Unit 5: Poetry
English 12, NEST+m, Ms. Palmer
6 weeks: February 3 – March 20
Essential Questions:
 What is poetry, what is its purpose, and why should we care?
 How can we understand, appreciate, and explicate poetry?
 What are different forms of poetry and how can their characteristics be defined?
 How can we understand speaker versus author, poetic structure, as well as the
meaning and usage of a variety of poetic devices?
 What is the purpose of figurative language and musical devices in poetry?
 How can we use emulation and other techniques to write our own powerful and
meaningful poetry?
Essential Texts:
 Selected poems, spanning various forms, culture, and literary eras (many taken
from Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry, by Thomas R. Arp)
Assessments:
 Responses to discussion questions (daily assignment)
 Literary Devices quiz (daily assignment)
 Wordly Wise Book 12 Chapters 8, 9, and 10 vocab quizzes (daily assignment)
 Unit Exam (major assignment)
 Poetry Writing Project (major assignment)
Name: __________________ Date:______
What is poetry?
The Eagle
Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Last Words
Jason Fotso (1996- )
I – I – I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t be.
You see me.
You see thug.
You see sin.
I see the letters of “hate” alive in your “heart”.
Can’t I breathe? Can’t I breathe? Can’t I be?
Enslaved
Emmett* ‘till Eric.
Tombstone same. Just new names.
I-I-I can’t breathe. I can’t be.
I, too, am a human being, yet you can’t let me be.
These empty deaths, live, on top of his Dream.
mpmttmpnff…
*reference to Emmett Till, a an African-American teenager who was murdered in 1955 in
Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman
Jason Fotso, 17, of Maple Grove, MN, composed his poem by rearranging the letters of
the final words uttered by Eric Garner, who was wrestled to the ground by police in New
York and died following a chokehold administered by one officer.
Excerpt from “Man’s Death After Chokehold Raises Old Issue for the Police,” by
Joseph Goldstein and Nate Schweber, The New York Times, July 18, 2014
The 350-pound man, about to be arrested on charges of illegally selling cigarettes, was
arguing with the police. When an officer tried to handcuff him, the man pulled free. The
officer immediately threw his arm around the man’s neck and pulled him to the ground,
holding him in what appears, in a video, to be a chokehold. The man can be heard saying
“I can’t breathe” over and over again as other officers swarm about.
Now, the death of the man, Eric Garner, 43, soon after the confrontation on Thursday on
Staten Island, is being investigated by the police and prosecutors. At the center of the
inquiry is the officer’s use of a chokehold — a dangerous maneuver that was banned by
the New York Police Department more than 20 years ago but that the department cannot
seem to be rid of.
On Reading Poems to a Senior Class at South High
D. C. Berry (1942- )
Before
I opened my mouth
I noticed them sitting there
as orderly as frozen fish
in a package.
Slowly water began to fill the room
though I did not notice it
till it reached
my ears
and then I heard the sounds
of fish in an aquarium
and I knew that though I had
tried to drown them
with my words
that they had only opened up
like gills for them
and let me in.
Together we swam around the room
like thirty tails whacking words
till the bell rang
puncturing
a hole in the door
where we all leaked out
They went to another class
I suppose and I home
where Queen Elizabeth
my cat met me
and licked my fins
till they were hands again.
Homework: Read “Reading the poem” (pp.6-8). Next, try out this technique on the poem
“The Man He Killed” (p.7) as you complete a commentary/explication responding to the
poem (See “How to explicate a poem,” pp.9-10, and “How to Write a Poetry
Commentary,” p.11).
HOW TO EXPLICATE A POEM
(Thanks to Betsy Draine of the University of Wisconsin-Madison)
A good poem is like a puzzle--the most fascinating part is studying the individual pieces
carefully and then putting them back together to see how beautifully the whole thing fits
together. A poem can have a number of different “pieces” that you need to look at closely
in order to complete the poetic “puzzle.” This sheet explains one way to attempt an
explication of a poem, by examining each “piece” of the poem separately. (An
“explication” is simply an explanation of how all the elements in a poem work together to
achieve the total meaning and effect.)
Examine the situation in the poem:
Does the poem tell a story? Is it a narrative poem? If so, what events occur?
Does the poem express an emotion or describe a mood?
Poetic voice: Who is the speaker? Is the poet speaking to the reader directly or is the
poem told through a fictional “persona”? To whom is he speaking? Can you trust
the speaker?
Tone: What is the speaker’s attitude toward the subject of the poem? What sort of
tone of voice seems to be appropriate for reading the poem out loud? What words,
images, or ideas give you a clue to the tone?
Examine the structure of the poem:
Form: Look at the number of lines, their length, their arrangement on the page. How
does the form relate to the content? Is it a traditional form (e.g. sonnet, limerick)
or “free form”? Why do you think the poem chose that form for his poem?
Movement: How does the poem develop? Are the images and ideas developed
chronologically, by cause and effect, by free association? Does the poem circle
back to where it started, or is the movement from one attitude to a different
attitude (e.g. from despair to hope)?
Syntax: How many sentences are in the poem? Are the sentences simple or
complicated? Are the verbs in front of the nouns instead of in the usual “noun,
verb” order? Why?
Punctuation: What kind of punctuation is in the poem? Does the punctuation always
coincide with the end of a poetic line? If so, this is called an end-stopped line. If
there is no punctuation at the end of a line and the thought continues into the next
line, this is called enjambment. Is there any punctuation in the middle of a line?
Why do you think the poet would want you to pause halfway through the line?
Title: What does the title mean? How does it relate to the poem itself?
Examine the language of the poem:
Diction or Word Choice: Is the language colloquial, formal, simple, unusual?
Do you know what all the words mean? If not, look them up.
What moods or attitudes are associated with words that stand out for you?
Allusions: Are there any allusions (references) to something outside the poem, such
as events or people from history, mythology, or religion?
Imagery: Look at the figurative language of the poem--metaphors, similes, analogies,
personification. How do these images add to the meaning of the poem or intensify
the effect of the poem?
Examine the musical devices in the poem:
Rhyme scheme: Does the rhyme occur in a regular pattern, or irregularly? Is the
effect formal, satisfying, musical, funny, disconcerting?
Rhythm or meter: In most languages, there is a pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables in a word or words in a sentence. In poetry, the variation of stressed and
unstressed syllables and words has a rhythmic effect. What is the tonal effect of
the rhythm here?
Other “sound effects”: alliteration, assonance, consonance, repetition. What tonal
effect do they have here?
Has the poem created a change in mood for you--or a change in attitude? How have the
technical elements helped the poet create this effect?
How to Write a Poetry Commentary
There’s no one right way to write about poetry. The goal is to engage with the poem, to
interact with it, to find a way in that interests you. If you’re not sure where to start,
consider responding to these questions:







What is the poem saying? What’s the theme? Paraphrase it.
Who is the speaker and who is being spoken to? What is the occasion of the
poem? What is its cultural context?
What’s the purpose of the poem? How do you know?
How does the poem make you feel? What specifically about the language and/or
the form contributes to those feelings?
What questions does the poem raise? What does it make you wonder about? What
specifically about the language and/or the form contributes to those thoughts?
How do the words, structure, and/or rhythm contribute to the poem’s meaning?
How does the author use repetition or other literary devices purposefully?
Your poetry commentaries are more formal than a diary or blog, but less formal than an
English paper—feel free to experiment, and to take a stab at an idea about which you’re
not certain. In other words, think on paper. Aim for 150-250 words, which is enough
space to get some interesting, preliminary thoughts on paper. Hopefully you’ll find this to
be a fun and engaging exercise.
Commentary on “The Man He Killed”:
Poetic Devices- Glossary
allegory A story in which people, things, and events have another meaning. Examples of
allegory are Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Orwell’s Animal Farm.
alliteration The repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the
beginning of words. “Gnus never know pneumonia” is an example of alliteration, because
despite the spellings, all four words begin with the “n” sound.
allusion A reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a
well-known historical or literary event, person, or work. Lorraine Hansberry’s title A
Raisin in the Sun is an allusion to a phrase in a poem by Langston Hughes. When T. S.
Eliot writes, “To have squeezed the universe into a ball” in “The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock,” he is alluding to the lines “Let us roll all our strength and all / Our sweetness
up into one ball” in Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” Ken Kesey’s title One Flew Over
the Cuckoo’s Nest is an allusion to a children’s nursery rhyme.
apostrophe Direct address, usually to someone or something that is not present. Keats’s
“Bright star! Would I were steadfast” is an apostrophe to a star, and “To Autumn” is an
apostrophe to a personified season.
assonance The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds. “A land laid waste with all
its young men slain” repeats the same “a” sound in “laid,” “waste,” and “slain.”
ballad meter A 4-line stanza rhymed abcb with 4 feet in lines 1&3, 3 feet in lines 2&4.
O mother, mother make my bed.
O make it soft and narrow.
Since my love died for me today,
I’ll die for him tomorrow.
blank verse Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the meter of most of
Shakespeare’s plays, as well as that of Milton’s Paradise Lost:
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o’er the crystal battlements: from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve.
connotation The implications of a word or phrase, as opposed to its exact meaning
(denotation). Both China and Cathay denote a region in Asia, but to a modern reader, the
associations of the two words are different. The name “Nurse Ratched” connotes
negativity, sounding similar to the word “wretched.”
consonance the repetition of the same consonant sound two or more times in short
succession, as in “pitter patter” or in “all mammals named Sam are clammy.”
denotation The dictionary meaning of a word, as opposed to its connotation.
elegy A solemn, sorrowful poem or meditation about death or for one who is dead.
end-stopped line A line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, comma,
colon, semicolon, exclamation point, or question mark are end-stopped lines.
enjambment Incomplete syntax at the end of a line of poetry; the meaning runs over
from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation. Lines without enjambment
are end-stopped. Example from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”:
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
epic a long, narrative poem that describes the history of a nation, community, or race.
The central figure is the epic hero who experiences legendary, mythical adventures where
he displays extraordinary strength, courage, and moral fiber against supernatural forces.
Epic poems include Beowulf, The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Paradise Lost.
epigram A pithy saying, often using contrast. Example from John Dryden: “Here lies my
wife: here let her lie! / Now she’s at rest – and so am I.” Example from Nikos
Kazantzakis: “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”
euphemism A figure of speech using indirection to avoid offensive bluntness, such as
“deceased” for “dead” or “remains” for “corpse.”
figurative language Writing that uses figures of speech (as opposed to literal language or
that which is actual or specifically denoted) such as metaphor, simile, and irony.
Figurative language uses words to mean something other than their literal meaning. “The
black bat night has flown” is figurative, with the metaphor comparing night and a bat.
“Night is over” says the same thing without figurative language. No real bat is or has
been on the scene, but night is like a bat because it is dark.
foot a single rhythmical unit of verse
types of feet: 1. iamb: A two-syllable foot with an unaccented syllable followed by an
accented syllable. The iamb is the most common foot in English poetry. The rhythm can
be written as: da DUM. The da-DUM of a human heartbeat is the most common example
of this rhythm. The following line from John Keats‘ To Autumn is a straightforward
example of iambic pentameter, meaning a line containing five iambs: “To swell the
gourd, and plump the hazel shells.”
2. trochee A two-syllable foot with an accented syllable followed by an unaccented
syllable. The rhythm can be written as: DA dum. Examples include pizza and chorus and
planet and market and Memphis.
3. spondee A two-syllable foot with two accented syllables. Examples: football, Mayday,
D-Day, heartbreak, Key West, shortcake, dead man, dumbbell, childhood.
4. anapest A metrical foot of three syllables: two unaccented syllables followed by one
accented syllable. Examples: understand, interrupt, comprehend, anapest, New
Rochelle, contradict, “get a life.”
5. dactyl A metrical foot of three syllables: an accented syllable followed by two
unaccented syllables. An example is the first line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow‘s
poem Evangeline, in which the first five feed of the line are dactyls: This is the / forest
prim- / eval. The / murmuring / pines and the / hem locks,
free verse Poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical. The
poetry of Walt Whitman is perhaps the best known example of free verse.
genre the term used to categorize art, film, music, poetry, and other works based on style,
content, or technique. Common literary genres include tragedy, comedy, lyric, and satire.
heroic couplet Two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa with the thought
usually completed in the two-line unit. Shakespeare often employs heroic couplets at the
ends of scenes in Othello. Examples from Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”:
When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,
This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
And ‘midst the stars inscribe Belinda’s name.
hexameter A line of poetry containing six feet.
hyperbole Deliberate exaggeration, overstatement. As a rule, hyperbole is self-conscious,
without the intention of being accepted literally. “The strongest man in the world” and “a
diamond as big as the Ritz” are hyperbolic.
imagery The images of a literary work; the sensory details of a work; the figurative
language of a work. Imagery has several definitions, but the two that are paramount are
the visual, auditory, or tactile images evoked by the words of a literary work or the
images that figurative language evokes. When you are asked to discuss the images or
imagery of a work, you should look especially carefully at the sensory details and the
metaphors and similes of a passage. Some diction (word choice) is also imagery, but not
all diction evokes sensory responses.
internal rhyme Rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end. Line 3 of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” contains the internal rhyme of
“so” and “bow”:
“God save thee, ancient Mariner! / From the friends, that plague thee thus!- / Why
look’st thou so?” - With my crossbow / I shot the Albatross.
irony A figure of speech in which intent and actual meaning differ, characteristically
praise for blame or blame for praise; a pattern of words that turns away from direct
statement of its own obvious meaning. The term irony implies a discrepancy. In verbal
irony (saying the opposite of what one means), the discrepancy is between statement and
meaning, i.e. something is “soft as a brick” or “as pleasant as surgery.” Sometimes, irony
may simply understate, as in “Men have died from time to time . . .”
1. verbal irony The use of words to mean something different than what the person
actually means or says they mean.
2. situational irony The difference between what is expected to happen and
actuality.
3. dramatic irony When the audience is more aware of what is happening than the
characters.
jargon The special language of a profession or group. The term jargon usually has
pejorative associations, with the implication that jargon is evasive, tedious, and
unintelligible to outsiders. The writings of the lawyer and the literary critic are both
susceptible to jargon.
lament a poem that expresses grief, not necessarily about death
metaphor A figurative use of language in which a comparison is expressed without the
use of a comparative term like “as,” “like,” or “than.” Simile: “Night is like a black bat”;
metaphor: “the black bat night.” When Romeo says, “It is the east, and Juliet is the sun,”
his metaphors compare her window to the east and Juliet to the sun.
meter The pattern of repetition of stressed (or accented) and unstressed (or unaccented)
syllables in a line of verse. Lines of verse that connect one or more feet.
onomatopoeia The use of words whose sound suggests their meaning. Examples are
“buzz,” “hiss,” and “honk.”
overstatement and understatement figures of speech to intentionally make a situation
seem more important or less important than it really is.
oxymoron A combination of opposites; the union of contradictory terms. Romeo’s line
“feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health” has four examples of the device.
parable A story designed to suggest a principle, illustrate a moral, or answer a question.
Parables are allegorical stories.
paradox A statement that seems to be self-contradicting but, in fact, is true. The figure in
Donne’s holy sonnet that concludes I never shall be “chaste except you ravish me” is a
good example of the device. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet says, “I must be cruel to
be kind.” Hamlet is talking about his mother, and how he intends to kill Claudius revenge
his father’s death. This act of Hamlet will be a tragedy for his mother who is married to
Claudius. Hamlet does not want his mother to be the beloved of his father’s murderer any
longer, and so he thinks that the murder will be good for his mother.
parody A composition that imitates the style of another composition normally for comic
effect. Many parodies have emerged in the wake of the erotic love novel phenomenon of
Fifty Shades of Grey—Fifty Shades of Chicken cookbook, Selena Gomez’s Funny or Die
“Fifty Shades of Blue” in which she falls in love with a house painter, etc.
pentameter A line containing five feet. The iambic pentameter (a line containing five
iambs) is the most common line in English verse written before 1950.
personification A figurative use of language that endows the nonhuman (ideas,
inanimate objects, animals, abstractions) with human characteristics. Examples:
 Look at my car. She is a beauty, isn’t she?
 The wind whispered through dry grass.
 The flowers danced in the gentle breeze.
refrain phrase, line, or group of lines repeated at intervals throughout a poem, generally
at the end of the stanza.
rhyme royal A seven-line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc, used by
Chaucer and other medieval poets.
satire Writing that seeks to arouse a reader’s disapproval of an object by ridicule. Satire
is usually comedy that exposes errors with an eye to correct vice and folly. A classical
form, satire is found in the verse of Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson, the plays of
Ben Jonson and Bernard Shaw, and the novels of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.
scansion the act of scanning (or analyzing) a line of verse based on feet and accent
(strong and weak). When one scans an iamb, for example, one points out the da-DUM
pattern of a weak and then a strong syllable; when one scans a trochee, one points out the
DA-dum pattern of a strong and then a weak syllable.
simile A directly expressed comparison; a figure of speech comparing two objects,
usually with “like,” “as,” or “than.” Examples: My love is like a fever; my love is deeper
than a well; my love is as dead as a doornail.
sonnet Normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem, often about the subject of love.
The conventional Italian, or Petrachan, sonnet is rhymed abba, abba, cde, cde; the
English, or Shakespearean, sonnet is rhymed abab, cdcd, efef, gg.
stanza Usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme
scheme. A stanza is poetry’s equivalent of the paragraph in prose.
syllogism A form of reasoning in which two statements are made and a conclusion is
drawn from them. A syllogism begins with a major premise (“All tragedies end
unhappily.”) followed by a minor premise (“Othello is a tragedy.”) and a conclusion
(Therefore, “Othello ends unhappily.”).
symbol Something that is itself and also a sign of something else. Winter, darkness, and
cold are real things, but in literature they are also likely to be used as symbols of death.
Birds are real things, but in Wide Sargasso Sea they often portend danger.
syntax The structure of a sentence; the arrangement of words. For example, consider the
length or brevity of the sentences, the kinds of sentences (questions, declarative
sentences, rhetorical questions - or periodic or loose; simple, complex, or compound).
terza rima A three-line stanza rhymed aba, bcb, cdc. Dante’s Divine Comedy is written
in terza rima.
tetrameter A line of four feet.
villanelle a nineteen-line poem with two rhymes throughout, consisting of five tercets
and a quatrain, with the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at
the end of the other tercets and with both repeated at the close of the concluding quatrain.
Homework: Read Poems 1 and 2, answer the questions, and write a commentary about
one of them.
1. The Lost Pilot
James Tate (1943- )
for my father, 1922-1944
Your face did not rot
like the others—the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him
yesterday. His face is cornmush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare
as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot
like the others—it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their
distinction. If I could cajole
you to come back for an evening,
down from your compulsive
orbiting, I would touch you,
read your face as Dallas,
your hoodlum gunner, now,
with the blistered eyes, reads
his braille editions. I would
touch your face as a disinterested
scholar touches an original page.
However frightening, I would
discover you, and I would not
turn you in; I would not make
you face your wife, or Dallas,
or the co-pilot, Jim. You
could return to your crazy
orbiting, and I would not try
to fully understand what
it means to you. All I know
is this: when I see you,
as I have seen you at least
once every year of my life,
spin across the wilds of the sky
like a tiny, African god,
I feel dead. I feel as if I were
the residue of a stranger’s life,
that I should pursue you.
My head cocked toward the sky,
I cannot get off the ground,
and, you, passing over again,
fast, perfect, and unwilling
to tell me that you are doing
well, or that it was mistake
that placed you in that world,
and me in this; or that misfortune
placed these worlds in us.
Who is the speaker of this poem? How do you know?
Who is the “you” in this poem? What is the speaker’s attitude towards the “you”? How
do you know?
What words or phrases stand out to you about the poem? What feelings or thoughts do
they evoke?
2. Suicide Note
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
Who is the speaker of this poem? How do you know?
Paraphrase the poem. What do you think it means?
Commentary on one of the poems (150-250 words):
Denotation and Connotation:
The average word has three component parts: notation, denotation, and connotation
 Notation: combination of tone and noises that make up a written word that has a
meaning
 Denotation: the dictionary meaning attached to a notation (may be multiple- use
context clues for specific meaning)
 Connotation: what the word suggests beyond what is expressed
Which word in the group has the most “romantic” connotation?
 steed, horse, nag
 king, ruler, tyrant, autocrat
 Chicago, Pittsburgh, Paris, Detroit
Which word in each group is the most emotionally connotative?
 Female parent, mother, dam
 Offspring, children, progeny
 Brother, sibling, bro
Arrange the words in each of the following groups from the most positive to most
negative in connotation:
 Skinny, thin, gaunt, slender
 Prosperous, loaded, moneyed, affluent
 Brainy, intelligent, egg-headed, smart
Homework: Read poems 3 and 4, answer the questions, and write a commentary on one
of them.
3. One Art
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Choose 2 words in the poem and write the denotative and connotative meanings for them.
How do the connotations evoke a different feeling than the denotative meanings?
How does the context of the poem help you determine the connotative meanings behind
the words you chose?
4. Roll Call for Michael Brown
Jason McCall (age unclear—probably in his 40s)
It will happen,
an honest mistake
in a hot August classroom.
Someone will blink
at the name and swear this
“Michael Brown” can’t be
that “Michael Brown.” Or someone
will be too busy with her head down
finishing syllabi to look up and see the flash
grenades and tear
gas. Someone will be running
late, his mind on the cops
that will probably ticket him
for not having a permit.
Someone won’t see why a name
is such a big deal. Someone will
read his name like the next item on a list
of groceries and move to the next student
before the first groan rumbles
through the stale Missouri air.
Someone will start to speak
his name and then cover his mouth
like a Roman priest closing Janus’s door
and praying all the violence of the world will stop
short of his porch. Someone will ask,
“Michael Brown? Is Michael Brown here?”
and we will all have to answer.
Jason McCall: “This poem was inspired by the death of Michael Brown, the
unarmed black teen killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri. His death is one of the
many recent cases of unarmed black males dying at the hands of police officers.
He was scheduled to begin the college this semester.” August 17, 2014.
Choose 2 words in the poem and write the denotative and connotative meanings for them.
How do the connotations evoke a different feeling than the denotative meanings?
How does the context of the poem help you determine the connotative meanings behind
the words you chose?
Write a commentary (150-250 words) on one of the poems:
5. Living in Sin
Adrienne Rich (1929-2012)
She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman’s tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night’s cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf among the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own–
envoy from some village in the moldings…
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for a cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the mirror demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.
Annotate the poem for imagery, along with the types of senses evoked (visual, auditory,
olfactory, gustatory, tactile, or organic).
Pick one image: Is the image literal or conceptual? What is the author’s purpose in
bringing this image to life?
Are the various images complementary, or are they contrasting images? What effect does
this have on the message of the poem?
Homework: Read Poem 6, answer the questions, and write a commentary.
6. The Youngest Daughter
Cathy Song (1955- )
The sky has been dark
for many years.
My skin has become as damp
and pale as rice paper
and feels the way
mother’s used to before the drying sun
parched it out there in the fields.
Lately, when I touch my eyelids,
my hands react as if
I had just touched something
hot enough to burn.
My skin, aspirin colored,
tingles with migraine. Mother
has been massaging the left side of my face
especially in the evenings
when the pain flares up.
This morning
her breathing was graveled,
her voice gruff with affection
when I wheeled her into the bath.
She was in a good humor,
making jokes about her great breasts,
floating in the milky water
like two walruses,
flaccid and whiskered around the nipples.
I scrubbed them with a sour taste
in my mouth, thinking:
six children and an old man
have sucked from these brown nipples.
I was almost tender
when I came to the blue bruises
that freckle her body,
places where she has been injecting insulin
for thirty years. I soaped her slowly,
she sighed deeply, her eyes closed.
It seems it has always
been like this: the two of us
in this sunless room,
the splashing of the bathwater.
In the afternoons
when she has rested,
she prepares our ritual of tea and rice,
garnished with a shred of gingered fish,
a slice of pickled turnip,
a token for my white body.
We eat in the familiar silence.
She knows I am not to be trusted,
even now planning my escape.
As I toast to her health
with the tea she has poured,
a thousand cranes curtain the window,
fly up in a sudden breeze.
Annotate the poem for imagery, along with the types of senses evoked (visual, auditory,
olfactory, gustatory, tactile, or organic).
Pick one image: What is the author’s purpose in bringing this image to life?
What is the speaker’s attitude towards her mother? How do you know, and how does the
imagery help evoke this attitude? Refer to specific images.
Write a commentary (150-250 words) on Poem 6:
Homework: Read Poems 8 and 9 and answer the questions.
8. Metaphors
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils,
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.
This poem is a riddle to be solved by identifying the literal terms of its metaphors.
Annotate the metaphors and guess at their meanings. What do you think this poem is
about? How do you know? If you’re unsure, take a guess! (Don’t cheat and look it up!)
Okay, if you haven’t yet “solved” the riddle, look it up. Pick one of the metaphors and
explain its meaning. What is its tone? How does it help explain the speaker’s attitude
toward her condition?
Is the poem a celebration or a complaint? How do you know?
9. Dream Deferred
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
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 ?
Who is the speaker here, and how do you know?
Identify an image in the poem. What sense is being used (visual, auditory, olfactory,
gustatory, tactile, or organic) and how effective is it in evoking a vivid image?
Annotate the poem for similes and personification. Explain how these uses of figurative
language help convey the poem’s theme/message.
What do you think the tone of the poem is? What do you make of the last line?
10. -Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful—
the eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Annotate the poem for figurative language. Discuss each phrase in a small group. What
do you think the poem is describing?
I’ve left off the title of this poem. What do you think the title is? Why? (Don’t cheat and
look it up!)
Once you figure out the title (we’ll review as a class), consider: How does the figurative
language help contribute to the meaning of the poem?
11. Digging
Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
Annotate the poem for symbols. What do you think they represent?
What comments does the poem make through its symbol(s)?
How does this poem function as an allegory? What is the lesson learned?
Homework: Find a poem that uses symbols or allegory that you find to be interesting.
Print out or copy down the poem. Write a commentary (150-250 words) on that poem.
Love Poems:
12. may i feel said he
e.e. cummings (1894-1962)
may i feel said he
(i’ll squeal said she
just once said he)
it’s fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
(let’s go said he
not too far said she
what’s too far said he
where you are said she)
may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you’re willing said he
(but you’re killing said she
but it’s life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don’t stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you’re divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)
13. Separation
James Wright (1927-1980)
Your absence has gone through me
Like a thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched in color.
14. Leaning Into The Afternoons
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)
Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.
There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,
its arms turning like a drowning man’s.
I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that move like the sea near a lighthouse.
You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.
Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that beats on your marine eyes.
The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you.
The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land.
15. A Glimpse
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night,
and I unremark’d seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near,
that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.
16. Sorting Laundry
Elisavietta Ritchie (1932- )
Folding clothes,
I think of folding you
into my life.
Our king-sized sheets
like table cloths
for the banquets of giants,
pillow cases, despite so many
washings seams still
holding our dreams.
Towels patterned orange and green,
flowered pink and lavender,
gaudy, bought on sale,
reserved, we said, for the beach,
refusing, even after years,
to bleach into respectability.
So many shirts and skirts and pants
recycling week after week, head over heels
recapitulating themselves.
All those wrinkles
to be smoothed, or else
ignored, they’re in style.
Myriad uncoupled socks
which went paired into the foam
like those creatures in the ark.
And what’s shrunk
is tough to discard
even for Goodwill.
In pockets, surprises:
forgotten matches,
lost screws clinking on enamel;
paper clips, whatever they held
between shiny jaws, now
dissolved or clogging the drain;
well-washed dollars, legal tender
for all debts public and private,
intact despite agitation;
and, gleaming in the maelstrom,
one bright dime,
broken necklace of good gold
you brought from Kuwait,
the strangely tailored shirt
left by a former lover...
If you were to leave me,
if I were to fold
only my own clothes,
the convexes and concaves
of my blouses, panties, stockings, bras
turned upon themselves,
a mountain of unsorted wash
could not fill
the empty side of the bed.
Discuss this poem, including its usage of overstatement, and how the overstatement
works to enhance the meaning of the poem. Jot down notes.
Jot down 2-3 discussion questions for your classmates based on this poem, and work to
answer the questions yourself.
17. History Teacher
Billy Collins (1941- )
Trying to protect his students’ innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.
And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,
named after the long driveways of the time.
The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
“How far is it from here to Madrid?”
“What do you call the matador’s hat?”
The War of the Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom
on Japan.
The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak
and the smart,
mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,
while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.
Discuss this poem, including its usage of understatement, and how the understatement
works to enhance the meaning of the poem. Jot down notes.
Jot down 2-3 discussion questions for your classmates based on this poem, and work to
answer the questions yourself.
18. in the inner city
Lucille Clifton (1936-2010)
In the inner city
Or
Like we call it
Home
We think a lot about uptown
And the silent nights
And the houses straight as
Dead men
And the pastel lights
And we hang on to our no place
Happy to be alive
And in the inner city
Or
Like we call it
home
Discuss, in what context is the term “inner city” often used, and what is it usually meant
to imply? Jot down notes.
What are the connotations of “silent nights” (6), “straight as / dead men” (7-8) and
“pastel lights” (9)? By implication, what contrasting qualities might be found in the life
of the inner city?
Discuss the usage of irony in the poem.
Jot down 2-3 discussion questions for your classmates based on this poem, and work to
answer the questions yourself.
Homework: Read Poem 19 and 20, answer the questions, and write a commentary about
one of the poems (or about 16, 17, or 18—not the one you discussed in groups in class).
19. Incident
Countee Cullen (1903-1946)
Once riding in old Baltimore
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me “Nigger.”
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.
Who is the speaker and what is the occasion of this poem?
Comment on the title. Does it match up with the subject of the poem?
What accounts for the effectiveness of the last stanza?
Does the last stanza understate or overstate Cullen’s reaction? Explain with evidence.
20. Barbie Doll
Marge Piercy (1936- )
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs. She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs. She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up. In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn’t she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
Discuss the contrasts between the living girl described in this poem and a Barbie doll.
What’s irony in phrase “the magic of puberty” and in the last 3 lines?
What is the target of this poem’s satire?
Write a commentary on Poem 19 or 20 (or on Poem 16, 17, or 18—not the poem
your small group discussed in class)—150-250 words:
Understanding Rhythm:
21. Sonnet 19
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Types of rhyme:

Masculine rhyme:

Feminine rhyme:

Internal rhyme:

End rhyme:

Approximate rhyme:
Homework: Read Poem 22 and answer the questions.
22. My Mistress’ Eyes
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Annotate the poem for the rhyme scheme. What kind of poem is this?
Who is the speaker and who is the subject of the poem? How does the speaker feel about
the subject and about love in general?
What is the poem’s tension and how is it resolved in the end?
Musical elements in poetry:

Refrain:

Repetition of syllable sound:
o Alliteration
o Assonance
o Consonance
o Assonance + Consonance =
Homework: Read Poems 23 and 24 and answer the questions.
23. That night when joy began
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
That night when joy began
Our narrowest veins to flush,
We waited for the flash
Of morning’s leveled gun.
But morning let us pass,
And day by day relief
Outgrows his nervous laugh,
Grown credulous of peace,
As mile by mile is seen
No trespasser’s reproach,
And love’s best glasses reach
No fields but are his own.
Who is the speaker of this poem and who is the “we”?
What has been the past experience of the two people in the poem? What is their present
experience? So what has changed and how do you know?
What basic metaphor underlies the poem? This is tricky: Try and work it out stanza by
stanza.
What is “the flash/ Of morning’s leveled gun” (3-4)? What are the possible different
meanings of “glasses” (11)?
The rhyme pattern in this poem is intricate and exact. Work it out, considering
alliteration, assonance, and consonance. Annotate examples of each in the poem.
24. We Wear the Mask
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
Explain the extended metaphor explored throughout the poem. Based on this metaphor,
what guesses can you make about the speaker’s identity?
A refrain is a repeated line or group of lines. Annotate for the rhyme scheme and then
note how the refrain interrupts the rhyme scheme. How does this interruption emphasize
the theme?
Annotate the poem for alliteration and assonance. Now annotate for internal rhyme. How
do these elements contribute to or reinforce the meaning of the poem?
Meter and Scansion
Rhythm is the pattern of stresses in a line of verse. When you speak, you stress some
syllables and leave others unstressed. When you string a lot of words together, you start
seeing patterns.
Pauses in poetry:



End-stopped line: the end of a line corresponds with a natural speech pause
Enjambment: the line moves on without pause into the next line
Caesuras: a pause that occurs within a line.
Meter: Traditional forms of verse use established rhythmic patterns called meters (meter
means “measure” in Greek). Meter is a generally regular pattern of stressed ( / ) and
unstressed (^) syllables in poetry or verse. Just as we can measure distance in meters, we
can measure the beats in a poem in meter.
Each rhythmic unit is called a foot, the individual building blocks of meter.
Here are the most common feet, the rhythms they represent, and an example of each:




Iamb: duh-DUH: “collapse”
Trochee: DUH-duh: “pizza”
Anapest: duh-duh-DUH: “but of course!”
Dactyl: DUH-duh-duh: “honestly”
Repetition of feet: To build a line of verse, poets can string together repetitions of one of
these feet. Such repetitions are named as follows:
1 foot: monometer
4 feet: tetrameter
2 feet: dimeter
5 feet: pentameter
3 feet: trimeter
6 feet: hexameter
Scanning verse:



Stressed syllables are marked with a ( / ) above the syllable
Unstressed syllables are marked with a (^) above the syllable
Each foot is separated by a line
Examples:
^
The
/^
falling
/
out
^
of
/^
faithful
/^
Double,
/^
double
/
toil
^
and
/^
trouble
/
friends,
^/^
renewing
/
is
Scan the following:
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks
The whiskey on your breath
Had we but world enough, and time
Purpose: Just as a poet might change the rhyme scheme for a specific purpose, a change
in meter might indicate that the poet is trying to change the topic or make some other
type of transition.
Consistent meter also shows a high level of intelligence or status. Shakespeare usually
had his noble characters (e.g., kings, queens, generals) speak in iambic pentameter, but
his lower characters (e.g., servants and peasants) would speak in regular language.
Terminology of stanza types:
2 lines: couplet
5 lines: quintain
3 lines: tercet
6 lines: sestet
4 lines: quatrain
7 lines: septet
8 lines: octave
^
of
/
love
Homework: Read Poems 25 and 26, and answer the questions.
25. To My Dear and Loving Husband
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.
Scan the poem and identify its meter (note: “ever” is pronounced as one syllable, as in
“e’er”).
What is the message of the poem? How does the meter affect the message?
26. Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-122)
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Scan the poem and identify its meter.
In order to make the meter regular in certain lines, do you have to change the way you
pronounce certain words? Note a few examples.
Who is the speaker of the poem? What is the poem saying? Annotate it line by line.
How does the meter affect the message of the poem?
More practice with scansion:
27. The Tropics of New York
Claude McKay (1889-1948)
Bananas ripe and green, and ginger root
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,
Sat in the window, bringing memories
of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical skies
In benediction over nun-like hills.
My eyes grow dim, and I could no more gaze;
A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
Work alone or with a partner to scan the above poem.
28. In Media Res
Michael McFee (1955- )
His waist,
like the plot,
thickens, wedding
pants now breathtaking,
belt no longer the cinch
it once was, belly’s cambium
expanding to match each birthday,
his body a wad of anonymous tissue
swung in the same centrifuge of years
that separates a house from its foundation,
undermining sidewalks grim with joggers
and loose-filled graves and families
and stars collapsing on themselves,
no preservation society capable
of plugging entropy’s dike,
under the zipper’s sneer
a belly hibernationsoft, ready for
the kill.
What is the pattern of the poem and how does it make sense?
What deeper comments does the poem make through symbols? What do you think each
of the symbols represents?
29. l(a
e.e. cummings (1894-1962)
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
Write the poem out on one line, adding spaces and punctuation where you believe
appropriate. Does this change your understanding? What does the poem mean?
Why do you think the author chose to write the poem spread out over so many lines?
What does this accomplish?
Would the poem retain its meaning if the parentheses were removed? Explain.
Homework: Write your own concrete/shape poem. Bonus if you can use Wordly Wise
Chapter 9 words.
Emulation: Imitating the form, function, and literary style of another work—using it as a
guide in order to create an entirely new work.
30. This is just to say
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
Student emulation:
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
This is just to say
I have ignored
the link
that was in
your post
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
and which
you were probably
hoping
for praise
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
so cold
Forgive me
it was lengthy
so huge
and so long.
Now try your own emulation:
31. Whatif
Shel Silverstein (1930-1999)
Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I’m dumb in school?
Whatif they’ve closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there’s poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don’t grow talle?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won’t bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don’t grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!
Choose a particular way to emulate the poem and use the space below or to the right of
the poem to write down your emulation. Think about your decisions as a writer.
Homework: Write (or type) out an emulation of Poem 32, “Where I’m From.” You must
be willing to share at least a stanza with the class. Have fun with the activity!
32. Where I’m From
George Ella Lyon (1949- )
I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride*.
I am from dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening,
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush
the Dutch elm
whose long-gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.
I’m from fudge and eyeglasses
from Imogene and Alafair**.
I’m from the know-it-alls
and pass-it-nos,
From Perk up! and Pipe down!
I’m from He restoreth my soul
with a cottonball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.
I’m from Artemus and Billie’s Branch,
fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
to the auger,
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.
Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments—
snapped before I budded—
leaf-fall from the family tree.
*chemical used in some fire extinguishers and dry cleaning
**names of women in the neighborhood
33. We Real Cool
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
The Pool Players.
Seven At The Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk Late. We
Strike Straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Who is the speaker and what is the occasion of this poem?
What irony can you identify?
This poem uses “enjambment,” in which sentences run over from one line to the next.
Try reading it with the pronouns at the start of lines instead of at the end. What is lost?
Try emulating this poem:
What is a sonnet?
34. Sonnet 147
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desp’rate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure am I, now reason is past care,
And frantic mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
How many lines are there?
How many stanzas?
How many lines per stanza (and what are these types of stanzas called)?
What is the rhyme scheme?
What is the rhythm of each line? Try scanning a few lines.
What does the poem mean and how does the structure/form help convey the meaning?
Focus in on the meaning of each stanza and how the poem progresses—particularly in the
last 2 lines.
35 and 36. Japanese Haiku
[unnamed]
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
[unnamed]
Arakita Morikate (1473-1549)
The lightning flashes!
And slashing through the darkness
A night-heron’s screech.
(translated by Earl Miner)
The falling flower
I saw drift back to the branch
Was a butterfly.
(translated by Babette Deutsch)
From these two examples, what would you say are the characteristics of effective haiku?
37-39. Limericks
There was an Old Man of Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
His daughter, called Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
- Anonymous
A bather whose clothing was strewed
By winds that left her quite nude
Saw a man come along
And unless we are wrong
You expected this line to be lewd.
- Anonymous
There was an old man with a beard
Who said, “it’s just how I feared!
Two owls and a hen
Four larks and a wren
Have all built their nests in my beard.
- Anonymous
What meter and rhyme schemes do you notice in limericks?
What themes and tone do you notice emerging as a pattern in this poetic form?
40. Someone Puts a Pineapple Together
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
The hut stands by itself beneath the palms.
Out of their bottle the green genii come.
A vine has climbed the other side of the wall.
The sea is spouting upward out of rocks.
The symbol of feasts and of oblivion.
White sky, pink, sun, trees on a distant peak.
The lozenges are nailed-up lattices.
The owl sits humped. It has a hundred eyes.
The cocoanut and cockerel in one.
This is how yesterday’s volcano looks.
There is an island Palahude by name –
An uncivil shape like a gigantic haw.
These casual exfoliations are
Of the tropic of resemblance, sprigs
Of Capricorn or as the sign demands,
Apposites, to the slightest edge, of the whole
Undescribed composition of the sugar-cone,
Shiftings of an inchoate crystal tableau,
The momentary footings of a climb
Up the pineapple.
41. To a daughter leaving home
Linda Pastan (1932- )
When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.
(just for fun)
42. Did I Miss Anything?
Tom Wayman (1945- )
Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
We sat with our hands folded on our desks
In silence, for the full two hours.
Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 percent.
Nothing. None of the content of this course
Has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
Any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
And are without purpose.
Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
A shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
Or other heavenly being appeared
And revealed to us what each woman or man must do
To attain divine wisdom in this life and
The hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
Before we disperse to bring the good news to all people
On earth.
Nothing. When you are not present
How could something significant occur?
Everything. Contained in this classroom
Is a microcosm of human experience
Assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
Gathered
But it was one place
And you weren’t here.