May 5, 2014 Agenda: 1. Poetry Project 2. "Voyages" analysis Homework: 1. Type your own copy of the poem and answer the discussion questions for your poem. (2 HW grades) 1
Poetry Research Assignments POEM PERIOD 7 PERIOD 8 Still I Rise by Maya Angelou Joe, Angela Tucci Bailey, Amy Z., Emily Young by Anne Sexton Hanging Fire by Audre Lorde Angela Tocco, Jessica Christina, Julia Amy H., Sara, Madison Caroline, Olivia Aunt Jennifers Tigers by Adrienne Rich Storm Warnings by Adrienne Rich Lizzie, Sophia, Brittany Marisa, Sydney Lian, Rebecca Kate, Cordelia, Courtney anyone lived in a pretty how town by e.e. cummings Lawrence, Julie Livy, Belinda somewhere i have never traveled by e.e. cummings Eric, Skylar Elena, Laura, Audrey 2
Poetry Research Assignments POEM PERIOD 7 PERIOD 8 Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen Glory of Women by Siegfried Sassoon Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden Do Not Go Gentle into that Goodnight by Dylan Thomas When You are Old by William Butler Yeats Mother to Son by Langston Hughes Isaac, Dom James, Cole Victoria, Cameron Tyler, Rory, AJ Jarrett, Billy Alexis, Sarah Liam, Lucy Lukas, Brandon Barry, Chris Kyle, Ziad Ellen, Gillian Kristen, Julianna 3
Poetry Research Assignment Project Overview: 1. Type your own copy of the poem and answer the discussion questions for your poem. (2 HW grades) 2. Write an initial response to the poem. (HW grade, journal grade) 3. Write a prose paraphrase of the poem (HW grade) 4. Research information about the poet s typical style and influences (movements, other artists, etc.), record bibliographic information, and write a brief paragraph on the poet s style (2 HW grades) 5. Write an essay in which you fully explicate the poem using research and analysis (Essay grade) 6. OPTIONAL EXTRA CREDIT: using what you ve learned about your poet s style, write your own poem in imitation of his/her style. (up to 5pts on your essay) 4
Partner Work While most of the project will be completed independently, you and your partner may pool research sources for Step 3. However, be sure you each write your own research section for your papers. Please note: your partner may be someone from another English 10H class. You may want to swap phone numbers or e mail addresses. See your teacher for assistance. 5
Sections of the Project 5/6 1. TYPED COPY and DISCUSSION QUESTIONS. DO NOT SIMPLY CUT AND PASTE FROM THE INTERNET. TYPE IT. Why? Re writing it will make you pay attention to each word on the page and how it was intended, spacing, punctuation, and all. Your poem will also become the cover page of your essay, so you re getting a head start! Answer the discussion questions to help point you interpret the poem. 6
Sections of the Project 2. INITIAL RESPONSE 5/7 The initial response should be written after one or two readings of the poem but before you have analyzed it very much or completed any research. This response records your initial thoughts about, reactions to, and impressions of the poem. Honest grappling and confusion are fine at this point. It might be helpful to focus on a problem to solve or a question to answer or to write about why you liked/disliked the poem. Suggested (but not required) questions to consider for item #1: A. What point is the speaker trying to get across? B. What question or questions is the speaker trying to answer? C. What was the poet s intention, plan or purpose in writing this poem? (Hypothesize) D. What do you notice about the poem s structure and the poet s use of figurative language? E. What questions do you feel you need to answer (re: diction, imagery, structure, meaning, etc.) before you fully understand the poem? Focus on the poem. Do not include editorial comments on your personal feelings about poetry or poets. Hand the initial response in with a typed copy of the poem 7
3. PARAPHRASE 5/9 The paraphrase is a prose version of the poem in your own words. In other words, you will be writing in sentences and paragraphs rather than in verse and stanzas. You are explicating the literal meaning (section by section) while changing the language. 4. RESEARCH 5/12 This section requires library work. Read as many of the poet s works as possible (at least 5 8 poems) to reach an informed judgment on his/her techniques and style. Write a brief description of the poet s style as it applies to your poem. Research the poet s background to discern whether the poet is/was part of a particular literary movement (Romantic, Realist, Metaphysical, etc.). Note the poet s birth and death date in addition to any relevant biographical information that might help inform your reading of the poem. In this section of the paper, you will be required to provide internal documentation, so be certain to write down all of your sources! 8
Rough Draft: Tuesday, 5/13 4. ANALYSIS ESSAY Final Draft: Monday, 5/19 Your concluding essay should be an in depth explication of the poem with documentation of research sources. Meaning, style, and tone must be addressed. Pay attention to structure and shifts if they are important. Be sure to point out literary devices such as imagery, simile, metaphor, diction, personification, allusion, apostrophe, paradox, and irony, and clearly explain how these devices add to the poem s meaning. As always, all analysis of style should be tied to the meaning of the poem. Secondary sources should be documented using MLA parenthetical format (internal citations). When quoting from the poem, use line numbers. A bibliography in correct MLA format should follow the paper. Under the poet s name, list the titles of the other poems you read. 9
PAPER FORMAT AND LENGTH Final Paper Format You will submit a paper (hard copy) of your essay to me, and a digital version to turnitin.com. On the title page, write the title and author of the poem and TYPE the text of the poem, making sure to capture it exactly. (No photocopies Hand copying helps you pay careful attention to all the words.) The usual heading (name, course, date) should be on the top of the page. The introduction of your essay should include the poet s name as well as the title of the poem. Your thesis should address the meaning and style of the poem. The first body paragraph of your essay should include any relevant biographical information as well as information on the poet s style that you determined during your research. The following body paragraphs should explicate the poem section by section as suggested above. If you use any outside sources, such as critiques of the poem or the poet s style, be sure to cite them. The conclusion should summarize your main points and include some final reflections on the poet and/or poem. The final paper should be approximately three pages long. Drafts can be handwritten; the final version must be typed, double spaced (12 pt. font). 10
The Voyages by Gregory Orr It's late when I try to sleep, resting one hand on your hip, the other on my chest where the rise and fall of breath is a faint light that brightens and fades. Today the doctor placed his stethoscope against your belly and an amplifier filled the tiny room with a scene from old war movies the submarine, the churning of a destroyer's engines fathoms above rapt, terrified sailors. Child's heart, whose thrumming the doctor pronounced as perfect as such things can be guessed across such gulfs. Here, deep in the night, I calm my fears by choosing a place among Homer's crew, lolling on Hades' shore. Inland, Odysseus brims a trench with blood, extorts predictions from the thirsty dead. But common sailors already know that launching and wrecks make the same sounds: scrape of keel on rock, loud cries. As for the rest, we need our ignorance to keep us brave. 11
Discussion Questions 1. Why can t the speaker sleep? What is he worried about? 2. In lines 5 10, what is the speaker describing? How do you know? 3. What does the speaker mean by lines 12 13 ( as such things can be guessed across such gulfs )? 4. What is the purpose of the allusion to Odysseus? 5. Explain lines 19 21: But common sailors/already know that launching and wrecks make the same sounds. What point is the speaker making? 6. What is meant by we need our ignorance to keep us brave? 12
The Voyages Initial Response (Journal) The Voyages seems to be about the fears couples may have when a woman is pregnant. The speaker is probably a man, the father of the baby. He seems worried about the woman (his wife?) and his unborn child. This is seen in the lines I try to sleep, resting/one hand on your hip, the other on my chest/where the rise and fall of breath/is a faint light that brightens and fades. He appears to be listening to the sound of his own heartbeat, as if examining his own mortality, yet he has one hand on his wife, suggesting that he is also worried about her. The heartbeat is symbolic of life. He thinks about their visit to the doctor s office where the doctor examined his wife and listened to the sounds of the baby ( child s heart ). The sounds were foreign to him, and reminded him of a scene from old war movies with the sound of submarines. The fearful sailors serve as a metaphor for the speaker; like them, he is rapt or captivated by what is happening. The doctor said everything sounded perfect, meaning that he thinks the baby is fine, yet the speaker still worries about this. He says the doctor s prognosis is only as good as it can be guessed across such gulfs. I think he means that it s really impossible to tell if a baby is all right until it is born. (A gulf is like a gap or an abyss the space between the outside world and the baby inside the woman.) This further shows the speaker s anxiety; he doesn t quite trust the doctor, as he knows that the doctor is only guessing with his equipment. 13
In the second stanza of the poem, Orr makes an allusion to Homer s Odyssey. I m not quite sure what this means, but I think it has to do with Odysseus trip to Hades. The speaker says he is choosing a place among Homer s crew, so that means he does not associate himself with Odysseus, but rather one of his men. Why? He also uses the word lolling which has a positive connotation, as in happily hanging out. Why would anyone be happy hanging out in hell? This is unclear to me. Furthermore, the speaker says that Odysseus extorts predictions/ from the thirsty dead. I m not sure what this means. I will have to look up this allusion since I don t know what is meant by thirsty dead. The last part of the poem talks about the similarity between launching ships and wrecking them. I think the speaker means that it is difficult to tell the difference between the two based only on the sounds they make. (The sounds are so similar how do you know if they represent good or bad?) Perhaps he is saying that the doctor can t really know what is going on inside his wife s womb; he can only try to interpret sounds. The speaker worries that the doctor s interpretations could be wrong, and maybe there is something wrong with the baby. In the last line of the poem, he says, we need our ignorance to keep us brave. In other words, because he does not have any medical expertise, he has to rely on the doctor and assume that everything is okay. I think he is saying that childbirth is still really mysterious to most of us, and despite all the technology out there, it s impossible to know if a baby is truly healthy until it is born. Therefore, we just have to hope for the best be brave. 14
May 6, 2014 Agenda: 1. Library Research/ Work on Initial Response Homework: 1. Initial Response due tomorrow 15
SAMPLE Research Notes Gregory Orr, The Voyages A Conversation With Gregory Orr. Artful Dodge. Available <http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/orr.htm> (5 May 2007). Writes mostly in free verse but has been working with the villanelle "Orr has luckily brought to the form the same kind of intense, eloquent concern towards kinship, personal identity and memory that he evidences in his poetry. Orr, Gregory. The Making of Poems. NPR. Available <http://www.npr.org/> (5 May 2007) "I believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive. G. Orr "Because poems are meanings, even the saddest poem I write is proof that I want to survive." G. Orr 16
Stauffer, Donald Barlow. Gregory Orr. Contemporary Poets. Ed. Thomas Riggs. 7th ed. Detroit: St. James Press, 2001. p893 894. "The poetry of Gregory Orr attempts to come to terms with the facts of death and life." p.893 When he was twelve, he accidentally shot and killed his eight year old brother in a hunting accident. A few years later his mother died suddenly and unexpectedly. p.893 reason why he writes about death? Other poems written by Orr concerning death: "After a Death" and "Driving Home after a Funeral" likened to poet Stanley Kunitz "This sense of change versus selfhood is central to Orr's search for a way out of a potentially crippling youthful experience toward the renewed innocence of an emotionally integrated adult. p.894 "In spite of his numerous poems about death, Orr is not a grim or tragic poet. He has at least three other strings to his lyre: a gentle wit, a love of nature, and a recurring interest in sexual desire. p.894 17
Author s Style Orr writes a lot about personal experience, particularly on the motifs of death and survival ( A Litany, Father s Song, To be alive ). It seems to be a cathartic process for him, as he works through the accidental shooting of his brother when he was a child (Stauffer). He even published a book called Poetry as Survival. Orr uses a lot of imagery as shown in The Voyages often of blood and death. There are numerous references to blood in his poems. Diction plays an important role in his work as well. For example, To be alive is a really short poem, but uses strong diction and assonance ( carcass, spark ) to make a point. In terms of structure, Orr s work seems to be almost entirely free verse ( Artful Dodge ). His voice is direct not subtle, which makes his work seem very honest and forthright. There is something almost confessional about his work, as it is memoir in poetry form. 18
May 7, 2014 Agenda: 1. Library Research/ Work on Prose Paraphrase Homework: 1. Prose Paraphrase due tomorrow 19
The Voyages Prose Paraphrase It's late and I can t sleep. I have one hand resting on your hip, the other on my chest where I can feel the rise and fall of my breath. My breath is like a light that gets brighter and then darkens as I breathe in and out. Today the doctor placed his stethoscope against your pregnant belly and we heard the sounds out of an amplifier. Even though we were in a tiny doctor s office, the amplifier made it sound like we were watching scenes of an old war movie. I could hear a submarine, the loud stirring of a destroyer's engines. I imagined the spellbound, frightened sailors listening from above. But really, this was the sound of our child s heart, whose beating the doctor called perfect, which is really only a guess, since he cannot truly know what s going on way down inside your belly. Now, late at night, I try to calm myself by pretending I am part of Odysseus crew, hanging out on the shore of the River Styx, unaware. Somewhere, Odysseus is near a trench filled with blood, forcing the dead to give him predictions of what s to come. But regular sailors already know that launching ships and shipwrecks make the same sounds: the scrape of the ship s bottom on rock, loud cries from sailors. (You can t tell the difference between the two events.) Other than that, we need our lack of medical expertise to keep us from worrying that something is wrong with the baby. 20
May 8, 2014 Agenda: 1. Library Research Homework: 1. Research due Monday 2. Rough Draft due Tuesday, 5/13 3. Final Draft due Monday, 5/19 21
May 9, 2014 Agenda: 1. Library Research Homework: 1. Research due Monday 2. Rough Draft due Tuesday, 5/13 3. Final Draft due Monday, 5/19 22
May 12, 2014 Agenda: 1. Sample Essay 2. Presentation Format using "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" Homework: 1. Rough Draft: **Rough Draft due tomorrow 2. Annotate "Hanging Fire" and "Young" for Wednesday's Presentation 23
INTRODUCTION 1. Generalize about the TOPIC of your poem (2 3 sentences) 2. TAG your work 3. THESIS establish the THEME that the poet delivers in your particular poem 24
Analysis of The Voyages by Gregory Orr Throughout the centuries, poets have written about the universal emotions of fear, loss, love, and hope that accompany the birth of a child. Even in today s world, where research and technology have helped ease many parents burdens, pregnancy is still met with unanswerable questions and unrelenting fears. In his poem The Voyages, Gregory Orr tackles the legitimate fears that accompany the mystery of pregnancy. Despite all the technological advancements that have been made over the years, there is still no way to guarantee a perfect childbirth. However, as Orr suggests, no one can control or change the future, so sometimes it is best to remain peacefully ignorant of it. Like much of Orr s poetry, The Voyages deals with the tentative balance between life and death. This theme is echoed throughout many of Orr s works including The Entrance to the Underworld, and Gathering the Bones Together. Born in 1947, Orr was especially affected by his painful childhood. When he was twelve, he accidentally shot and killed his brother during a hunting accident; his mother died unexpectedly a few years later (Gale). These childhood traumas undoubtedly affected his work. Donald Barlow Stauffer of Contemporary Poets has stressed the burning intensity... compactness of language, and wise placement of a striking image that characterize Orr's poetry. Orr s economy of words 25
and his strong images are common features of his work. Stauffer has also emphasized a sense of change versus selfhood in Orr s poetry, suggesting his search for a way out of a potentially crippling youthful experience toward the renewed innocence of an emotionally integrated adult (Gale). Clearly, Orr has been able to use his pain to fuel his writing. As he himself stated: It seems to me what lyric poetry is always trying to do is to work from the sources of obsession, which is to say from deep psychological urgencies within the self, toward some transformation of obsession into a spiritual principle (Artful Dodge). Accordingly, Orr has used his poetry as a way of transforming obsession into art. In The Voyages, Orr explores the obsessive fear which consumes an expectant father. In the beginning of the poem, Orr describes the ordinary observations of a man watching his pregnant wife: It s late when I try to sleep, resting/one hand on your hip, the other on my chest/where the rise and fall of breath/is a faint light that brightens and fades. Orr s metaphor in this line, which compares his breath to light, seems at first positive and cheerful. However, even in this ordinary 26
observation, there lurks the fear of death. The speaker is poignantly aware of the rise and fall of his breath. This suggests his awareness of the frailty of life, which can extinguish like a light at any moment. When he recalls the afternoon meeting with the doctor, it, too, is filled with trepidation. He imagines the sound of the baby s heartbeat as a sound of battle. Orr uses imagery of the submarine,/the churning of a destroyer s engines/fathoms above rapt, terrified sailors to depict the unknown developments within his wife s womb. He further describes the Child s heart, whose thrumming the doctor/pronounced as perfect as something that can only be guessed across such gulfs. Though this analogy, which compares a woman s womb to an unpredictable battle, seems rather hyperbolic at first, it is actually quite apt. Just as soldiers can only anticipate their enemy s next move, the doctors can only predict so much across the unknown abyss, or gulf, of a woman s body. Thus, the speaker is not entirely calmed by the doctor s prognosis. In the second stanza of the poem, Orr relies on allusion to explain the speaker s transformation from a fearful future father to a man resigned to the uneasy peace of ignorance. Orr writes: Here, deep in the night, I calm my fears/by choosing a place among Homer s crew,/lolling on Hades shore. While Orr s diction and imagery still reveal the uneasiness of the speaker in phrases like deep in the night and on Hades shore, the tone of the poem changes in the second stanza. 27
While night and Hades connote darkness and death, the speaker s willingness to choose a place suggests he does not wish give in to hopelessness. Furthermore, he is lolling, on Hades shore, a word that implies a peaceful state of being. Still, it is important to note that the speaker does not wish to be Odysseus, but rather one of his crewmen. This suggests that he does not wish to try to elicit information about the future as Odysseus does, exhort[ing] predictions from the thirsty dead ; rather, he would like to be along for the ride, just as Odysseus crew sailed on from Hades impervious to the dangers that lay ahead. The final two lines of the poem relate the spiritual principle which Orr seeks to deliver. He writes: But common sailors/already know that launching and wrecks/make the same sounds: scrape of keel on rock,/loud cries. As for the rest,/we need our ignorance to keep us brave. Again, Orr uses imagery to portray the fear of the worst death while acknowledging that sounds can be interpreted in numerous ways. The sound of a boat launching can be the same as the sound of a boat sinking. Here he subtly points out that the doctor s positive reading of the heartbeat could just as well be something negative. However, as he thematically states in the last line, some things are better left unknown, for it is much easier to be hopeful and brave when ignorant. Because he is not educated in the medical field, the speaker cannot truly understand 28
the intricacies of his wife s pregnancy, but perhaps, he reasons, he is better off. Though Orr often writes about fear, pain, and tragedy, he is not a cynical writer. Perhaps this is because, as Stauffer said, he has become a fully integrated adult, able to reconcile his past with his present and future. Like the speaker in his poem, Orr was forced to carry on and be brave, in order to realize his dreams. Sometimes, as Orr suggests, it is possible to move beyond pain and find peace. Works Cited Artful Dodge. Wooster College. Accessed 13 May 2005 <http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/orr.htm>. Barlow, Donald Stauffer. Gregory Orr. Contemporary Poets, seventh edition. Detroit: St.James Press, 2001. Gregory Orr. Contemporary Authors Online. 2002. Thomson Gale. Accessed 13 May 2005. <http://galenet.galegroup.com>. Orr, Gregory. The Caged Owl, New and Selected Poems. Copper Canyon Press, 2002. p. 172. 29
A Romantic poet: Keats wrote to his friend: "I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the imagination. What imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth." This passage would eventually be transmuted into the concluding lines of "Ode on a Grecian Urn": "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty' that is all / you know on earth, and all ye need to know". 30
Notable Biographical Information: Born 1795 1821 Suffered from colds consumption (tuberculosis) Darkness, disease and depression surrounded his life, reflected in poems such as "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" where love and death both stalk. He famously wrote to Fanny (Frances) Brawne, "I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks;" he wrote to her, "...your loveliness, and the hour of my death". He repeatedly demanded of his doctors and friends in Rome "how long is this posthumous existence of mine to go on?" 31
La Belle Dame Sans Merci By John Keats (1795 1821) Ah, what can ail thee, knight at arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge is withered from the lake, plant And no birds sing. ballad Literary ballad: a poem that imitates a folk ballad. (A folk ballad tells a story on a theme popular with the common people of a particular culture or place. Generally of unknown authorship, a folk ballad passes by word of mouth from one generation.) Ah, what can ail thee, knight at arms, So haggard and so woe begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. mournful --Characterize knight I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever dew, And on thy cheek a fading rose Fast withereth too. 32
I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful a faery's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long; For sideways would she bend, and sing A faery's song. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said, I love thee true! heaven's nourishment 33
cave She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. And there we lulléd me asleep, And there I dreamed, and woe betide! The latest dream I ever dreamed On the cold hill side. about to happen I saw pale kings, and princes too, Pale warriors, death pale were they all; They cried La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!" I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke, and found me here, On the cold hill s side. 34
Unrequited Love Themes After telling the knight she loves him, the beautiful lady lulls him to sleep and abandons him. As he sits alone on a cold hillside, his unrequited love makes him physically ill. He lacks the energy and will to move on. All he can do is brood. Intense love may be self destructive. Impossible Love Line 30 of the poem says, "And there she wept and sighed full sore." The suggestion here is that the lady does care for the knight but realizes she must leave him because she is a fairy and he is a human. Two such beings cannot have a life together. This theme can apply to any man and woman who love each other but cannot marry because of cultural, religious, or social barriers or any other impediment. Terminal Illness In the summer of 1818, Keats began exhibiting symptoms of tuberculosis, a disease that had already infected his younger brother, Tom, who died in December of that year. Exactly when Keats became aware that he was suffering from a killer disease is uncertain. Consequently, when he wrote La Belle Dame Sans Merci in the spring of 1819, he might have intended the beautiful woman as a symbol for the life which was slowly slipping away from him. During this time, he must have felt like the knight sitting on the cold hill pale, feverish, and alone. He lasted less than two more years, dying in February 1821. 35
Rhyme Scheme and Meter The rhyme scheme of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" is ABCB that is, the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme. In each stanza, the meter of the first three lines is iambic tetrameter. In this format, a line contains four feet (four pairs of syllables), with the stress falling on the first syllable in each pair. The first two lines of the poem demonstrate this metric pattern....1...2...3...4... O WHAT....can.AIL....thee.KNIGHT....at.ARMS...1...2...3...4 A LONE....and.PALE....ly.LOIT....er.ING The meter of the last line of each stanza is usually in iambic dimeter: In this format, a line contains two feet (two pairs of syllables), with the stress falling on the first syllable in each pair. The last line of the first stanza demonstrates this pattern...1...2... and NO....birdsSING This gives the impression of being cut short. 36
Last Thoughts: Keats often adopted chivalric imagery and an air of enchantment in his poetry chivalry: 1. the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms. 2. the rules and customs of medieval knighthood. Derived the idea for "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" from a French medieval poem Keats' works often features a powerful relationship between sex and death 37
2014 Updated 10H Poetry Project SB.notebook May 05, 2014 38
Agenda: 1. Peer Edit your Rough Drafts 2. Final Drafts handed in on Wednesday in the following order: Cover Page Final Draft with Works Cited Page Peer Editing Sheet Rough Draft (last) ***Staple your work! Homework: 1. Final Draft due Monday 2. Annotate "Hanging Fire" and "Young" for tomorrow Title May 13, 2014 An Exploration of "Hanging Fire" by Audre Lord Bridget Erickson Period 8 May 13, 2014 Your Information 39
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