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What is poetry?  “A poem may appear to mean very different things to different readers, and all of these meanings may be different from what the author thought he meant.  For instance, the author may have been writing some peculiar personal experience, which he saw quite unrelated to anything outside; yet for the reader the poem may become the expression of a general situation, as well as of some private experience of his own.  The reader’s interpretation may differ from the author’s and be equally valid – it may even be better.  There may be much more in a poem than the author was aware of.  The different interpretations may all be partial formulations of one thing;  the ambiguities may be due to the fact that the poem means more, not less, than ordinary speech can communicate.”

 

T.S. Eliot

 

 

Poetry

 

 

 

Mitchell

 

 

What is a poet?  “A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through word.  This may sound easy.  It isn’t.  A lot of people think or believe or know they feel – but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling.  And poetry is feeling --  not knowing or believing or thinking.  Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel.  Why?  Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people; but the moment you feel, you’re NOBODY - BUT – YOURSELF.

 

e.e. cummings


 

Analysis Of Literature

 

Firstly, we are affected by literature – we love it, hate it, or are indifferent.  This is the total effect.

 

“Meaning” is the total effect – the sum of all of the parts is what it “means” to you.  A work may have made a didactic point or not, but you responded to it.  The “meaning” of a work may change as you understand more about it or experience some of what the author has written.  Therefore, “meaning” is how the poem acts on you – what it is that you feel.

 

As you understand more about a work, its meaning will change – it will have more effect, or there is also the possibility that you will realize that the work did not mean what you thought it did (you feel differently).

 

The movie Friday the 13th, Part 23 may be an inspiration for the beginning film maker, a triumph of wise investment for the producer, a boring waste of time for the person who has seen the previous 22, or a terrifying experience for the poor spectator who has seen none of the others.  For each of them, the experience, the interpretation, and ultimately, the meaning, will be different.

 

Therefore when you analyze or look at a work of art, you are trying to decipher how it achieves its effect or how it produced meaning.

 

As we look at poetry, ask yourself some questions:

 

1.      What aspects of the poem had the greatest impact on me?

 

2.  What did they seem to be saying?  How did they say it?  What did they make me think     about that I had not considered before?   How did they make me think about this?

 

3.      How did other aspects of the work support or contribute to my response?

 

4.      How did these particular aspects help create the work’s total effect?

 

5.      Did anything that I found out later about the work or its author change my feelings about it?

 

 

 

The study of literature is not an attempt to “pick apart” great works but rather the attempt to understand yourself and your feelings better and to gain skill in explaining what it is that impresses or disappoints you.  It is an attempt to answer the great question, “Why did that work move me?”  After all, literature is just a collection of words.  The difference between dislike and appreciation is often just the matter of understanding yourself, the world around you, and art to a greater extent.

 

TYPES  OF  POETRY

 

LYRIC

NARRATIVE

IMAGIST

BLANK  VERSE

CONCRETE

FREE  VERSE

BALLAD

 

 

 

 

TERMS

You are responsible for the following terms.  Be certain that you can not only define them but that you understand them and can give examples when appropriate.

 

rhyme         hyperbole          stanza        theme    

 

rhythm        meter              scansion      consonance

 

foot           simile             universality  imagery           

blank verse   repetition         onomatopoeia couplet

 

metaphor      internal rhyme     symbolism     free verse   

paraphrase    assonance          slant rhyme   personification                    

figurative language     poetic license     alliteration     

                       

 

 

          

MEMORIZATION

By the end of this unit, you must memorize and be prepared to recite the following poem.

 

The Road Not Taken

By:  Robert Frost

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

Consider the following:

 

There are two examples of symbolism in this poem:  the fork in the road and the road itself.  What do these symbolize?

WRITING PROJECT #1

 

I AM …

 

I am a nutty guy who likes dolphins.

I wonder what I, and the world, will be like in the year 2000.

I hear silence pulsing in the middle of the night.

I see a dolphin flying up to the sky.

I want the adventure of life before it passes me by.

I am a nutty guy who likes dolphins.

 

I pretend that I’m the ruler of the world.

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I touch the sky, the stars, the moon, and all planets as representatives of mankind.

I worry about the devastation of a nuclear holocaust.

I cry for all the death and poverty in the world.

I am a nutty guy who likes dolphins.

 

I understand the frustration of not being able to do something easily.

I say that we are all equal.

I dream of traveling to other points on the earth.

I try to reach out to poor and starving children.

I hope that mankind will be at peace and not die out.

I am a nutty guy who likes dolphins.

 

--By Sandy Maas

 

You, too, can write an “I AM” poem…How?  Begin by describing two things about yourself—special things about yourself.  Avoid the obvious and the ordinary, such as “I am a 16-year-old boy with brown hair.”  There are millions of 16-year-old boys with brown hair.  Think of things about yourself that are distinctive.

 

“I am a girl who bruises easily and believes in astrology—when the stars are right.”  That’s better because it gives a sense of the speaker. . . and how she is different from other people.  Don’t be afraid to be different.

 

Once you have an opening line, you’re ready to take off.  Here is a line-by-line guide you can follow.

 

It may seem strange at first to write a poem this way.  But give it a try.  You may surprise yourself.  Some students who have tried this approach have been amazed by the results.

 

From suzi Mee, Teachers & writers collaborative

 

I AM GUIDE:

 

 

 

 

1st Stanza

 

I am (two special characteristics you have)

I wonder (something you are actually curious about)

I hear (an imaginary sound)

I see (an imaginary sight)

I want (an actual desire)

I am (the first line of the poem repeated)

 

 

 

2nd Stanza

 

I pretend (something you actually pretend to do)

I feel (a feeling about something imaginary)

I touch (an imaginary touch)

I worry (something that really bothers you)

I cry (something that makes you very sad)

I am (the first line of the poem repeated)

 

 

 

3rd Stanza

 

I understand (something you know is true)

I say (something you believe in)

I dream (something you actually dream about)

I try (something you really make an effort to do)

I hope (something you actually hope for)

I am (the first line of the poem repeated)


 

CONCRETE POETRY

 

Concrete poetry uses the words and the form of the poem to convey the same meaning so that it is difficult to separate one from the other. 

 

The following is a poem by e.e. cummings entitled “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r” --

 

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r

 

who

 

                   a)s w (e loo ) k

 

                   upnowgath

 

                                  PPEGORHRASS

 

                                                          eringint (o-

 

                   aThe) :l

                               eA

                                    !p:

 

                   S                                                                           a

 

                                                          (r

 

                   rIvInG                            .gRrEaPsPhOs)

 

                                                                                to

 

          rea (be) rran (com) gi (e) ngly

 

          ,grasshopper;

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another example is as follows:

 

A

poem

can play

with the wind

and dart and dance

and fly about in the mind

like a kite in the cloudy white

sky at so dizzy a height it

seems out of reach but

is waiting to be

very gently

pulled

down

to

the

            page

 

 

 

 

WRITING PROJECT #TWO

 

After reading the above examples, create your own concrete poem in your groups.  Do not choose a simple object such as a circle, pencil, or a table.    (Create…the operative word here.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NARRATIVE  POETRY

The narrative poem is a poem that tells a story.  The epic is a long poem of heroic adventure.  The ballad is a shorter narrative poem, often set to music.

 

 

“Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out”

 

 

 

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout                                                                Peanut butter, caked and dry,

Would not take the garbage out!                                                      Curdled milk and crusts of pie,

She’d scour the pots and scrape the pans,                                     Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,

Candy the yams and spice the hams,                                               Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,

And though her daddy would scream and shout,                          Cold french fries and rancid meat,

She simply would not take the garbage out.                                   Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.

And so it piled up to the ceilings:                                                     At last the garbage reached so high

Coffee grounds, potato peelings,                                                      That finally it touched the sky.

Brown bananas, rotten peas,                                                             And all the neighbors moved away,

Chunks of sour cottage cheese.                                                        And none of her friends would come to play.

It filled the can, it covered the floor,                                                 And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,

It cracked the window and blocked the door                                  “OK, I’ll take the garbage out!”

With bacon rinds and chicken bones,                                              But then, of course, it was too late…

Drippy ends of ice cream cones,                                                       The garbage reached across the state,

Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,                                                  From New York to the Golden Gate.

Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,                                                        And there, in the garbage she did hate,

Pizza crusts and withered greens,                                                     Poor Sarah met an awful fate,

Soggy beans and tangerines,                                                            That I cannot right now relate

Crusts of black burned buttered toast,                                             Because the hour is much too late.

Gristly bits of beefy roasts…                                                             But children, remember Sarah Stout

The garbage rolled on down the hall,                                               And always take the garbage out!

It raised the roof, it broke the wall…

Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,

Globs of gooey bubble gum,

Cellophane from green baloney,                                                        Shel Silverstein

Rubbery blubbery macaroni,

 

 

 

 

WRITING PROJECT #THREE

 

Write your own narrative poem.  Tell a story.  Your poem does not need to be long, but it should be at least eight stanzas of four lines each.  For fun, let’s make it rhyme!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMAGIST  POETRY

The Imagist poet creates a single sharp image that evokes an emotional response in the reader.  Invented by Ezra Pound and furthered by H.D., Imagism was in part a reaction to the “bad habits” of nineteenth-century poets who were too explicit in their commentary and too repetitious in their subjects, patterns, and meters.  Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” is considered by some literary critics to be the most famous example of Imagism. 

 

Some samples:

 

The Red Wheelbarrow                                                

            By:  William Carlos Williams                                                    

                                                                     

so much depends                                 

upon

 

a red wheel                                                       L’Art, 1910

barrow                                                                         By:  Ezra Pound

                                                            Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,

glazed with rain                         Crushed strawberries!  Come, let us feast our eyes.

water

 

beside the white

chickens.

 

In a Station of the Metro

                                                                                                            By:  Ezra Pound

 

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet bough.

 

 

 

The City

                By:  Langston Hughes                       

In the morning the city                          

Spreads its wings

Making a song                         

In stone that sings.

                                   

In the evening the city               

Goes to bed

Hanging lights

Above its head.

 

Both of the following poems were published in the anthology Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle, edited by Dunning, Lueders and Smith (1966).

 

The Toaster

            By:  William Jay Smith

 

A silver-scaled dragon with jaws flaming red

Sits at my elbow and toasts my bread.

I hand him fat slices, and then, one by one,

He hands them back when he sees they are done.

 

 

 

                                                                                    Apartment House

                                                                                                By:  Gerald Raftery

 

                                                                        A filing cabinet of human lives

                                                                        Where people swarm like bees in tunnelled hives,

                                                                        Each to his own cell in the covered comb,

                                                                        Identical and cramped – we call it home.

 

Answer the following:

 

1.      In the poem, L’Art, 1910, what colors does the poem mention?  What invitation does it include?

 

2.      What does the combination of colors suggest about the physical appearance of the painting?  What does “smeared” suggest?  Why is “feast” especially well chosen?

 

3.      Is the painting traditional or modern?  Explain your opinion with examples from the poem.

 

4.      In the poem, “In a Station of the Metro,” what two images are juxtaposed, or placed next to each other, in the poem?  Does the poet supply you with any information about how you should think or feel about the poem?  What does the poem consist of?  What makes it “poetic”?

 

5.      In “The Red Wheelbarrow”, what three items are mentioned in the poem?  What does the first line tell us about them?  Why might the objects in the poem be very important/  Can we be sure?  What is imagery in poetry?

 

6.      In the poem, “This is Just to Say,”  how important is the incident described in this poem?  Why do you think Williams chose an incident of this sort for his poem?  What do the last four lines suggest about the objects being saved and the reason that the speaker expects to be forgiven?

 

Tom’s Diner

words and music by Suzanne Vega

 

I am sitting                                    And I’m turning

In the morning                                  To the horoscope

At the diner                                    And looking

On the corner                                   For the funnies

 

I am waiting                                    When I’m feeling

At the counter                                  Someone watching me

For the man                                     And so I raise my head

To pour the coffee                                   

 

And he fills it                                 There’s a woman

Only halfway                                    On the outside

And before                                      Looking inside

I even argue                                    Does she see me?

 

He is looking                                   No she does not

Out the window                                  Really see me

At somebody                                     Cause she sees

Coming in                                       Her own reflection

 

“It is always                                   And I’m trying

Nice to see you”                                Not to notice

Says the man                                    That she’s hitching

Behind the counter                              Up her skirt

 

To the woman                                    And while she’s

Who has come in                                 Straightening her stockings

She is shaking                                  Her hair has gotten wet

Her umbrella                                         

 

And I look                                      Oh this rain

The other way                                   It will continue

As they are kissing                             Through the morning

Their hellos                                    As I’m listening

 

I’m pretending                                  To the bells

Not to see them                                 Of the cathedral

Instead                                         I am thinking

I pour the milk                                 Of your voice…

 

I open                                          And of the midnight picnic

Up the paper                                    Once upon a time

There’s a story                                 Before the rain began…

Of an actor                                    

                                                I finish up my coffee

Who had died                                    It’s time to catch the train

While he was drinking

It was no one

I had heard of.

 

 

What is this poem really about??  THINK!  What images from this poem stand out in your mind?  Do you identify personally with any of these images—or do any of them make an impression on you?  Why is this an imagist poem?

 

 

 

BALLADS

 

 

Ballad of Birmingham 

By:  Dudley Randall

 

“Mother dear, may I go downtown

Instead of out to play,

And march the streets of Birmingham

In a Freedom March today?”

 

“No, baby, no, you may not go,

For the dogs are fierce and wild,

And clubs and hoses, guns and jails

Aren’t good for a little child.”

 

“But, mother, I won’t be alone,

Other children will go with me,

And march the streets of Birmingham

To make our country free.”

 

“No, baby, no, you may not go,

For I fear those guns will fire.

But you may go to church instead

And sing in the children’s choir.”

 

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair.

And bathed rose petal sweet,

And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,

And white shoes on her feet.

 

The mother smiled to know her child

Was in the sacred place,

But that smile was the last smile

To come upon her face.

 

For when she heard the explosion,

Her eyes grew wet and wild.

She raced through the streets of Birmingham

Calling for her child.

 

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,

Then lifted out a shoe.

“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,

But, baby, where are you?”

 

 

This poem recalls a very repulsive event in American history.  During the spring and summer of 1963, the ciry of Birmingham, Alabama, swarmed with civil rights activity.  Marching for freedom, Dr. Maritn Luther King, Jr. and other black leaders were arrested and hauled off to jail.  Other marchers—adults and children alike—were met with clubs, dogs, and fire hoses.  Then, one Sunday in September, a bomb exploded in the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church.  When the smoke cleared, four young black girls were found dead.

 

 

Answer the following:

 

1.      (a) What did the mother expect to happen to her daughter that day?  (b) What actually did happen?

 

2.      Read the historical background.  Which hypothesis (possible explanation) best explains the bombing?  (a) The bomb was dropped from a police helicopter.  (b) Racial prejudice resulted in the senseless slaughter of innocent people.  (c) Churches that mix violence with religion get what they deserve.

 

3.      The words dogs, clubs, hoses, guns, and jails have denotations that can be found in any dictionary.  Yet taken together in the context of this particular poem, they take on special connotations.  Explain why.

 

4.      Look at the first line of the last stanza.  What connotation does clawed have that a word like dug or poked would lack?

 

5.      President John Kennedy, who was assassinated about a month later, said at the time of the bombing that events like the bombing actually advanced the cause of civil rights.  What could he have possibly meant?

 


 

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

THE PHILOSOPHER

 

And what are you that, wanting you,

I should be kept awake

As many nights as there are days

With weeping for you sake?

 

And what are you that, missing you,

As many days as crawl

I should be listening to the wind

And looking at the wall?

 

I know a man that’s a braver man

And twenty men as kind,

And what are you, that you should be

The one man in my mind?

 

Yet women’s ways are witless ways,

As any sage will tell, --

And what am I, that I should love

So wisely and so well?

 

1.      The most original stanza is, of course, the last.  Explain the meaning of this stanza.  Is the speaker “witless,” ”wise,” or both at the same time?

2.      The poem is not rich in figurative language, but there is a good example in the second stanza.  What is it?

 

FIRST FIG

 

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light!

 

 

SECOND FIG

 

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:

Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

 

MIDNIGHT OIL

 

Cut if you will, with Sleep’s dull knife,

Each day to half its length, my friend,--

The years that Time takes off my life,

He’ll take from off the other end!

 

1.      “First Fig” and “Midnight Oil” contain allusions to familiar clichés.  What are these familiar expressions?

 

2.      The three poems are unusual in that they consist almost entirely of figurative languageParaphrase the meaning of each poem in a clear, original sentence.

 

3.      All three poems support a general philosophy of life:  Live the most wonderful life you can, right now!  In your opinion, what is good – and what is bad – about this advice?

 

4.      Relate this fact to one of the poems:  In her late fifties, Millay died of a heart attack after working nearly all night.

 

5.      Which poem contains an excellent example of personification?  Explain the comparison involved.

 

 

 

GROWN-UP

 

Was it for this I uttered prayers,

And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,

That now, domestic as a plate,

I should retire at half-past eight?

 

 

 

TRAVEL

 

The railroad track is miles away,

And the day is loud with voice speaking,

Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day

But I hear its whistle shrieking.

 

All night there isn’t a train goes by,

Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming.

But I see its cinders red on the sky,

And hear its engine steaming.

 

My heart is warm with the friends I make,

And better friends I’ll not be knowing;

Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,

No matter where it’s going.

 

 

 

 

 

FREE  VERSE

 

Find sample from Walt Whitmans poem: Song of Myself

 

This Dust Was Once the Man

By:  Walt Whitman

 

This dust was once the man,

Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand,

Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,

Was saved the Union of these States.

 

 

 

 

Answer the following: 

 

1.           What four adjectives describe the man?

 

2.           What did the man save?

 

3.           To what major event does “the foulest crime in history” refer?

 

4.           Who is the man referred to in the poem?

 

 

 

 

 

 

BLANK  VERSE

Birches      By:  Robert Frost

 

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

As ice storms do.  Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain.  They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter of fact about the ice storm,

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and  could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father’s trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer.  He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground.  He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where you face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

I’d like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return.  Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

 

Answer the following:

 

1.       What sort of childhood does a boy who lives “too far from town to learn baseball” have?  In describing the boy, whom is the speaker really describing?

2.       Restate lines 43 – 48 in your own words, explaining why the speaker wants to get away from earth.  According to lines 52-53, what is one reason he does NOT want to escape from earth?

3.       What kinds of activities might swinging on birches represent?  What might “could bear no more” signify?

4.      What general statement, based on the poem, can you make about Frost’s relationship with nature? Frost himself once wrote:

 

There are two types of realist—the one who offers a good deal of dirt with his potato to show that it is a real one; and the one who is satisfied with the potato brushed clean.  I’m inclined to be the second kind…To me, the thing that art does for life is to strip it to form.

1.      Explain in your own words the two types of realist Frost describes.  How would Frost’s poems be different if he were the first kind of realist?

 

2.      Do you agree with Frost’s statement about what art does?  Why or why not?

CONTEMPORARY

“The River”

      By:  Garth Brooks

 

You know a dream is like a river, ever changing as it flows. 

And a dreamer’s just a vessel that must follow where it goes.

Trying to learn from what’s behind you and never knowing what’s in store

makes each day a constant battle just to stay between the shores.

 

      And I will sail my vessel ‘til the river runs dry.

      Like a bird upon the wind, these waters are my sky.

      I’ll never reach my destination if I never try,

      So I will sail my vessel ‘til the river runs dry.

 

Too many times we stand aside an let the water slip away.

To what we put off ‘til tomorrow has now become today.

So don’t you sit upon the shore and say you’re satisfied.

Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tides.

 

      And I will sail my vessel ‘til the river runs dry.

      Like a bird upon the wind, these waters are my sky.

      I’ll never reach my destination if I never try,

      So I will sail my vessel ‘til the river runs dry.

 

There’s bound to be rough waters, and I know I’ll take some falls.

With the good Lord as my captain, I can make it through them all.

 

      And I will sail my vessel ‘til the river runs dry.

      Like a bird upon the wind, these waters are my sky.

      I’ll never reach my destination if I never try,

      So I will sail my vessel ‘til the river runs dry.

Identify the following in the “The River”:  simile, metaphor, alliteration, hyperbole, couplet, personification,    (anything else?).

 

 

 

 

“Music of the Night”

      By:  Andrew Lloyd Webber

 

Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation.

Darkness wakes and stirs imagination.

Silently the senses abandon their defenses,

Helpless to resist the notes I write,

For I compose the Music of the Night.

 

Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendor.

Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender.

Hearing is believing.  Music is deceiving.

Hard as lightening. Soft as candlelight.

Dare you trust the Music of the Night?

 

Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,

And the truth isn’t what you want to see.

In the dark it is easy to pretend…

That the truth is what it ought to be.

 

Softly, deftly, music shall caress you.

Hear it, fear it, secretly possess you.

Open up your mind; let your fantasies unwind.

In this darkness which you know you cannot find.

The darkness of the Music of the Night.               (continued)

 

Close your eyes, start a journey to a strange new world.

Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before.

Close your eyes and let music set you free…

Only then can you belong to me.

 

Floating, falling, sweet intoxication.

Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation.

Let the dream begin; let your darker side give in

To the power of the music that I write,

The power of Music of the Night.

 

You alone can make my song take flight.

Help me make the Music of the Night.

 

Identify the following:  personification, imagery, alliteration, metaphor, simile, etc.

 

WRITING PROJECT #FIVE

 

1.           Copy down the words to at least 2 songs.

2.           Label the examples of poetic devices found in each song.

3.           Write a paragraph (50 words) explaining the theme and/or purpose of the song.

4.           Make/decorate cover and back cover to create a booklet.

Note:  You must have at least 2 songs.

       You must find at least 3 different poetic devices in each song.

       Songs may not contain profanity or inappropriate content.

Poetic devices to consider:  alliteration, ballad, elegy, irony, paradox, allusion, hyperbole, metaphor, personification, assonance, couplet, imagery, onomatopoeia, simile, and many, many MORE!!

 

WRITING  PROJECT  #SIX

 

Below there are samples of a variety of different types of poetry.  Read these and then write one poem of each type.

 

The Cinquain:  A “syllable count poem” about anything and does not have to rhyme.

 

(option one)

First line   2 syllables

Second line  4 syllables

Third line   6 syllables

Fourth line  8 syllables

Fifth line   2 syllables

 

 

Man

Strong, masculine

Working, walking, talking

Ruler of the weaker sex

Man                            Report card

                               Rectangular, white

                               Disappoints, encourages, grounds

                               No Honda or pool

Life                               Report card

Fun, dangerous

Being, living, dying

Everyone does it once

Life!

 

Exercise:

(option two – you may use option one for this exercise)

1.   First line -- write down a noun—the name of a person, place, thing, or idea.

2.   Second line -- write two adjectives, or words that describe the noun.  Separate the two words by a comma.                               (continued)

3.   Third line – write three verbs or action words which tell what the noun in the first line does.  Again, use separation comma.

4.   Fourth line – write a thought about your noun.  The though may be a sentence, but a phrase of three to five words is fine.

5.   Fifth line – you may repeat the noun for the fifth line, or you may use another word which the noun suggests to you.

6.   Check to see that the first word of each line is capitalized and that there are no end punctuation marks.                              

 

Haiku:  Haiku is a type of Japanese poetry that has seventeen syllables and just three lines.  It is a short poem that captures a moment in nature.

 

Line 1          Five syllables

Line 2          Seven syllables

Line 3          Five syllables

 

Write a Haiku

 

Number poem: 

 

For this poem, you will use a number (telephone, social security, birthday, etc.) of at least 7 digits that has some meaning for you.  This will determine the number of syllables per line.  You must have at least six lines, and zeros count as ten.

 

Example:

 

254-5672

 

Line 1:  2 syllables

Line 2:  5 syllables

Line 3:  4 syllables

Line 4:  5 syllables

Line 5:  6 syllables

Line 6:  7 syllables

Line 7:  2 syllables

 

Write a number poem.

 

Pantoums:  A pantoum is a poem where you write eight lines of a sixteen line poem with a preset rhyme scheme.  Don’t let all the lines confuse you.  This is really fairly simple if you follow the directions.

 

Step 1:  Write the first four lines with a rhyme scheme of abab.

Step 2:  Copy lines 2 and 4 to lines 5 and 7.

Step 3:  Write lines 6 and 8 (rhyme = c)

Step 4:  Copy lines 6 and 8 to lines 9 and 11.

Step 5:  Write lines 10 and 12  (rhyme = d)

Step 6:  Copy lines 10 and 12 to lines 13 and 15.

Step 7:  Copy lines 3 and 1 to lines 14 and 16  (in that order)

 

PANTOUM   ORDER

 

      Line #                    Rhyme Scheme

1                                                                                                                    a

2                                                                                                                    b

3                                                                                                                    a

4                                                                                                                    b

2    5                          b

6                          c

4    7                          b

8                                                                                                                    c

 

6    9                          c

     10                         d

8    11                         c

12                                                                                                               d

 

10   13                         d

3    14                         a

12   15                         d

1    16                         a


 

EVALUATION

 

Write a few paragraphs of evaluation that discusses your favorite type of poetry and why.  This is a personal evaluation of this unit.  Include your observations on the different types of poetry we discussed and why you did or did not appreciate each type.