POETRY (THEORY) Radio Broadcast 23 Sept 18:00-19:00 STUDY NOTES Poetry analysis is often the basis for teaching literature in the classroom. If you've been to school, you've probably had to study some form of literature, and your teacher has almost certainly demonstrated the analysis of poetry or even asked you to do it. It can seem like a frightening task, but if you've looked at the way poets use language and you make an effort to understand some the things that might have been happening in history at the time the poet was writing, you've already got an edge. How to analyse poems Read the poem more than once. Use a dictionary when you find a word about whose meaning you are unsure. Read the poem slowly. Pay attention to what the poem is saying; do not be distracted by the rhyme and rhythm of the poem. Try reading the poem out loud to get a sense of the way the sounds of the poem affect its meaning. Six Easy Ways To Understand Poetry: Read the poem all the way through. It might be tempting to stop and puzzle over any tricky bits, but by reading the poem all the way through, you should be able to pick up the overall idea the poet is trying to convey. Consider the subject matter - what the poem is literally about - as well as any themes that emerge - these are the ideas that the poet wants you to think about after reading the poem. What is the mood of the poem? Think about how the writer wants you to feel at the end of the poem. Is the overall tone uplifting, or does the poem leave you feeling sad? Some poems have a deliberate change of mood within them, where an apparently downbeat poem ends with a joyful scene or vice versa. Consider how the poem is structured. The poet plans the structure of the poem carefully, so look at how many stanzas or verses the poem is divided into. Why do you think the poet has chosen to structure the poem in the way they have? Perhaps each new stanza deals with a new idea or mood, or maybe the poem consists of just one short stanza in order to suggest a brief, fast-moving event. Listen to the sounds of the words. Poetry is designed to be read aloud, so forget your embarrassment and recite the poem to yourself. Doing this should allow you to hear whether the poem has any regular rhyme or rhythm, as well as any words the poet has chosen because of the way they sound. For example, the writer may be using alliteration (where two or more words in close succession begin with the same consonant) in order to draw our attention to a certain line or image, or assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds within words).
Figurative Language Figurative language involves a comparison between two things--a literal term, or the thing being compared, and a figurative term, or the thing to which the literal term is being compared. Language & Poetic Devices Important Poetry Techniques Technique Explanation Examples Alliteration Words that start with the same sound to create emphasis and at times dramatic impact Breathing-taking beauty of the belle Assonance A repetition of vowel sounds within syllables with changing consonants Please bake me a date cake Consonance Repetition of consonants anywhere within words Gloomy woman Hyperbole The use of exaggeration often to create an impact on readers She ate a mountain of food in just a few minutes Imagery Elements in poetry that can spark off our senses (sight, sound, smell, feeling, taste) as we read. It can often create a very vivid description The dark (sight) pungent (smell) enclosure Metaphor When a comparison is made between 2 things. Although sometimes similar to a simile, most times it is much more hidden and harder to detect on the surface His Herculean strength sent the spectators into awe The apple never falls far from the tree (how children are similar to their parents)
Technique Explanation Examples Onomatopoeia A word imitating a sound The buzz of the bee... When the cat meowed... Personification Inanimate objects being given human qualities. Personification has become very common in a daily language use The gloomy weather The beautiful building Simile Tone When 2 items are compared with one another with the use of like as Reflect the way in which the poet expresses his ideas. Often this is detected through his use of words / images, etc Her smile was as bright as the sun He was strong like Hercules Tone example (nonexhaustive list): Anger Comic Condemning Depressed Detached Happiness Serious More Language and Poetic Devices Synecdoche Synecdoche is a way of naming a thing: the word for a part of a thing is substituted for the whole. For example, in the sentence "I bought a new set of wheels this morning," the word "wheels" is substituted for the word "car." Wheels are part of any car; here the part is substituted for the whole. Metonymy Metonymy is a way of naming a thing: a thing closely related to the thing actually meant is used to name it. For example, "He came from excellent blood" substitutes the term "blood" for "family", and expresses the idea that an individual comes from a "good" family, perhaps a noble one. "Blood" and "family" are related because families are made up of people who
Questions 1. What is the key idea the poet wants to get across in this poem? 2. In line 1, the poet says I salute you: This phrase usually indicates respect and honour. Are these the poet s true feelings about Johannesburg? 3. What figure of speech is used in line 6: My hand like a starved snake rears my pockets 4. Explain the comparison the poet is making in line 6 5. Give an example where the poet uses personification in this poem 6. What are neon flowers and cement trees? Who is Dr. Mongane Wally Serote? Dr Serote was born in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, South Africa, and went to school in Alexandra, Lesotho, and Soweto. He first became involved in the Black Consciousness Movement when he was finishing high school in Soweto. His presence in that town linked him to a group known as the "township" or "Soweto" poets, and his poems often expressed themes of political activism, the development of black identity, and violent images of revolt and resistance. He was arrested by the apartheid government under the Terrorism Act in June 1969 and spent nine months in solitary confinement, before being released without charge. He went to study in New York, obtaining a Fine Arts degree at Columbia University, before going to work in Gaborone, Botswana, and later London for the African National Congress in their Arts and Culture Department. After contributing poems to various journals, in 1972 he published his first collection, Yakhal'Inkomo. It won the Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize in 1973. He was a Fulbright Scholar and received a fine arts degree from Columbia University in 1979.[1] He was not able to return to South Africa and he began a life in exile, living in Botswana and London, where he was involved in the Medu Art Ensemble. In 1993, he won the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.[1] In 2004, he received the Pablo Neruda award from the Chilean government.
CITY JOHANNESBURG Mongane Wally Serote This way I salute you: My hand pulses to my back trousers pocket Or into my inner jacket pocket For my pass, my life, Jo'burg City. My hand like a starved snake rears my pockets For my thin, ever lean wallet, While my stomach groans a friendly smile to hunger, Jo'burg City. My stomach also devours coppers and papers Don't you know? Jo'burg City, I salute you; When I run out, or roar in a bus to you, I leave behind me, my love, My comic houses and people, my dongas and my ever-whirling dust, My death, That's so related to me as a wink to the eye. Jo'burg City I travel on your black and white and roboted roads, Through your thick iron breath that you inhale At six in the morning and exhale from five noon. Jo'burg City That is the time when I come to you, When your neon flowers flaunt from your electrical wind, That is the time when I leave you, When your neon flowers flaunt their way through the falling darkness On your cement trees. And as I go back, to my love, My dongas, my dust, my people, my death, Where death lurks in the dark like a blade in the flesh, I can feel your roots, anchoring your might, my feebleness In my flesh, in my mind, in my blood, And everything about you says it, That, that is all you need of me. Jo'burg City, Johannesburg, Listen when I tell you, There is no fun, nothing, in it, When you leave the women and men with such frozen expressions, Expressions that have tears like furrows of soil erosion, Jo'burg City, you are dry like death, Jo'burg City, Johannesburg, Jo'burg City.
Repetition Some poetry contains repetition. This may include repetition of sound, syllable, words, phrases, lines, stanzas. Poets often use repetition to draw our attention to certain aspects in the poem and to create a particular emphasis that adds meaning to the poem. Repetition is found extensively in free verse, which does not have a traditional, recognizable metrical pattern. Repetition in free verse includes parallelism (repetition of a grammar pattern) and the repetition of important words and phrases. Meter Iambs are used in the quatrains of a ballad. An 'iamb' (pronounced eye - am) is known as a foot. This foot consists of an unstressed and a stressed syllable. Generally the notation of stressed and unstressed syllables is: for unstressed an 'x'; and a '/' for stressed. Themes: Themes are the main ideas of a literary work, the central topic, subject, or concept the author is trying to point out. They are social, ethical or moral issues that affect us all, for example: Love Hatred Friendship Betrayal Loss Heroism Jealousy Racism Sexism Materialism Religion Crime War
have similar characteristics; people have blood, and people in families, being related to one another, are often said to share the same blood. Symbol A symbol means what it is, but at the same time it represents something else, too. For example, "the straw that broke the camel's back" is a symbol of a last, remaining bit of patience with a difficult, ongoing situation. Allegory An allegory is very similar to a symbol. Allegory is a narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface one. Although the surface story or description may have its own interest, the author's major interest is in the ulterior meaning. What this means is that in addition to the surface meaning of the poem there is also a more important, deeper meaning. Allegories relate especially to subject matter from the Bible and from mythology. Paradox A paradox occurs when two things that should not be able to exist at the same time are said, in a poem, to exist at the same time. For example, it is impossible that it be both night and day, both spring and fall, both past and present at the same time. Irony Irony is a situation in which one thing is said but another is actually meant, or in which the outcome of a situation is the opposite of what one would have expected it to be. Irony is packed into the line, "The fire eye in the clouds survives the gods." Human beings are often said to create their gods, beings frequently presumed by humans to be immortal, allknowing, and all-powerful because they are presumed to have created things like the earth, the moon, the sun. Rhyme Also spelled "rime" rhyme is the repetition of ending sounds between words; poems can have end rhyme, in which words at the ends of lines rhyme; this is what we usually mean when we say a poem "rhymes." A poem can also have internal rhyme, in which words inside of individual lines for example, "Go with the flow, Joe." Emotion or mood There are three things that you should look for while deciding upon what to record for this aspect of analysis of the poem. Firstly, what mood dominates the poem? Think about what you have read. Is it sad, bright, gloomy, aggressive, violent, humble or happy and content? (Again, this is not an exhaustive list.) Do you think the mood or tone changes in the poem anywhere? Perhaps the tone shifts from sad to bright or from happy to gloomy? Also think about what mood or feeling the poet might want to evoke from the reader. This will be your impression. Remember to keep an open mind because as you analyse the techniques you may need to add to your list or change your mind completely.
He has served as chair of the parliamentary select committee for arts and culture, and is currently the CEO of Freedom Park, a national heritage site in Pretoria scheduled to open in 2009. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mongane_wally_serote)