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Figurative Language, Conflict, Characterization

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What do you already know? What are your own ideas and assumptions about poetry? What are your favorite poems or poets?

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Is poetry dead? You can tell that a medium is still vital by posing the question: Can it change anything? Can a poem still change anything? We know, we think, from high school, the sort of thing a poem is. It is generally in free verse, although it could be a sonnet, if it wanted. It describes something very carefully, or it makes a sound we did not expect, and it has deep layers that we need to analyze. We analyze it. We analyze the heck out of it. How quaint, we think, that people express themselves in this way. Then we put it back in the drawer and go about our lives.

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All the prestige of poetry dates back to when it was the way you got the most vital news there is your peoples stories. The Iliad. The Odyssey. Gilgamesh. All literature used to be poetry. But then fiction splintered off. Then the sort of tale you sung could be recorded and the words did not have to spend any time outside the company of their music if they did not want to. We have movies now that are capable of presenting images to us with a precision that would have made Ezra Pound keel over. All the things that poetry used to do, other things do much better

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And there is a similar hunger for poetry that persists. We get it in diluted doses in song lyrics. Song lyrics are incomplete poems, as Sondheim notes in the book of his own. If it is complete on the page, it makes a shoddy lyric. But there is still wonderful music to be found in those words. We get it in rap. If we really want to read it, it is everywhere. Poetry, taken back to its roots, is just the process of making and making you listen.

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What is Poetry? Defined in the dictionary as; A Literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. Defined by Poets as; "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings- William Wordsworth "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing.-Dylan Thomas

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Defining Poetry Even though poetry can be defined it seems like the characteristic most central to the definition of poetry is its unwillingness to be defined, labeled, or nailed down. To use figurative language, you could say that poetry is a paint splattered canvas but instead of paint the poet uses words to create an image.

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What we think poetry is Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats (Excerpt) O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. There is another sky by Emily Dickinson There is another sky, Ever serene and fair, And there is another sunshine, Though it be darkness there; Never mind faded forests, Austin, Never mind silent fields - Here is a little forest, Whose leaf is ever green; Here is a brighter garden, Where not a frost has been; In its unfading flowers I hear the bright bee hum: Prithee, my brother, Into my garden come!

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Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends.

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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.

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We normally think of poetry as something that rhymes, is traditional, and long, and it is that, but it is also much more. Poetry can be short, long, serious, humorous, light or dark. It can be what we think of when we imagine a poem or it could be different.

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What poetry can be Seeker Of Truth by E. E. Cummings seeker of truth follow no path all paths lead where truth is here This is Just to Say, William Carlos Williams I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

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Anis Mojgani- Shake the Dust http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qDtHdloK44 Spoken word poet Winner of multiple poetry slam contests

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Introduction to Poetry By Billy Collins I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poems room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the authors name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.

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Introduction to Poetry-Billy Collins Eating Poetry-Mark Strand

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Analyzing poetry Identify one key question you have about the poem and one moment with a strong visual.

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Poetry Defined? So, in reality, it is difficult to truly define poetry because in defining it you take away the depth, beauty and creativity that is poetry!

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Our Generation A poem by 14 year old Jordan Nichols

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Our Generation What comes to your mind when you see these words? Are there certain words, ideas, actions, etc that are closely related with what your generation is, could be or could do?

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Our Generation Adding to your first response; What do you think after having heard this poem? Do you agree with the ideas from the poem? Do you disagree?

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When you finish your response, share what you though with the person sitting next to you. What did you think

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Our Generation Now take a look at the poem in a different way. Read the poem from bottom to top. Now what is it saying? What do you think? Do you agree now? Disagree? What do you think about how this poem was put together? Were you surprised by how the poem changed when viewed/read in a new way?

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Is poetry dead? Still I think there is a question to be asked. You can tell that a medium is still vital by posing the question: Can it change anything? Can a poem still change anything? Poetry, taken back to its roots, is just the process of making and making you listen.

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Figurative language Reminder Language used to help readers visualize and experience what is occurring in a piece of writing Theres a lot of examples in Romeo and Juliet

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Imagery Imagery is a word or phrase that refers to a sensory experience (sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste) that helps create a physical experience for the reader and helps the reader understand. Examples: I heard the shrill cry of the kittens screams in contrast with the clanking of the ceramic mugs even before I entered the kitchen. Their eyes were only squinting as they popped their velvety-soft heads out of the hand-crafted mugs; the silhouette of whiskers could be seen in contrast with the ivory tint of the mugs.

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Simile A comparison of two things that at first seem quite different but are shown to have significant resemblance. Similes employ connective words, usually like, as, than, or a verb such as resembles. Examples: The panda cub slept like a newborn baby. The panda cub resembled a half-eaten Oreo cookie.

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Metaphor A statement that one thing is something else that, in a literal sense, it is not. By asserting that a thing is something else, a metaphor creates a close association that underscores an important similarity between these two things. Example: The Mclaren P1 is the cheetah of the car world. It is a monster that cannot be stopped.

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Personification Applying human-like qualities to non-human beings/inanimate objects. The wind howled through the trees The toys came alive when no one was around.

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Sonnets Sonnet- little song Italian origin In a traditional Shakespearean Sonnet: There are 14 lines. Contains three quatrains, each with an independent pair of alternating rhymes, and a couplet at the end. The poet introduces at least one volta (or a jump or shift in direction of the emotions or thought), before the couplet at the end.

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Sonnet Form a b a b - End words of first quatrain in alternating rhyme. c d c d - End words of second quatrain in alternating rhyme. - Shift. e f e f - End words of third quatrain in alternating rhyme. - Turn. g g - Final couplet.

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Written in Iambic Pentameter The English sonnet is a form consisting of 14 lines that follow iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter means that a line of verse consists of five sets of syllable groups, with the first syllable unstressed and second syllable stressed. Here is an example: ba Dum, ba Dum, ba Dum, ba Dum, ba Dum. (stress on the syllable dum). The English sonnet consists of three quatrains and a closing couplet. (A couplet is a pair of lines that rhyme; a quatrain is four lines of verse with a rhyme scheme of a b a b.)