*
Introduction
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
*
*
*
*
*
Voice/Tone
Irony
Imagery
Figurative Language
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Simile
Metaphor
Personification
Symbol
Sound/Structure
Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, Rhyme
Rhyme & Rhythm
*
*
*
Limericks
Haiku
Meter
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Monometer
Dimeter
Trimeter
Tetrameter
Pentameter
Hexameter
Heptameter
Octometer
Iambic
Formal Verse
*
*
*
*
Denotation/Connotation
The Sonnet
Blank verse
Free or Open form verse
Theme
Explication
*
* Denotation- Dictionary
Definition
* Connotation- your own
definitions for familiar
wards are flavored
with person
associations
* Thin
* Denotation- with little
thickness or depth
* Connotation
* Positive- slim, slender,
lean, trim, slight
* Negative- skinny, bean
pole, scrawny, bony,
emaciated
* Denotation/Connotation
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
*
*
* Tone- The author’s
attitude towards a
subject of the poem.
* Voice/Tone
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
*
*
* Irony- contrast between
appearance/expectation
and reality
* Verbal irony- sarcasm-
contrast between what
is said by the speaker
and what is meant
* Situational irony-
contrast between what
is expected and what
actually happens.
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
* Denotation/Connotation
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
* Voice/Tone
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
*
* Irony
*
* Imagery- mental
picture prompted by
words. Appeals to the
5 senses: sight, smell,
touch, hearing, tasting
The Word ‘Plum’
by Helen Chasin
The word plum is delicious
pout and push, luxury of
self-love, and savoring murmur
full in the mouth and falling
like fruit
taut skin
pierced, bitten, provoked into
juice, and tart flesh
question
and reply, lip and tongue
of pleasure.
* Imagery
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
*
*
A Dream Deferred
By Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
* Simile- an
announced
comparison. It is
announced
because we use
words like and as.
*
Simile by N. Scott Momaday
What did we say to each other
that now we are as the deer
who walk in single file
with heads high
with ears forward
with eyes watchful
with hooves always placed on firm ground
in whose limbs there is latent flight
* Simile- an
announced
comparison. It is
announced
because we use
words like and as.
* Figurative Language
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
*
*
Fog
By Carl Sandburg
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
* Metaphor: a more
direct or more
complete comparison
than a simile. It
doesn’t announce
itself; it states that
something is something
else (My love is a red
rose) or implies it (My
love has red petals and
sharp thorns).
*
* Personification- giving
human characteristics
or qualities to
something not human.
* A frequently used form
of metaphor
The Wind
By James Stephens
The wind stood up and gave a shout.
He whistled on his fingers and
Kicked the withered leaves about
And thumped the branches with his
And said that he'd kill and kill,
And so he will and so he will.
hand
The Road Not Take by Robert Frost
*
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
* Symbol- something
that represents more
than itself
*
* Alliteration-
Repeated initial
(beginning of the
word) consonant
sound.
* Example: “Dreams
deferred”
* Example: “Sally
sells seashells
down by the
seashore.”
* Assonance:
* Consonance:
* Don’t Rhyme
* Example: time line
* Example: In "The
repeated vowel
sounds in the
middle of the end
of words.
* Example: Fleet feet
sweep by sleeping
geese
repeated constant
sounds in the middle
of the end of words.
* Don’t Rhyme
* Example: short,
smart, sweet
Raven", Edgar Allan
Poe writes "And the
silken sad uncertain
rustling of each purple
curtain”
*
Poem:
Rhyme Scheme: Explanation:
Roses are red
First line always gets
Violets are blue
Blue doesn’t rhyme with red so it gets
Sugar is sweet
Sweet doesn’t rhyme with red or blue so it gets
And so are you
You rhymes with blue so it gets
Roses are red
First line always gets
Violets are blue
Blue doesn’t rhyme with red so it gets
Sugar is sweet
Sweet doesn’t rhyme with red or blue so it gets
But you are not
Not doesn’t rhyme with red, blue, or sweet so it gets
Roses are red
First line always gets
Violets are blue
Blue doesn’t rhyme with red so it gets
But now they are dead
Dead rhymes with red so it gets
Because of you
You rhymes with blue so it gets
*
* Limerick:
* Light and humorous
* Almost always
anonymous
* Five lines
* aabba rhyme scheme
* 1st, 2nd, & 5th lines have
the same meter
There was a young maid who said, “Why
* 3rd and 4th lines have
Can’t I look in my ear with my eye?
the same meter
If I put my mind to it,
I’m sure I can do it.
You can never tell till you try.
*
* Haiku* Sophisticated
* Relies on sound
* Japanese
* Short section of a
longer poem called a
haikai
* 3 lines
* 1st line has 5
sounds/syllables
* 2nd line has 7
sounds/syllables
* 3rd line has 5
sounds/syllables
* Doesn’t rhyme
Whether astringent
I do not know. ‘Tis my first
Persimmon picking.
*
* Meter- refers to
the pattern of
stressed and
unstressed
syllables in a
line.
* Foot- the group
of syllables
making up one
metrical unit
* Iambic- unstressed,
stressed
* trochaic- stressed,
unstressed
* Anapestic- two
unstressed, one
stressed
* Dactylic- one
stressed two
unstressed
* Monometer- one foot
* Dimeter- two feet
* Trimeter- three feet
* Tetrameter- four feet
* Pentameter- five feet
* Hexameter- 6 feet
* Heptameter- 7 feet
* Octameter- 8 feet
*
* Couplet- 2 lined stanza
* Rhymed couplet- successive rhyming lines- aa
* Tercet- 3 lined stanza
* Triplet- 3 successive rhyming lines- aaa
* Quatrain- 4 lined stanza
* Quintain, a quintet, or a cinquain- 5 lined stanza
* Sestet- 6 lined stanza
* Septet- 7 lined stanza
* Octave- 8 lined stanza
*
* The sonnet
* 14 lines long * English/Shakespearean
* Iambic
* 3 quatrains followed by
pentameter
a couplet.
* Rhyme scheme-
ababcdcdefefgg
* Italian/Petrarchan
* Octave followed
by a sestet
* Rhyme scheme:
* octave-
abbaaabba
* Sestete- cdecde,
or cdcdcd or
cdedce
*
Mending Wall by Robert Frost
* Just the first 4 lines
Something there is that doesn’t
love a wall,
That sends the frozen-groundswell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in
the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass
abreast
* Unrhymed, but
still followed a
regular pattern,
usually iambic
pentameter
*
* Doesn’t have a rhyme
scheme nor a regular
rhythm.
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
By Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns
before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured
with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
*
* Theme:
* the meaning the
reader receives from
the poem.
* Gives insight to human
nature.
*
* Explication- involves a line-
by-line analysis of the text
* Good for poetry since they
are brief and packed full of
meaning.
* Look closely at the sounds,
words, images, lines, and how
they all work together to
deliver the poem’s meaning.
* Not a summary or translation
* It is a detailed interpretation
of how and what you believe
the poem means.
*
* Lyrical
* An expression of the
speaker’s innermost
feelings, thoughts,
and imagination.
* Most popular
* Dramatic monologues
are often lyrical
*
* Narrative
* Tells a story
* Oldest stories were
recorded as poetry
because they rhythm
and rhyme made it
easier to memorize.
* Unless an epic poem,
like the Odyssey or
Ellen Hopkins’ novels,
character and conflict
development are
limited.
Casey at the Bat
by EL Thayer
http://www.loa.org/ima
ges/pdf/casey.pdf
*