Poetry Introduction 1: Identity & Family

Tone, Sound and Free Verse

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Housekeeping

12/9 4:00 – a sound-effect person Jessica

12/9 5:40 12/10 12:00 12/12 8:00 Other Questions?

1&2 05:50 06:203&4 06:20 06:505&6 06:50 07:207&8 07:20 07:509&10 07:50 08:2011&12 08:20 08:50

12/9 work schedule

Poetry Week 2

Read ~Behn, Aphra “On Her Loving Two Equally” (p. 684; ref. 684-)Burns, Robert “A Red, Red Rose” (p 808)Wordsworth “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (p 677)Whitman “A Noiseless Patient Spider” (p. 1106) Mary Oliver “Wild Geese” * 

Annotate two poems (+one paragraph analysis) due 12/17

Schedule & EngSite changes

Outline I. What is poetry?

A. Its basic Components.

B. Its Functions: What is poetry good for?

II. Poetry I: Identity

III. A Moment of Life Condensed “Stopping By Woods” “Those Winter Sundays”

II. Our Emotions Expressed “I’m Nobody…” “We Real Cool”

IV. Our interest in music and rhythm. “This is Just to Say” “The Word Plum”

V. How do we read a poem?

VI. Sound and Sense, Meter and Rhyme

Poetry: Definitions

1) literature in metrical form (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn );

2) Poetry is life distilled. ~Gwendolyn BrooksPoetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. ~Thomas Gray

Traditional poetry is language arranged in lines, with a regular rhythm and often a definite rhyme scheme.

Nontraditional poetry [free verse] does away with regular rhythm and rhyme, although is usually is set up in lines. The richness of its suggestions, the sounds of its words, and the strong feelings evoked by its line are often said to be what distinguish poetry from other forms of literature.(source)

meter

Denotation connotation

Sound, shape & sense

Poetic Elements

Poetry wk 1 Speaker and Voice wk 2-3 Sense: imagery and

figures of speech ( 意象與比喻語言 ) denotation ( 意義 ) and connotation ( 含意 )

wk 4 Sound: rhythm ( 節奏 ), meter( 詩律 ), rhyme( 韻 ).

(this & next S) Shape: line arrangement & poetic form

Fiction Plot Structure … Narrator Language

What is poetry good for?

It explores and deepens meanings of life -- to expand our vision, -- to beautify and enrich our lives.

Its imagery and sounds -- paint life and compose music with words,

Its language -- renews and pushes beyond the limits of human language.

(Ref)

It sharpens our ears (for listening), trains our pronunciation, expands our knowledge of language (syntax, words) and activates our imagination.

As a start, let’s talk about how it (1) presents a moment in life, (2) expresses our emotions and (3) satisfies our need to sing and feel the rhythm of life.

Our Themes: Identity & Daily Life, Love & NatureDeath and Society, Art and Modern Society

Poetic Elements

Poetry is

1. Life Story Condensed2. Self Expression 3. Musical

Understanding Poetry

From Paraphrasing, Analysis to Application

Poetry (1): Tone, Identity and Daily Life

Life Story Frost, Robert “Stopping by Woods…” (p1091) Hayden, Robert “Those Winter Sundays” (p

783) Self-Expression

Dickinson, Emily “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” Brooks, Gwendolyn “We Real Cool” (p 720)

Music W. Carlos Williams “This is just to say” (p.

797); Chasin, Helen “The Word Plum” (p. 828; ref.

830)

General Questions What is ‘identity’?

What determines our identities?

Text Identity Factors (self vs. society)

“20/20” Gender What we pay attention to

“A Rose for Emily”

Gender The American South + industrialism

“A & P” Class/Gender Small town America + commercial society

“Araby” Age/Gender Religion vs. Commercialism + Dublin’s social problem

Pygmalion Class/Gender Late Victorian society + English

General Questions What is ‘identity’?

What determines our identities?

Text Identity Factors

“We Real Cool” Collective “Cool” ActionsBlack

“I’m Nobody. Who Are you?”

Private and Associative

Social visibility

“A Noiseless Patient Spider” (wk2)

Soul -- Associative

Vast surrounding

“Stopping by Woods”

Private Duty vs. rest

“Those Winter Sundays”

Familial Family poverty and paternal care; Black

“This is Just to Say” Familial Daily order & a couple’s relation

Black

Self

General Questions

Which of the factors of identity (society, family, your interest, gender) concerns you the most?

Are parents always loving?  What makes their love difficult to express, or 'difficult' for their children to understand? 

Can you see poetry out of daily life?

Poetry I: Lyric and Tone [Reading and Paraphrase]

Group 1-2: W. Carlos Williams “This is just to say” (p. 797);

Group 3-4: Chasin, Helen “The Word Plum” (p. 828)Group 5-6: Brooks, Gwendolyn “We Real Cool” (p 720)*Group 7-8: Hayden, Robert “Those Winter Sundays” (p 783)* Group 9-10: Frost, Robert “Stopping by Woods…” (p1091)* Group 11-12: Dickinson, Emily “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?”*

(1) Poetry offers

Vignettes of Life

Whose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound's the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.

Whose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound's the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

rhyme aaba 

bbcb ccdc

dddd

Discussion Questions

“I”: Who is the speaker? How would you characterize him and his tone? Why do you think he has decided to stop to look at the woods?

“The horse”: What thoughts and feelings does the speaker attribute to his horse?

Speaker vs. the woods: What do you think the speaker means by the line “But I have promises to keep”? Why does he use the conjunction “but” here? What promises might he be thinking about?

An Unfulfilled Desire for Nature, Magic, Rest (and Death?)

Pay attention to its sound effects, use of personification, images and symbols

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening: Sound and Sense

Form: 4 rhymed quatrains; meter: iambic pentameter; repetition of the last two lines

Sound: long vowels, mellifluous sound (/m/, /n/ or /v/) vs. explosives (aspirated explosive /t/ & /p/; see the poem)

Tone (expression of attitude and feelings towards the subject)?

calm, meditative, tired, resigned to fate

Frost’s New England Mentality (ref) Frost's expression of the New England mentality toward woods dark, deep and snow-

filled has at its roots a place where all are snug in farmhouses or cozy village homes; a place where all travel in security with the safety of a favorite, contented horse pulling reliable sleighs. This mentality views wintery woods as friendly, peaceful places. It is not a mentality that casts--under normal circumstances--woods as dangerous, malevolent places. New Englanders enjoy watching the dark, deep woods that surround them quietly, almost magically, fill with snow, watching almost mesmerized as the snow creeps higher and higher up the tree bark or fence post.

For a New Englander, like Robert Frost was from 1885 on (37 years by 1922), winter snow is like a warm comforter descending on the land and on one's soul for a long, peaceful slumber after a year of hard work and toil. Falling snow filling a dark wood at the evening of the day is a quieting sight that lights the eyes with a gentle glow and warms the heart with thoughts of a later flower-strewn spring coming at the end of winter quietude and slumber. The feeling produced is dreaminess, and critic George Montiero, Professor Emeritus of Brown University, uses the word "dreamy" to describe the poetic tone of the poem. He speaks of the poet's "dreamy mind and that mind's preoccupations..." (George Montiero, Robert Frost and the New England Renaissance). (source)

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Robert Frost (1874–1963)

Norton

"Those Winter Sundays" (1962)

Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. 

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house. 

Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well, What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices? [rituals, ceremonious]

Open vowels; Long and short lines

alliteration, explosive sounds

Questions for Discussion Why does the poem begin “Sundays too” (rather than

“On Sundays”)? What does the use of alliteration, as in “clothes,” “cold,”

“cracked” (lines 2–3) and “blueblack,” “banked,” “blaze” (lines 2, 5), contribute to the poem?

What is the significance of the speaker's reference to his fear of “the chronic angers of that house” (line 9)?

What are the “austere and lonely offices” of love in the poem (line 14)?

What does the poem suggest about how the speaker felt about his father as a child? As an adult?

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Clues to the Last Question

1) Contrast between the last two lines and the rest of the poem.

What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?

2) Do you have similar experience with your parents, where their love and care don’t get appreciated?

"Those Winter Sundays" --1. Paraphrasing 2. Analysis (1) Connotation: the

contrast between the past view and the present one about the speaker’s father and his work.

3. Analysis (2) Poetic Language: descriptions of the cold and the house. Sound pattern.

4. Analysis (3) Does it matter to you whether you know of the poet’s background? Is the poem relevant to you?

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Robert Hayden (1913–1980)

Norton

(2) Poetry expresses

our emotions Poetry can be understood in its context, but also related to ours.

"We Real Cool" (1960  p. 685)    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.

Strike straight: 1) attacking others; 2) play billiard balls

Jazz: 1) empty talk to or sex with a woman named June; 2) going here and there in June

repetitions

alliterationinternal rhymes

"We Real Cool"  

1. Paraphrasing

2. Analysis (1) Connotation: Speakers’ identity? Why “cool”?

3. Analysis (2) Poetic Language: Their tone? How do the stress and sound Pattern help convey the meaning? Symbol-- Golden Shovel?

4. Analysis (3) What is “cool” for you? Does developing a group identity matter for you?

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you--Nobody--too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd banish us—you know! How dreary--to be--Somebody! How public--like a Frog-- To tell your name--the livelong June-- To an admiring Bog!

alliterationIambic meter

repetitions

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

1. Paraphrasing

2. Analysis (1) Connotation: Speakers’ identity? That of “you”? The differences between nobody and somebody?

3. Analysis (2) Poetic Language: The speaker’s tone in the 1st and 2nd stanzas? The use of dashes? The metaphor of bog and frog.

4. Analysis (3) Do you like to be a somebody, or nobody? Or neither? What do you feel about the speaker’s criticism of “somebody” like a frog?

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

A reclusive poet with mental energies.

produced 1,775 known poems as well as the hundreds of letters. Only 7 (or 11) of the poems were published anonymously in her lifetime.

a traumatic experience (between 1858 and 1862)

Stayed in her own house for the last seventeen years of her life.

Film: Emily Dickinson: The Poet In Her Bedroom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU8XijqmnT0

(3) Poetry satisfies

our need to sing and feel the rhythm of life.

One example: 李白【將進酒】

君不見黃河之水天上來，奔流到海不復回？平仄仄平平平仄平仄平，平平仄仄仄平平君不見高堂明鏡悲白髮，朝如青絲暮成雪？平仄仄平平平仄平仄仄，平平平平仄平仄 (source)人生得意須盡歡，莫使金樽空對月。天生我才必有用，千金散盡還復來。烹羊宰牛且為樂，會須一飲三百杯。岑夫子，丹丘生，將進酒﹐杯莫停。平平仄、平平平：平仄仄，平仄平。與君歌一曲，請君為我傾耳聽。 [……]Line & Rhythm— 樂府詩長短句 repetition with variation)

Stressed + unstressed

This is Just to Say

you were probablysavingfor breakfast

Forgive methey were deliciousso sweetand so cold.

Is this art? And how?

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

This Is Just To Say 

I have eatenthe plumsthat were in the iceboxand which 

The Word Plum The word plum is deliciouspout and push, luxury ofself-love, and savoring murmur

full in the mouth and fallinglike fruit

taut skinpierced, bitten, provoked intojuice, and tart flesh

questionand reply, lip and tongueof pleasure.

Poetry?

Eating PlumEating Plum

“P-lu-m”

The Word Plum Analysis (1) – The poem describes the uttering of the word plum (pout, push, rolling of tongue, closing of lips) Analysis (2) – It also allows us to imagine how the fruit is savored.

Analysis (3) – a. Which word do you like the most—its sound, or shape or meanings? b.

Poetry and Popular Songs

The two are interrelated, so -- if you like songs, you may like poetry; -- if you know how to analyze poetry, you must know how to do that to songs (its music excluded).

How do we read and re-read a poem?

1. Read and Paraphrase: Read a poem silently once to try to catch its general meaning and mark new words too.  After you checked all the new words, read the whole poem again and check and see if you can paraphrase it. Remember that poetic syntax may be different from that of our daily language. 

[In other words, you sometimes need to move around different parts of a sentence to understand its meaning and “paraphrase” it.]

2. denotation connotation: Read the poem the third time and mark expressions that impress you. Try to figure out the poem's deeper meanings. 

[For some poems with intricate image pattern or dense symbolic meanings, you need to stop and dwell on some parts of the poem and their interconnections. ]

How do we read and re-read a poem?

3. sound sense Read the poem out loud to feel its sound effects.

Sounds – explosive or mellifluous sounds, long or short vowels, nasal sounds, aspirated (p) and unaspirated (b)

* The meanings of a (good) poem can not be exhausted. Re-reading a poem (out loud or silently) and taking note of your responses is always good. The more times you read, the more you will get from a poem.

Understanding Poetic Language: Ref.

Sound and Sense

Sound & Sense Different sounds create different

effects in different contexts. In general easily pronounced consonants (e.g. [l],

[r], [m], [n]) and open and long vowels can be create a sense of ease or fluidity

Explosive sounds ([t], [d], [g], [k],[p] [b]), sometimes combined with short vowels,  can create a sense of vitality or difficulty.

nasal sounds ([m] & [n]) can create a sense of melancholy

etc.

Rhyme & Rhythm Rhyme is a sound device that usually entails the

repetition of the final vowel and consonant sounds in two words.

internal rhyme: Some poems have rhymes within the lines. This is called.

Assonance is the repetition of vowels sounds, either at the beginning of words or within words.

Head rhyme: Alliteration is related to assonance in that alliteration also involves the repetition of sounds, this time the repetition of consonants at the beginning or middle of words.

Meter (韻律 ): a regularly repeating rhythm, divided for convenience into feet (音步 ). Meter describes an underlying framework; actual poems rarely sustain the perfect regularity that the meter would imply.

(e.g. iambic pentameter 抑揚五音步 reference)

Lyric

The most personal of poetic forms, lyric is usually a short but intense expression of personal feelings. 

Although it is originally sung to the music of a lyre, not all lyrics are to be sung.  Still, musical quality can be found in some of the poems we have read (e.g. “A Noiseless Patient Spider”).

Although it involves personal expressions, the speaker of a lyric is not necessarily the poet. 

Conclusion

“Identity Social vs. Personal, Public vs. Private

the parents and family relations: “Those Winter Sundays” – hardship and stern

care “This is Just to Say” – casual and familiar

Review

Questions—Personal Views, Sound and Line Pattern, connections between the poem and the poet.

Close Reading: Sound Effect, Sound Pattern,

(consonance, assonance and alliteration) Line Length, Line End and Sentence End

Lyric

Performances Today 11:00 – 12:00

11:00 – 11:10 Act 1 Group 5 & 6

11:10 – 11:20 Act 2 Group 11 & 12

11:20 – 11:30 Act 3 Group 3 & 4& Group 9 & 10

11:30 – 11:40

11:40 – 11:50 Act 4 Group 7 & 8

11:50 – 12:00 Act 5 Group 1 & 2

SM & Crew: Things to do-your plan (including coordination w/ other groups) -- Write on the board.