Introduction to
Poetry
Poetry Quiz• Please get out a blank piece of paper.• At the top of the page please write:
– “TERM 4 – ”– Poetry Quiz
• Then list 1-15 down the left side of your paper.
• As I read the following passages please label “poem” for those that you think are a poem and “not” for those that you think are something other than a poem.
• Then write a sentence describing why you believe it is or isn’t a poem.
Passage 1Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.From what I’ve tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo day that for destruction ice
Is also greatAnd would suffice.
Passage 2Maybe life was better
When I used to be a wetter.
Passage 3Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other nightBy the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . . He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.With his ebony hands on each ivory key
Hey made that poor piano moan with melody.O Blues!
Passage 4Steamed Rice Whole Wheat BagelEgg WhiteBaked Chicken
Tomato SoupBroccoliCheddar CheeseGarlic Clove
Grape Nuts and Non-Fat MilkAlmonds AppleIce Water
InsulinHypodermic
Passage 5maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sangso sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded starwhose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thingwhich raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and
may came home with a smooth round stoneas small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
Passage 6so much dependsupon
a red wheel barrow
glazed with rain water
beside the whitechickens.
Passage 7I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman - -
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
It was you that broke the new wood,
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root - -
Let there be commerce between us.
Passage 8Hold on, slow down, again from the top now,
and tell me everything,I know I've been gone for, what seems like forever,but I'm here now waiting,to convince you that I'm not, a ghost or a stranger,but closer than you think,she said "Just go on to what youpretend is your life butplease don't die on me."
Passage 9Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little birdThat kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,And on the strangest sea;Yet, never, in extremity,It asked a crumb of me.
Passage 10What throws you out is what drags you inWhat drags you in is what throws youWhat throws you out is what dragsWhat drags is what throws youWhat throws you dragsWhat drags throwsThrows dragThragsDrags throwWhat throws dragsWhat drags you throwsWhat throws is what drags youWhat drags you in is what throwsWhat throws you out is what drags youWhat drags you in is what throws you outWhat throws you in is what drags youWhat drags you out is what throwsWhat throws you out drags youWhat drags throws you inWhat throws drags youDrags throw youThrags
Passage 11I see your dirty face
Hide behind your collar What is done in vain
Truth is hard to swallowSo you pray to God
To justify the way you live a lie, live a lie, live a lieAnd you take your timeAnd you do your crime
Well you made your bedI made mine
Passage 12Once on returning home, purse-proud and hale,
I found my choice possessions on the lawn, An auctioneer was whipping up a sale.
I did not move to claim what was my own.
“One coat of pride, perhaps a bit threadbare;Illusion’s trinkets, splendid for the young;
Some items, miscellaneous, marked ‘Fear’;The chair of honor, with a missing rung.”
The spiel ran on; the sale was brief and brisk;The bargains fell to bidders, one by one.
Hope flushed my cheekbones with a scarlet disk.Old neighbors nudged each other at the fun.
My spirits rose each time the hammer fell,The heart beat faster as the fat words rolled.
I left my home with unencumbered willAnd all the rubbish of confusion sold.
Passage 13This handless clock stares blindly from its tower,
Refusing to acknowledge any hour.But what can one clock do to stop the gameWhen others go on striking just the same?
Whatever mite of truth the gesture held,Time may be silenced but will not be stilled,Not we absolved by any one’s withdrawing
From all the restless ways we must be goingAnd all the rings in which we’re spun and swirled,
Whether around a clockface or a world.
Passage 14Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate;Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed;But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;Nor sahll Death brag thou wander’s in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Passage 15Freeway overpass--Blossoms in grafitti on
fog-wrapped June mornings
Time to Check your Answers1. Poem – “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost 2. Poem – “Thoughts on getting out of a nice warm bed
in an ice-cold house to go to the bathroom at three o’clock in the morning” Judith Viorst
3. Poem – “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes4. Poem – “2” by Sherman Alexie5. Poem – “maggie and milly and molly and may” by E.E.
Cummings6. Poem – “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos
Williams7. Poem – “Ezra Pound - A Pact” by Ezra Pound8. Poem – “Ready to Fall” by Rise Against
Checking your Answers cont. . .
9. Poem – “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickenson
10. Poem – “Overboard” by May Swenson
11. Poem – “Let it Rock” by Kevin Rudolf
12. Poem – “The Auction” by Theodore Roethke
13. Poem – “A Clock in the Square” by Adrian Rich
14. Poem – “Sonnet 18” by Shakespeare
15. Poem – “Urban Haiku” by Michael R. Collings
So, what is poetry anyways?
• All of these poems we just looked at are very unique, and very different.
•So, what is poetry anyway?
According to. . . World Book Dictionary a poem is:
“any composition in verse; arrangement of words lines usually with a regularly repeated accent and often with rhyme. Poems are highly imaginative or emotional, designed to express or convey deep feelings and thoughts.”
According to. . .The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary
Terms poetry is:“Generally said to be one of the three or four
major literary genres, a term defined and described in so many different ways that one might easily argue that there are as many ways to characterize it as there are people . . . Seen from this angle, any imaginative artistic work might be called poetic.”
Assignment #1• Haiku
– Originates from Japan– Is made up of three lines – Follows the pattern of 5, 7, 5 (syllables)– Originally haikus were used to celebrate and
focus on nature. – Now still used to celebrate nature, but also
used to describe everyday life.
Haiku Examples
How beautifully
That kite soars up to the sky
From the small boy’s hand
She has no home but
Her nails are always polished
Waiting for the bus. By: Peter Saint-Andre
Assignment cont. . . • Write three Haiku’s
• Pick your favorite one
• Give to a friend to Edit
• Share your Haiku and the Haiku you edited.
• Then on the same page as your poetry “quiz” write your own definition of poetry.
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