English 215 Becker Sophomore poetry unit!! We re about to start reading A Midsummer Night s Dream, which contains poetry, prose, monologue, dialogue, puns, Latin words, and (um) star-crossed lovers, sort of. Objective: By the end of our mini-unit on poetry, you will be able to: identify key components of a poem and say something about them (you had practice with this last year, so this will mostly be a review. We ll consider Line and stanza Metre Diction (word choice) and connotation Mood Tone Figurative language (Metaphor and simile) Theme Kinds of poems, narrative, lyric, elegy, homage, how to, found, etc. use some of the tools in a poet s toolbox to write our own poems, using (instead of form) sound devices, figurative language, theme, and structure to write about something in a way that challenges the readers expectations. My hope is that reading, discussing, and writing about poetry, as well as writing a poem of your own, will help us SLOW DOWN a bit as we begin Midsummer. It s a great play funny, silly, loving, and about love. And, in order to understand not just plot but also nuance, you need to be able to read slowly and carefully for details. But, it s also a FUN play, and poetry which captures so much of the range of the human experience is fun too. Assessments: Reading poetry + discussion (informal) An original poem A reflection, in which you explicate your work and describe how and why you made the choices that you ve made in your poem.
Part 1: What is a poem? Poems can take many forms. They can be formal (like a sonnet), and have a set structure which dictates line length in syllables, and stanza length in lines. Here s a Shakespearean Sonnet. 1) SONNET 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Poems can also be a way to express loss, or grief, as in Ben Jonson s elegy, which uses rhyming couplets throughout. 2) On My First Son by Ben Jonson Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy ; My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy. Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. Oh, could I lose all father now! For why Will man lament the state he should envy? To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage, And if no other misery, yet age! Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, Here doth lie Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry. For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such As what he loves may never like too much.
3) Oranges Gary Soto The first time I walked With a girl, I was twelve, Cold, and weighted down With two oranges in my jacket. December. Frost cracking Beneath my steps, my breath Before me, then gone, As I walked toward Her house, the one whose Porch light burned yellow Night and day, in any weather. A dog barked at me, until She came out pulling At her gloves, face bright With rouge. I smiled, Touched her shoulder, and led Her down the street, across A used car lot and a line Of newly planted trees, Until we were breathing Before a drugstore. We Entered, the tiny bell Bringing a saleslady Down a narrow aisle of goods. I turned to the candies Tiered like bleachers, And asked what she wanted - Light in her eyes, a smile Starting at the corners Of her mouth. I fingered A nickle in my pocket, And when she lifted a chocolate That cost a dime, I didn t say anything. I took the nickle from My pocket, then an orange, And set them quietly on The counter. When I looked up, The lady s eyes met mine, And held them, knowing Very well what it was all About.
Outside, A few cars hissing past, Fog hanging like old Coats between the trees. I took my girl s hand In mine for two blocks, Then released it to let Her unwrap the chocolate. I peeled my orange That was so bright against The gray of December That, from some distance, Someone might have thought I was making a fire in my hands. The above poems (1, 2, 3) have SPEAKERS, from whose point of view each poem is told. What do we know about each of the speakers in the above poems? How do we know that? Speaker 1: Speaker 2: Speaker 3: Exercise: Gary Soto calls this poem Oranges, but he tells a story that s actually about something else. Select an object, and tell a story in a poem in which it figures prominently. Think about the speaker s attitude towards the object, and try to convey that tone through word choice (or diction)
Part 2: Lines/Stanzas. The Backbone of a poem Poems are organized by lines, and in stanzas. Lines can end with punctuation, or they can be enjambed, where the reader would naturally carry on to the next line (instead of pausing) until punctuation ends it. Traveling through the Dark By William Stafford 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. Highlight all the punctuation you see. Why do you think Stafford uses so many different kinds of punctuation here? What purpose does it seem to serve? (note: also, underline one example of enjambment). EXERCISE: Write about an unpleasant discovery. Write in prose, then, convert your prose into a poem.
The Sloth by Theodore Roethke In moving-slow he has no Peer. You ask him something in his Ear, He thinks about it for a Year; And, then, before he says a Word There, upside down (unlike a Bird), He will assume that you have Heard A most Ex-as-per-at-ing Lug. But should you call his manner Smug, He'll sigh and give his Branch a Hug; Then off again to Sleep he goes, Still swaying gently by his Toes, And you just know he knows he knows. I love this poem. It s so funny and sweet. How does Rothke use punctuation, capitalization, etc. to make us love the sloth? What does slothful mean? How is this poem slothful? (Think about the speed at which it calls for being read). Part 3) Word choice: Diction, and Connotation The Harbor Passing through huddled and ugly walls By doorways where women Looked from their hunger-deep eyes, Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands, Out from the huddled and ugly walls, I came sudden, at the city's edge, On a blue burst of lake, Long lake waves breaking under the sun On a spray-flung curve of shore; And a fluttering storm of gulls, Masses of great gray wings And flying white bellies Veering and wheeling free in the open. - Carl Sandburg
Exercises on Denotation and Connotation Quick questions. 1. Which word in each group has the most romantic connotations? A) horse, steed, nag; B) king, ruler, tyrant, autocrat; C) Chicago, Pittsburgh, Samarkand, Birmingham 2. Which word in each group is the most emotionally connotative? A) female, parent, mother, dam; B) offspring, children, progeny; C) brother, sibling 3. Arrange the words in order from most POSITIVE to most NEGATIVE in connotation: A) Skinny, thin, gaunt, slender; B) prosperous, loaded, moneyed, opulent; C) brainy, intelligent, egg-headed, smart 4. Which of the following should you be less offended by? A) Having acted foolishly B) Having acted like a fool There is no frigate There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away, Nor any coursers like a page Of prancing poetry. This traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of toll; How frugal is the chariot That bears a human soul! A frigate is a kind of sailing warship - Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) 1. In this poem, Emily Dickinson is considering the power of a book or of poetry to carry us away, to take us from our immediate surroundings into a world of the imagination. To do this she has compared literature to various means of transportation: a boat, a team of horses, a wheeled land vehicle. She has chosen kinds of transportation and names for them that have certain connotations: What connotations are suggested by frigate, coursers, and chariot? How much of the meaning of the poem changes if we try to substitute steamship for frigate, horses for coursers, and streetcar for chariot? 2. What is lost if miles is substituted for lands or cheap for frugal? 3. How is prancing peculiarly appropriate to poetry as well as to coursers? Could the poet without loss have compared a book to coursers and poetry to a frigate?
Part 4. Figurative language: Simile, Metaphor Similes, as you all Poems often focus on small things to suggest larger ones. This Frost poem seems to be about two insects (an arachnid and an insect, actually) but is actually about something much larger. What does the title tell us about its larger meaning? Design By Robert Frost I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -- A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite. What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?-- If design govern in a thing so small. What is the story of this poem? Literally? What is the figurative story of this poem? Why does Frost title his poem Design? What is the tone of this poem, and how do you know? How does Frost feel about his subject matter?
And the last poem in the packet, and one of my favorites. Ever. Owen was a British soldier in WW1. DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1) Wilfred Owen Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4) Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind. Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9)... Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12) Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13) To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.(15) 8 October 1917 - March, 1918 Notes on Dulce et Decorum Est 1. DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country. 2. Flares - rockets which were sent up to burn with a brilliant glare to light up men and other targets in the area between the front lines (See illustration, page 118 of Out in the Dark.) 3. Distant rest - a camp away from the front line where exhausted soldiers might rest for a few days, or longer 4. Hoots - the noise made by the shells rushing through the air 5. Outstripped - outpaced, the soldiers have struggled beyond the reach of these shells which are now falling behind them as they struggle away from the scene of battle 6. Five-Nines - 5.9 calibre explosive shells
7. Gas! - poison gas. From the symptoms it would appear to be chlorine or phosgene gas. The filling of the lungs with fluid had the same effects as when a person drowned 8. Helmets - the early name for gas masks 9. Lime - a white chalky substance which can burn live tissue 10. Panes - the glass in the eyepieces of the gas masks 11. Guttering - Owen probably meant flickering out like a candle or gurgling like water draining down a gutter, referring to the sounds in the throat of the choking man, or it might be a sound partly like stuttering and partly like gurgling 12. Cud - normally the regurgitated grass that cows chew usually green and bubbling. Here a similar looking material was issuing from the soldier's mouth 13. High zest - idealistic enthusiasm, keenly believing in the rightness of the idea 14. ardent - keen 15. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - see note 1 above.