Poetry

Poetry Notebook: Table of Contents1. Table of Contents2. Poetry Bingo Board3. Robert Frost poems4. Analyzing Literature: “A Time To Talk” & “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” Venn Diagram & 2 paragraphs—one comparing and one contrasting5. “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman6. Analysis: “O Captain! O Captain!”7. Haiku—history and 3 examples8. Analyzing Literature: “Oranges” Gary Soto9. Cinquain—definition & examples10. Diamonte—definition & examples11. Analysis: “The Courage That My Mother Had” Edna St. Vincent Millay12. Analysis: “Legacy II” Leroy V. Quintana13. Analysis: “The Secret Heart” Robert T. Tristram Coffin 14. Analyzing Literature: Langston Hughes 15. Analyzing Literature: Sydney Lanier 16. Limerick—definition & examples17. Analyze Choice of Lyrics 18. Analysis: “Identity” by Julio Naboa Polanco19. Write your own poem (minimum of 3 stanzas)20. Write your own poem (minimum of 3 stanzas)

1. onomatopoeia: The use of words whose sounds imitate or suggest their meaning. (Wow! Bang! Screech!)2. personification: An animal or object is given human characteristics (The cat requested food for a reward, the train lazily ascended the hill)3. metaphor: compares two things without using like or as (Her soft voice was a euphony to his ears) 4. alliteration: The repetition of initial sounds in words (Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers)5. prose: anything that is NOT poetry (essay, story, journal entry, novel)6. simile: comparing two things using like or as (The warrior fought like a lion)7. irony: When the unexpected happens (A man won the lottery and died the next day.) Can also be when things seem one way but actually are another (spending thousands of dollars to replace a diamond ring you borrowed only to find out it wasn’t a real diamond) Sarcasm is another type of irony (It was as pleasant as a root canal procedure)8. hyperbole: huge exaggeration (The path seemed to go on forever)9. imagery: words that help you create a picture in your mind using the senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell) 10. foreshadowing: hints or clues of what will happen next11. pun: a play on words (The coach keeps giving me the run-around when I ask him if I made the track team.)12. idiom: when the phrase is not taken literally (We were just shooting the breeze – meaning not talking about anything important)13. symbol: when something stands for something else. (The pearl represents avarice or greed in THE PEARL) 14. flashback: interruption in the present action to show what has happened in the past 15. Allusion: A reference to someone or something from literature, history, religion mythology, politics, sports or another field that many people are familiar with.16. protagonist: The main character in a work of literature.

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“Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening”

“A Time To Talk”

“Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening”

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 queer

To stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.

  He gives his harness bells a shake

To 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

Robert Frost

“A Time to Talk”WHEN a friend calls to me from the roadAnd slows his horse to a meaning walk,I don’t stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven’t hoed,And shout from where I am, What is it?No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,Blade-end up and five feet tall,And plod: I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.

Walt Whitman“O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills; 10For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head; It is some dream that on the deck, 15 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 20 Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

Poem Civil War

A Japanese poem about nature, seasons, or landscapes. 17 syllables in 3 lines (5-7-5).

Haiku

Dry green grassy hillSleeping plants in the freezing groundWaiting for green spring

The cinquain is a simple, 5 line verse form. Its structure follows specific rules.

Structure: Line 1—one word of two syllables (may be the

title) Line 2—four syllables (describing the subject or

title) Line 3—six syllables (showing action) Line 4—eight syllables (expressing a feeling or

observation about the subject) Line 5—two syllables (describing or renaming

the subject)

Cinquain

Kitten Frisky, playfuljumping, playing, lookingcreep silently on padded paws

Meeko

The diamonte is a concrete poem shaped like a diamond. The purpose is to go from the subject at the top of the diamond to another totally (and sometimes opposite) subject at the bottom.

Structure: Line 1—one noun (subject #1) Line 2—two adjectives (describing subject #1) Line 3—three participles (ending in –ing, telling about subject #1) Line 4—four nouns (first two related to subject #1, second two

related to subject #2) Line 5—three participles (about subject #2) Line 6—two adjectives (describing subject #2) Line 7—one noun (subject #2)

Diamonte

Dachshund Silly, sleepy Running, playing, barkingPuppy, companion, lunch, weiner Eating, grilling, picnicking Yummy, delicious hotdog

Plot Figurative language

Connections Author information

“The Courage That My Mother Had” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Plot Figurative language

Connections Author information

“Legacy II” by Leroy V. Quintana

Plot Figurative language

Connections Author information

“The Secret Heart” by Robert Tristram Coffin

“The Negro Speaks Of Rivers” I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than

the flow if human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above

it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston HughesHughes described how he came to write this poem: “Now it was just sunset, and we crossed the Mississippi, slowly, over a long bridge. I looked out the window of the Pullman (train car) at the great muddy river flowing down toward the heart of the South, and I began to think what that river, the old Mississippi, had meant to Negroes in the past—how to be sold down the river was the worst fate that could overtake a slave in times of bondage…Then I began to think about other rivers in our past…”

“Mother To Son” Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair, It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare. But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now— For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal

stair.

Langston Hughes

Here a mother tells her son to continue to strive despite life’s hardships. The poem contains one of Hughes’s most memorable lines: “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”

“I, Too” I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the

kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then.

Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

Langston Hughes

Hughes composed this poem in 1924 at the age of twenty-two, when he found himself broke in the Italian city of Genoa. The first line of this poem probably alludes to the poetry of Walt Whitman, the American poet who died ten years before Hughes was born. One of Whitman’s poems is entitled “I Hear America Singing.”

I. Early Life A. B. C. D. E.

II. Post Civil WarA. B. C. D. E.

III. MusicianA. B. C. D. E.

IV. Poet and ScholarA. B. C. D.E.

V.Posthumous honorsA.B.C.D.E.

Sidney Lanier

A five line humorous poem with an AABBA rhyme scheme.

Limericks

A Clumsy Young Fellow Named TimThere once was a fellow named Tim (A) whose dad never taught him to swim. (A) He fell off a dock (B) and sunk like a rock. (B) And that was the end of him. (A)

There was an Old Man with a beard,Who said, 'It is just as I feared!Two Owls and a Hen,Four Larks and a Wren,Have all built their nests in my beard!'by Edward Lear

There was a small boy of QuebecWho was buried in snow to his neckWhen they said, "Are you friz?"He replied, " Yes, I is —But we don't call this cold in Quebec" by Rudyard Kipling

Hickory, dickory, dock.The mouse ran up the clock.The clock struck oneand down he run.Hickory, dickory, dock.by Mother Goose