Tyr s Day, February 3: Poetry Defined #2: a momentary stay against confusion

Transcription

1 Tyr s Day, February 3: Poetry Defined #2: a momentary stay against confusion EQ: How can poetry bring clarity particularly when it confuses us? Welcome! Gather POEMS FROM FRONT, pen/cil, paper, wits! Famous Poetry Definition #2: Robert Frost Stays Against Confusion: Robert and Emily ELACC12RL3: Analyze the impact of an author s choices ELACC12RL4-RI4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in text ELACC12RL5: Analyze an author s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text ELACC12W4: Produce clear and coherent writing ELACC12W5: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing ELACC12W6: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update writing ELACC12W10: Write routinely over extended time frames or a single sitting ELACC12SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in collaborative discussions ELACC12L1: Demonstrate standard English grammar and usage in speaking and writing ELACC12L6: Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases

2 AP English Language & Composition Scoring Guide [Adapted from College Board scoring guides by Valerie Stevenson AP English Language and Literature, Patrick Henry High School Reprint date: 5/30/12] 9s (100) meet the criteria for 8 papers in addition especially original or counterintuitive in approach, full in their analysis, or demonstrate particularly impressive control of language. 8s (90) effectively accomplish both reading and writing task of prompt. They articulate an original, striking thesis that nails the prompt, develop thesis logically and philosophically, support it with a variety of evidence found both inside appropriate text(s) and in the larger world, comment intelligently on the use of language in the given selection, and conclude memorably and effectively all in prose that is grammatically sound, rhetorically appropriate, and possessed of an individual voice. 7s (80) are strong 6s which provide more complete analysis or demonstrate more mature prose. 6s (75): adequate address of prompt; solid, focused thesis, logical and philosophical development, counterargument, broad and accurate evidence, clear closure, effective prose. May err in interpretation, offer less convincing explanations of language functions, or have lapses in diction or syntax. 5s (70): uneven, inconsistent, no-man s land between upper and lower half papers an obvious or fuzzy thesis, pay little attention to counterargument or philosophical development, cite evidence cursorily or superficially, attempt but fail to find closure, or present superficial or demonstrate unsophisticated ideas. There may be several lapses in diction or syntax, but their prose conveys the writer s ideas. 4s (60): an inadequate response to the prompt, incomplete or inadequate understanding of the prompt. Thesis very obvious or unfocused, and little attempt at philosophical development or counterargument Text support superficial or mistaken; prose formulaic or suggests immature control of writing. 3s (50) simplistic analysis, uncontrolled writing. 2s (40): little success in addressing the prompt, lack identifiable thesis, offer vague generalizations/little support, or substitute simpler tasks such as summarizing or listing. Prose demonstrates consistent writing weaknesses, disorganization, too many grammatical problems, or a lack of control. Any essay with many distracting errors in grammar, mechanics, and/or phrasing will score no higher than a 2. 1s (30) are especially brief or simplistic in discussion of the prompt or weak in their control of language. 0s demonstrate no serious attempt to engage the topic or assignment. Essay Component Being Evaluated Thesis: absent to vague to obvious to original Argument: absent to illogical to clear to convincing Content: varied, specific, accurate, impressive Cogency: haphazard to clear to compelling Language: rudimentary to academic to vibrant Comments: Total x.2 = ; Essay Grade

3 Famous definition #1: William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1804) All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility.

4 Famous definition #2: Robert Frost, The Figure A Poem Makes (1939) The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion. No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn't know I knew.

5 The Vacuum BY HOWARD NEMEROV The house is so quiet now The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet, Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth Grinning into the floor, maybe at my Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth. I ve lived this way long enough, But when my old woman died her soul Went into that vacuum cleaner, and I can t bear To see the bag swell like a belly, eating the dust And the woolen mice, and begin to howl Because there is old filth everywhere She used to crawl, in the corner and under the stair. I know now how life is cheap as dirt, And still the hungry, angry heart Hangs on and howls, biting at air. Howard Nemerov, The Vacuum from The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov. Copyright 1977 by Howard Nemerov. Reprinted with the permission of Margaret Nemerov.

6 a momentary stay against confusion 1. Gwendolyn Brooks ( ) First Fight 2. Claude McKay ( ) America First fight. Then fiddle. Ply the slipping string With feathery sorcery; muzzle the note With hurting love; the music that they wrote Bewitch, bewilder. Qualify to sing Threadwise. Devise no salt, no hempen thing For the dear instrument to bear. Devote The bow to silks and honey. Be remote A while from malice and from murdering. But first to arms, to armor. Carry hate In front of you and harmony behind. Be deaf to music and to beauty blind. Win war. Rise bloody, maybe not too late For having first to civilize a space Wherein to play your violin with grace. Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger s tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth. Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate, Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer. Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time s unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand. 3. Edmund Spenser ( ) Amoretti XXX 4. William Stafford ( ) Traveling Dark My Love is like to ice, and I to fire: How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold, But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, And feel my flames augmented manifold? What more miraculous thing may be told, That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice, And ice, which is congeal d with senseless cold, Should kindle fire by wonderful device? Such is the power of love in gentle mind, That it can alter all the course of kind. Traveling through the dark I found a deer dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead. By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing; she had stiffened already, almost cold. I dragged her off; she was large in the belly. My fingers touching her side brought me the reason: her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting, alive, still, never to be born. Beside that mountain road I hesitated. The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights; under the hood purred the steady engine. I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red; around our group I could hear the wilderness listen. I thought hard for us all my only swerving, then pushed her over the edge into the river.

7 5. Robert Frost ( ) The Road Not Taken 6. Emily Dickinson ( ) (591) 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. I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air - Between the Heaves of Storm - The Eyes around - had wrung them dry - And Breaths were gathering firm For that last Onset - when the King Be witnessed - in the Room - I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away What portion of me be Assignable - and then it was There interposed a Fly - With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz - Between the light - and me - And then the Windows failed - and then I could not see to see -