Poetry

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?

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 1-3, 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 corn-

mush: 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?

3. The Red Wheelbarrow William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

Who is the speaker of this poem? To whom is he or she speaking?

What do you think the “so much” means here? What exactly does depend on stanzas 2-4?

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 4-6, answer the questions, and write a commentary on one of

the poems (150-250 words).

4. 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?

5. 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?

6. There is no Frigate* like a Book

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry –

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll –

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human Soul.

*a type of ship

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?

Commentary (150-250 words) on one of the poems:

7. 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 Poems 8 and 9, answer the questions, and complete a commentary on

one of them.

8. Spring

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—

When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;

Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush

Through the echoing timber does rinse and wring

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush

The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?

A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. –Have, get, before it cloy,

Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,

Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

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?

How are the images in the first octet (8 lines) different from the images in the last sestet

(6 lines)? What do you make of the change? What do you think is the poem’s message?

9. 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).

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.

Commentary on one of the poems (150-250 words):

Homework: Read poems 11-13 and answer the questions. You don’t need to write a

commentary.

11. A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

John Donne (1572-1631)

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go,

While some of their sad friends do say,

The breath goes now, and some say, no.

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;

‘Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears,

Men reckon what it did and meant

But trepidation of the spheres,

Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,

That ourselves know not what it is

Inter-assured of the mind,

Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul be fixed foot, makes now show

To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the center sit,

Yet when the other far doth roam

It leans, and hearkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must

Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

And makes me end, where I begun.

*Note: Line 11 is a reference to the spheres of Ptolemaic cosmology, whose movements

caused no such disturbance as does a movement of the earth – that is, an earthquake.

This poem uses tough language. Look up any words you don’t know, and write their

definitions here:

What do you think the poem means? Take it stanza by stanza. (Hint: Donne wrote this

poem just before leaving on a long trip from his home in England to go to France and

Germany, and it’s written for his wife, who had to stay at home.)

Annotate the similes, metaphors and personification in the poem, and explain how these

uses of figurative language help convey the theme or message of the poem.

12. 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?

13. -- 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.

I’ve left off the title of this poem. What do you think the title is? Why? (Don’t cheat and

look it up!)

Okay, now look it up. Annotate the poem for figurative language. How does this

language help contribute to the meaning of the poem?

What do you think the tone of the poem is? What do you make of the last line?

Homework: Read Poems 14 and 15 and answer the questions.

14. 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?

Love Poems:

15. 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)

16. Separation

James Wright (1927-1980)

Your absence has gone through me

Like a thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched in color.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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 22+23, answer the questions + write a commentary about one of

the poems (or about 19, 20, or 21—not the one you discussed in class)—150-250 words.

22. The Sun Rising

John Donne (1572-1631)

Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Why dost thou thus

Through windows and through curtains call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late schoolboys and sour ‘prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices;

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend and strong

Why shouldst thou think?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,

But that I would not lose her sight so long;

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and tomorrow late tell me

Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine

Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.

Ask for those kings whom though saw’st yesterday,

And thou shalt hear, “all here in one bed lay.”

She’s all states, and all princes I;

Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us, compared with this,

All honor’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.

Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,

In that the world’s contracted thus;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.

Sine here to us, and thou art everywhere;

This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

As precisely as possible, identify the time of day and the locale. What three “persons”

does the poem involve?

What is the speaker’s attitude toward the sun in stanzas 1 and 2? How and why does it

change in stanza 3?

Does the speaker understate or overstate the actual qualities of the sun? Point out specific

examples. What does the under / overstatement accomplish?

Who is actually the intended listener for this intended apostrophe? What is the speaker’s

purpose? What is the poem’s purpose?

23. 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 satire?

Write a commentary on Poem 22 or 23 (or on Poem 19, 20, or 21—not the poem

your small group discussed in class). 150-250 words.

Understanding Rhythm

24. 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 Poems 25, 26, and 27, answer the questions, and write a commentary

on “The Flea.”

25. 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?

26. Ending

Gavin Ewart (1916-1995)

The love we thought would never stop

now cools like a congealing chop.

The kisses that were hot as curry

are bird-pecks taken in a hurry.

The hands that held electric charges

now lie inert as four moored barges.

The feet that ran to meet a date

are running slow and running late.

The eyes that shone and seldom shut

are victims of a power cut.

The parts that then transmitted joy

are now reserved and cold and coy.

Romance, expected once to stay,

has left a note saying GONE AWAY.

Annotate the poem for the rhyme scheme.

Who is the speaker and who is the subject? How does the speaker feel about love?

What poetic devices does this poet use to characterize “the love”? Point to specific

examples.

27. The Flea

John Donne (1572-1631)

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is;

It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pampered swells with one blood made of two;

And this, alas, is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, yea, more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,

And cloistered in these living walls of jet.

Though use make you apt to kill me,

Let not to that self-murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?

Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?

Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou

Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.

‘Tis true ; then learn how false fears be;

Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,

Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

Annotate the poem for the rhyme scheme.

This poem is quite challenging. Here’s a hint: The speaker is a man addressing his lover,

and he is trying to convince her to go to bed with him, by observing and comparing their

love in various ways to a flea that he sees. Now, stanza by stanza, try and paraphrase

exactly what is going on. How does the speaker make his argument?

Commentary on “The Flea” (150-250 words):

Musical elements in poetry:

Refrain:

Repetition of syllable sound:

o Alliteration

o Assonance

o Consonance

o Assonance + Consonance =

Homework: Read Poems 28 and 29 and answer the questions.

28. 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.

29. 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”

My examples:

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 2 feet: dimeter 3 feet: trimeter

4 feet: tetrameter 5 feet: pentameter 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 friends, renewing is of love

/ ^ / ^ / ^ / ^

Double, double toil and trouble

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 3 lines: tercet 4 lines: quatrain

5 lines: quintain 6 lines: sestet 7 lines: septet 8 lines: octave

Homework: Read Poems 30 and 31 and answer the questions. Also, take 10-15 minutes

(no more than 15 minutes) to read the A.P. Lit Exam Poetry Essay prompt, annotate the

poem, and write an outline for an essay response.

30. 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?

31. 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?

AP Literature Free-Response Question: Poetry (pulled from 2014 exam)

Instructions: Take 10-15 minutes to read this prompt, annotate the poem, and write an

outline for an essay response (Note: You do NOT need to write the actual essay.)

Prompt: The following poem is by the sixteenth-century English poet George Gascoigne.

Read the poem carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the complex

attitude of the speaker is developed through such devices as form, diction, and imagery.

For That He Looked Not upon Her (1573)

You must not wonder, though you think it strange,

To see me hold my louring1 head so low,

And that mine eyes take no delight to range

About the gleams which on your face do grow.

The mouse which once hath broken out of trap

Is seldom ‘ticèd2 with the trustless bait,

But lies aloof for fear of more mishap,

And feedeth still in doubt of deep deceit.

The scorchèd fly, which once hath ‘scaped the flame,

Will hardly come to play again with fire,

Whereby I learn that grievous is the game

Which follows fancy dazzled by desire:

So that I wink or else hold down my head,

Because your blazing eyes my bale3 have bred.

1gloomy

2enticed

3misery

Essay outline:

Concrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of

words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of

the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on.

Homework: Read Poems 32 and 33, answer the questions, and write your own concrete

poem, preferably using Wordly Wise Chapter 9 words.

32. 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 hibernation-

soft, 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?

33. 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.

Now write your own concrete/shape poem. Bonus if you can use Wordly Wise

Chapter 9 words.

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. Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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 pattern of actual line repetitions (refrains)?

How might you categorize the refrains plus rhymes?

What is the rhythm of each line? Scan a few lines.

Homework: Read Poems 36 and 37 and answer the questions.

36. Mad Girl’s Love Song

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,

And arbitrary blackness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:

Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,

But I grow old and I forget your name.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;

At least when spring comes they roar back again.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Count the number of lines, stanzas, and lines per stanzas. Next, annotate the poem for

rhyme scheme and rhythm. Note any other patterns in the form. What type of poem is

this?

What do you make of the repeated at the ends of stanzas? How do these refrains

contribute to the meaning of the poem?

Explain the tone of this poem, and identify key textual features or poetic devices that

support the tone you identify.

37. When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be

John Keats (1795-1821)

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;

When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the fairy power

Of unreflecting love—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Count the number of lines, stanzas, and lines per stanzas. Next, annotate the poem for

rhyme scheme and rhythm. What type of poem is this?

What is the poem’s message? How does the form help convey the poem’s message?

38 and 39. Japanese Haiku

[unnamed] [unnamed]

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) Arakita Morikate (1473-1549)

The lightning flashes! The falling flower

And slashing through the darkness I saw drift back to the branch

A night-heron’s screech. Was a butterfly.

(translated by Earl Miner) (translated by Babette Deutsch)

From these two examples, what would you say are the characteristics of effective haiku?

40-42. Limericks

There was an Old Man of Nantucket A bather whose clothing was strewed

Who kept all his cash in a bucket. By winds that left her quite nude

His daughter, called Nan, Saw a man come along

Ran away with a man, And unless we are wrong

And as for the bucket, Nantucket. You expected this line to be lewd.

- Anonymous - 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?

Emulation: Imitating the form, function, and literary style of another work—using it as a

guide in order to create an entirely new work.

43. This is just to say

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963 ) Student emulation:

This is just to say This is just to say

I have eaten I have ignored

the plums the link

that were in that was in

the icebox your post

and which and which

you were probably you were probably

saving hoping

for breakfast for praise

Forgive me Forgive me

they were delicious it was lengthy

so sweet so huge

so cold and so long.

44. 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 to the right of the poem

(or a separate sheet) to write down your emulation. Think about your writerly decisions.

45. 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.

What is this poem about? What irony can you identify?

This poem uses “enjambment,” in which sentences run over from one line to the next.

Try reading the poem with the pronouns at the beginning of the lines instead of at the

end. What is lost?

Now try emulating the poem.

46. 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.

47. 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)

48. 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.