Poetry 1-1: Identity
Tone, Symbol and Free Verse
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Outline
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General Questions
Gwendolyn Brooks "We Real Cool"
(1960 p. 534)
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Emily Dickinson "I'm Nobody! Who are
you?" (1861 p. 683)
Walt Whitman “A Noiseless Patient
Spider” (1891 p. 659)
General Questions
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What is ‘identity’? What
determines our identities?
How do you usu. introduce yourself?
Is the question of “who I am” an
important one for you?
"We Real Cool" (1960
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Tone: Who are the speakers “We”? How do
they describe themselves? Do you find them
“cool”? How about the poet?
Stress and Sound Pattern:
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p. 534)
Read the poem outloud several times, trying to
stress different words with each reading. How
does the meaning of the poem change as the
emphasis changes? (ref)
What about the internal rhymes? What effects
do they produce?
Why do you think Brooks chose to end each line
of the poem, except the last, with the word
“we”?
What does Golden Shovel mean?
"We Real Cool" (1960 p. 685)
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Rhymes &
repetitions
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Strike straight: 1)
attacking others;
2) play billiard balls
Jazz: 1) empty talk to or sex
with a woman named June;
2) going here and there in
June
"We Real Cool" (1960
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Speakers: pool players, probably in a black
ghetto. They are not educated, hang out at
night, get violent, commit crime and fool
around (“left school,” "Lurk late," "Strike
straight, ""Sing sin," and "Jazz June“).
Tone: 1) boasting =“cool”, 2) with a weak
sense of identity and meaningless life, 3)
realistic.
Stress and Sound Pattern:
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p. 534)
Rhythm: 1) whether ‘we’ is stressed or not
makes a lot of difference; 2) the short, staccato
lines
the internal rhymes –their lives: repetitive,
limited, and transient;
Symbol-- Golden Shovel (ironic, money leading
to death.)
Gwendolyn Brooks
1917-2000
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Under strict discipline, not allowed to play with
the other black kids Shy
“created a world of her own by reading and
writing stories and poetry” (source)
the first black author to win the Pulitzer
Prize (1950)
-- combined a strong commitment to racial
identity and equality with a mastery of poetic
techniques
-- managed to bridge the gap between the
academic poets of her generation in the 1940s
and the young black militant writers of the
1960s." (George E. Kent; Dictionary of Literary
Biography)
"From her poet's craft bursts a whole gallery
of wholly alive persons, preening, squabbling,
loving, weeping; many a novelist cannot do so
well in ten times the space."
Gwendolyn Brooks
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“The ending WE's in "We Real Cool" are
tiny, wispy, weakly argumentative
"Kilroy-is-here“ [note]
announcements. The boys have no
accented sense of themselves, yet they
are aware of a semi-defined personal
importance. Say the "we" softly. (185)
Brooks, Gwendolyn. Report from Part One. Detroit: Broadside Press, 1972.
In Vietnam, the Americans liked to use the slogan “Kilroy is here”
meaning simply that Kilroy, an archetypal American soldier, was
everywhere, sorting out the world. (source)
Gwendolyn Brooks reads "We Real Cool"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3kF6MGBjzk&feature=related
Song version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkapX53zFlk&feature=related
Extension Questions:
Who is cool?
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Have you any friends like the “we”
in the poem?
Is it “cool” for you to belong in
one group?
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
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the speaker’s tones in the first stanza?
And in the second stanza?
The dashes?
What is the speaker’s relationship with
"you"? Who are "they" mentioned in the
first stanza?
Could the "you" in the first stanza be
the "Somebody" in the second?
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd banish us—you know!
How dreary--to be--Somebody!
How public--like a Frog-To tell your name--the livelong June-To an admiring Bog!
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
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The speaker-- in the first stanza: uncertain, a
bit childish and afraid. In the second stanza:
critical or cynical.
Dashes– creates a sense of suspense, secrecy
or distance between people.
You – audience, someone the speaker tries to
win over.
They– authorities or those who are unable to
understand.
"Somebody"? a VIP, as a contrast to this
nobody, like a Frog (noisy, provincial) singing
to an audience which are blindly admiring
(without good judgment).
Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)
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A reclusive poet with mental
energies.
produced 1,775 known
poems as well as the
hundreds of letters. Only 7
of the poems were
published in her lifetime.
a traumatic experience
(between 1858 and 1862)
Stayed in her own house for
the last seventeen years of
her life.
Film: Emily Dickinson: The Poet
In Her Bedroom
http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=PU8XijqmnT0
Extension Questions:
Nobody vs. Somebody
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Do you like to be a somebody, or
nobody? Or neither?
Do you have any experience
similar to the speaker’s in trying
to gain sympathy or win
somebody over to your side?
What do you feel about the
speaker’s criticism of “somebody”
like a frog?
A noiseless patient spider
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory (隆突) it stood
isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast(1) surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of it self,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. (2)
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking (4) the
spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile (柔軟
的) anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O
my soul.
(1. consonance, 2, assonance, 3. alliteration, 4. internal
rhyme)
Spider – web construction
1. , the spider bridges the open space between the two sticks
2. establishes the so-called proto-hub
http://pages.unibas.ch/dib/nlu/staff/sz/web
construct.html
Spider – web construction
3. the construction of the frame and the radii
4. The circling of the hub  the construction of
the auxiliary (or temporary) spiral. the sticky spiral
http://pages.unibas.ch/dib/nlu/staff/sz/web
construct.html
A Noiseless Patient Spider
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Symbol: What are the implications in comparing the
soul to a spider?
Compare & Contrast: How are the activities of the
spider similar to and different from those of the soul?
Figurative language: What are the effects of the
repetition of his apostrophizing (頓呼) the soul ("O
my soul")?
Sound effects?
Form: the pattern of free verse depends a lot on
repetition (with variation) of different poetic
elements. Why are there not as many repetitions in
the second stanza? From stanza one to two, we see
similar kind of variation of line length (which gets
longer and longer). What effects are achieved here?
Free Verse
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Unrhymed; no regular length;
Rhythmical lines varying in length
Patterns produced through repetition
and parallel grammatical structure.
Apostrophe-- figure of speech in which
an absent person, a personified
inanimate being, or an abstraction is
addressed as though present;
-- the poet talks to (and personifies) the
one addressed.
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Rhyme
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Rhyme is a sound device that usually entails
the repetition of the final vowel and consonant
sounds in two words.
internal rhyme: Some poems have rhymes
within the lines. This is called.
Assonance is the repetition of vowels sounds,
either at the beginning of words or within
words.
Head rhyme: Alliteration is related to
assonance in that alliteration also involves the
repetition of sounds, this time the repetition of
consonants at the beginning or middle of words.
Walt Whitman "A Noiseless Patient Spider “
1. Poem animation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MLYFC1nBWU
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7ui3PDC5to&feature=relate
d
A noiseless patient spider
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast(1) surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of it
self,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. (2)
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking (4) the
spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile (柔
軟的) anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O
my soul.
(1. consonance, 2, assonance, 3. alliteration, 4. internal
rhyme)
A noiseless patient spider
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Symbol: a spider  the soul:
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difficult, quiet and laborious work in setting up
structures out in empty space.
The soul’s action: musing, venturing,
throwing, seeking – intellectual and
various.
Figurative language: the soul, something
active and cherished.
Sound effects? –signifying their actions
(slow, soft, quiet, continuous and nonviolent).
Form: rhythm – regular; line lengths -- the
extension of their threads and connections.
(for your reference:
http://www.cc.nctu.edu.tw/~sheen/al/notes.html#2 )
Extension Questions:
A Noiseless Patient Spider
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1. If you were going to compare yourself to an
animal, what animal would you choose? Why?
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2. Can you relate to the action of making
connections in the world or universe? Is it
difficult for you?
3. The song "Sound of Silence" can be seen as
another search for inner soul--by talking to
darkness as an old friend. Please pay attention to
the contrasts in imagery between darkness and
light, silence and sound. The phrase "sound of
silence" is an oxymoron; can you explain why?
Walt Whitman
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A printer, teacher, journalist poet
 hospital worker, government clerk,
later fired because of his poetry.
Publishes Leaves of Grass in 1855,
later revised 8 times.
A free thinker, sometimes without
regular jobs. (source)
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portrait: from an 1854 engraving by Samuel Hollyer
Walt Whitman –Leaves of Grass
-- challenged an American literary
establishment that he believed was too
influenced by Old World literary tradition.
He characterized his poetry as experimental,
termed his poetic mission "a war," and
fought the battle to establish a body of
truly American poetry--one that featured
American language, American life, an
American vision, and musical free verse-to his dying breath.
"Song of Myself“ –
democracy and individualism
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume, you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to
you.
(ll. 1-3, part 1)
…
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway
sun,
I effuse (使流出)my flesh in eddies (漩渦), and drift it
in lacy jags (小路).
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I
love,
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
(ll. 7-10, part 52)
“Fast Car” and Conclusion
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A song about the youngsters’ trying to break
out of constraints but still running in cycles.
“You got a fast car
And I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinking late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your
kids
Id always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would
find it
I got no plans I aint going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving”
Tracy Chapman - Fast Car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfqEisOIMJc
Conclusion: Identities of Different Kinds
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The Reckless and the Poor: “We Real
Cool” and “Fast Car.”
Individual and Society:
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exploratory and connecting: “A Noiseless
Patient Spider.”
self-protective: “I’m Nobody. Who are you?”
Conclusion (2): Sound and Sense
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Tones -Symbols (Spider), Metaphor
(waving, drowning) and Simile
(frog), Apostrophe
Rhyme — Different Kinds
Review
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Questions of Identity
"We Real Cool" (1960) --tone, sound
pattern, narrator’s and poet’s different stances.
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“A noiseless patient spider” –as a free
verse, differences between the first
and second stanzas, the spider and
the soul.