk about this poem, its meaning, form, and
use of language. Jot down any new ideas you gain from your classmates’ insights.
Step Five: Now it’s your turn to try your hand at a free verse narrative poem. A free verse poem is
a poem that is free of a set rhythm and rhyme. A narrative poem is one that tells a story. Go back
to your opener and think about that event that you drew or wrote about. Use Bogin’s poem as a
model and tell your own story. Create mood, image, and rhythm with the poem’s form and
language. Use this space to write a first draft.
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Poem Four: “Fame is a bee” by Emily Dickinson
Opener—Before you read the poem:
Emily Dickinson wrote many poems that are "definitions," in which she describes something abstract
with something concrete. In the chart below, draw an image to go with each of the words listed. What
“thing” do you think belongs with each idea?
Idea
Its Object
Fame
Death
Joy
Hope
Anger
Sorrow
Frustration
Creativity
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Fame is a bee
By Emily Dickinson
Fame is a bee.
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing.
Closer/Response Sheet:
First Step: What did you notice about the poem? Use the close reading strategy to understand the
poem. Mark up the poem, and use the white space around the poem to note your impressions
about the poem’s form and meaning.
Step Two: Poetic Terms
Find and write definitions for the following terms
Symbol (symbolism): ________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Step Three: Thinking Deeply/Literary Analysis
Compare Dickinson's "definitions" with a dictionary's definitions of the word fame. Use the space
below to write a dictionary definition of fame and then jot down your understanding of Dickinson’s
“definition” of fame.
Dickinson uses a bee as a symbol for fame. What does this symbolism bring to the meaning of the
word fame? How does it illuminate the word in ways that the dictionary might not. Why might
Dickinson have written poems like this? Jot down your thoughts here.
Step Four: Share your thinking with your table group. Talk about this poem, its meaning, form, and
use of language. Jot down any new ideas you gain from your classmates’ insights.
Step Five: Now it’s your turn to try your hand at a definition poem. Choose an abstract word from
your opener chart and then write a prose definition (a dictionary can help you) in the space here:
Now write a first draft of your poetic definition:
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Poem Five: “Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye
Opener—Before you read the poem:
What does “famous” mean to you? Jot down your ideas here.
Name some things or people or places that you consider to be “famous.”
Famous
By Naomi Shihab Nye
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
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Closer/Response Sheet:
First Step: What did you notice about the poem? Use the close reading strategy to understand the
poem. Mark up the poem, and use the white space around the poem to note your impressions
about the poem’s form and meaning.
Step Two: Poetic Term
Find and write definitions for the following term:
Stanza: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Repetition: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Step Three: Thinking Deeply/Literary Analysis
Compare Dickinson's poem to Nye’s poem. The poets are saying very different things about fame
and being famous. How does Dickinson feel about fame? What is she saying about fame?
How does Nye feel about fame? What is she saying about fame?
Do your own ideas about fame differ from these two poets’ ideas?
A writer can use a symbol to make a reader see something new. Nye and Dickinson look at fame
through the use of very different symbols. Do you think that the symbols these two poets use for
fame work? Jot down your thinking here.
Step Four: Share your thinking with your table group. Talk about this poem, its meaning, form,
and use of language. Jot down any new ideas you gain from your classmates’ insights.
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Step Five: It’s your turn to try a poem. Nye’s poem is a kind of list poem that uses repetition and
the relationship between two things to show the reader who she is and wants to be. Think about
who you are and who you want to be, and try your hand at a list poem that uses repetition and
comparison to say something essential about you. Choose a quality or an abstract idea that people
might not always admire, like being famous. Things like being smart, being wealthy, being
ambitious, being conventional, being shabby, being commonplace, or being successful. Twist this
notion from the traditional way of thinking about it. Look at being wealthy, smart, shabby,
ambitious, or successful in a new way, as Nye does with fame. Use simile and comparison to show
the reader how to look at this idea and show how some things are important to you that might not
be important to others. You might say something like, “I want to be as rich as real butter on
popcorn.” Or “I want to be as shabby as the faded, folded photograph of my dad, age 18, standing,
uniformed on the deck of the USS Iowa.” Write a poem that tells a story of you, your life, and who
you want to be. Use the white space on the next page to write a first draft.
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Poem Six: “The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe
Opener—Before you read the poem:
What kind of bells are you familiar with? Brainstorm a list here:
People use bells for all kinds of things. In school, we depend on bells. List the uses and qualities of
school bells here:
Draw a picture of school bells. Let the picture show how they used and reveal the qualities of
school bells.
THE BELLS
BY EDGAR A. POE.
I.
HEAR the sledges with the bells —
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody
foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically
wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
From the jingling and the tinkling of the
bells.
II.
Hear the mellow wedding-bells
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony
foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight! —
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she
gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously
wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! — how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells —
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
To the rhyming and the chiming of the
bells!
III.
Hear the loud alarum bells —
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their
turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of
the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and
frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now — now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair! [column 2:]
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet [[Yes]], the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the
anger of the bells —
Of the bells —
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
In the clamour and the clangour of the
bells!
IV.
Hear the tolling of the bells —
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their
monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
17
Is a groan.
And the people — ah, the people —
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone —
They are neither man nor woman —
They are neither brute nor human —
They are Ghouls: —
And their king it is who tolls: —
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells —
Of the bells: —
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells —
Of the bells, bells, bells —
To the sobbing of the bells: —
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells —
Of the bells, bells, bells: —
To the tolling of the bells —
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
To the moaning and the groaning of the
bells.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Closer/Response Sheet:
First Step: What did you notice about the poem? Use the close reading strategy to understand the
poem. Mark up the poem, and use the white space around the poem to note your impressions
about the poem’s form and meaning.
Step Two: Poetic Terms
Find and write definitions for the following terms
Internal rhyme: _______________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alliteration:____________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Onomatopoeia: _______________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sound device: ________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Step Three: Thinking Deeply/Literary Analysis
The mood of this poem shifts from one section to the next. In the chart below identify the mood you
find in each section and list words and phrases that create that mood for the reader.
Mood
Silver Bells
Words and Phrases that Show Mood
Golden Bells
Brazen Bells
Iron Bells
What do you think Poe is trying to say in this poem? Jot down your ideas here.
19
Step Four: Sound
Poe is a master at using a variety of sound tools. Look for phrases that Poe repeats. Why does he do
use repetition? Does form connect to content and meaning in this poem? Jot down your thinking
here.
Can you find some examples of alliteration in this poem? Why does Poe use this technique? Jot
down your ideas here.
What other patterns or sound tools does Poe use? Find one (onomatopoeia, internal rhyme, end
rhyme) and think about why this works in the poem?
How do sound devices impact meaning in Poe’s poem?
Step Five: Share your thinking with your table group. Talk about this poem, its meaning, form, and
use of language. Jot down any new ideas you gain from your classmates’ insights.
Step Six: Now it’s your turn to try your hand at a stanza. Write a new section for Poe’s poem, but
this time it is the electric bells that ring in our own corridors. Your stanza is on the bells you
should know best, school bells. Use Poe’s poem as a model and write a first draft here:
20
Poem Seven: “Miracles” by Walt Whitman
Opener—Before you read the poem:
What do you consider a miracle? List some ideas here:
Name some things from your own life that you consider miracles:
Find something in your day today that you could consider a miracle:
Miracles
Walt Whitman
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
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Response:
First Step: What did you notice about the poem? Use the close reading strategy to understand the
poem. Mark up the poem, and use the white space around the poem to note your impressions
about the poem’s form and meaning.
Step Two: Poetic Terms
Find and write definitions for the following terms
Free verse: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
List poem/catalog poem:_____________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Step Three: Thinking Deeply/Literary Analysis
Whitman is a nineteenth-century American poet who shook up the literary world. He celebrated
the everyday and common aspects of life. He tossed aside the poetic structure his contemporaries
used and wrote freely. He looked at the world in a new way. Does the poet help you see something
in a new way in this passage from his book, Leaves of Grass? Jot down some of your thinking here:
This poem lists all of the things that Whitman considers miraculous. How does this techniques
contribute to the message of the poem?
Step Four: Share your thinking with your table group. Talk about this poem, its meaning, form, and
use of language. Jot down any new ideas you gain from your classmates’ insights.
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Step Five: Now it’s your turn to try your hand at a stanza. This poem does continue, but today you
can finish it for Whitman. Write a new section to conclude this poem. Go back to your opener and
list some of the things you identified as miracles. Frost said, “A poem begins with a lump in the
throat. “ How should it end? Try to end this poem with your own view of miracles.
23
Poem Eight: “Human Family” by Maya Angelou
Opener—Before you read the poem:
What do you think is meant by the term “human family?” Jot your ideas down here:
Human Family
Maya Angelou
I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.
Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.
We love and lose in China,
we weep on England’s moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we’re the same.
I’ve sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I’ve seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.
I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I’ve not seen any two
who really were the same.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
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Response:
First Step: What did you notice about the poem? Use the close reading strategy to understand the
poem. Mark up the poem, and use the white space around the poem to note your impressions
about the poem’s form and meaning.
Step Two: Thinking Deeply/Literary Analysis
List some of the poetic techniques that Maya Angelou uses in this poem:
What is she trying to say? What is her message to the reader of this poem?
What poetic technique do you think helps her to convey this message?
Step Three: Share your thinking with your table group. Talk about this poem, its meaning, form,
and use of language. Jot down any new ideas you gain from your classmates’ insights.
Step Four: Now it is your turn to try your hand at a poem. Write a first draft of a poem inspired by
Maya Angelou’s “Human Family.”
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Poem Nine: “Child Development” by Billy Collins
Opener—Before you read the poem:
What do you think the phrase “child Development” means?
What do you expect this poem to be about?
Billy Collins chooses a title for this poem that sounds like the name of a textbook for a psychology
class. Brainstorm a list of textbook titles that might also be found in a psychology class.
Child Development
Billy Collins
As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
and sauntered off the beaches into forests
working up some irregular verbs for their
first conversation, so three-year-old children
enter the phase of name-calling.
Every day a new one arrives and is added
to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,
You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)
they yell from knee level, their little mugs
flushed with challenge.
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother
tossing out
in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying
to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment
hack.
They are just tormenting their fellow
squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad
breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the
door close.
The mature save their hothead invective
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,
or receding trains missed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to
bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr.
Sillypants.
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Response:
First Step: What did you notice about the poem? Use the close reading strategy to understand the
poem. Mark up the poem, and use the white space around the poem to note your impressions
about the poem’s form and meaning.
Step Two: Poetic Terms
Find and write definitions for the following terms
Hyperbole: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Step Three: Thinking Deeply/Literary Analysis
What is Collins saying about children in this poem?
Find an example of hyperbole in the poem. What does the use of technique contribute to the
poem?
Collins’s tone of voice is surprising. What is the mood he creates in this poem? Were you surprised
by the tone and mood of the poem?
Step Four: Share your thinking with your table group. Talk about this poem, its meaning, form, and
use of language. Jot down any new ideas you gain from your classmates’ insights.
Step Five: Now it is your turn to try your hand at a poem. Take one of your textbook titles and
write a silly poem that surprises your reader. Write a first draft here:
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Poem Ten “Second Fig” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Opener—Before you read the poem:
The cover poem is titled “First Fig.” I was surprised by this title, but then I found Millay’s “Second
Fig.” Can you think of any reason that these two poems are titled first and second “fig?” Jot down
your thinking here.
What do you expect to find in this “Second Fig?”
Second Fig
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
-
Response:
First Step: What did you notice about the poem? Use the close reading strategy to understand the
poem. Mark up the poem, and use the white space around the poem to note your impressions
about the poem’s form and meaning.
Step Two: Thinking Deeply/Literary Analysis
What is Millay trying to say in these two, brief poems? Jot down your thinking here.
Step Three: Share your thinking with your table group. Talk about this poem, its meaning, form,
and use of language. Jot down any new ideas you gain from your classmates’ insights.
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Final Words:
I regard a love for poetry as one of the most needful and helpful elements in the life-outfit of a human being. It was the
greatest of blessings to me, in the long days of toil to which I was shut in much earlier than most young girls are, that the
poetry I held in my memory breathed its enchanted atmosphere through me and around me, and touched even dull drudgery
with its sunshine.
-Lucy Larcom
Lucy Larcom was born in 1824. When her father died, the family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts. There, Lucy became a
textile mill worker at the age of 11, the age many of you are right now. Poetry made her dreary life bright. Remember her.
Read poetry. Find beauty in the everyday and ordinary. Find poetry in the pain. Let your heart lead your hand and write your
own poetry.
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