Poetry Unit

English 9

Reading Poetry

• Look for punctuation in the poem telling where sentences begin and end.

• Do not make a full stop at the end of a line if there is no period, comma, colon, etc.

• If a passage of a poem is difficult to understand, look for the subject and verb of each sentence.

• Be alert for literary devices. • Read the poem aloud and multiple times.

“A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” Emily Dickinson

A narrow fellow in the grassOccasionally rides;You may have met him—did you not?His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb, 5A spotted shaft is seen;And then it closes at your feetAnd opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,A floor too cool for corn. 10Yet when a boy, and barefoot,I more than once, at noon,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lashUnbraiding in the sun—When, stopping to secure it, 15It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature’s peopleI known, and they know me;I feel for them a transportOf cordiality; 20

But never met this fellow,Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing,And zero at the bone.

Literary Devices Review• Metaphor: a comparison of two unlike

things; doesn’t use “like” or “as”– X is Y

• Simile: compares two unlike objects using “like” or “as”– X is like Y

• Personification: gives human characteristics to inanimate objects

• Symbol: an ordinary object with extraordinary meaning and significance

Literary Devices

• Speaker: the voice talking to us in the poem.

• Imagery: language that appeals to the senses; creates a picture in reader’s mind

• Repetition: purposeful re-use of words and phrases for an effect. Also known as parallelism.

• Rhythm: musical quality in language produced by repetition

“Daily”

• Naomi Shihab Nye– Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1952–Written several collections of poetry– Inspired by her childhood memories and

travels– Lives in San Antonio, Texas

• Catalog poem: is built on a list of images. The repetition of items in the list creates a rolling rhythm when the poem is read aloud.

“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”

• Walt Whitman (1819-1892)– Born in Long Island, New York– Transformed poetry by writing in free

verse, common speech, and slang–Wrote and published himself, Leaves of

Grass

• Free verse: poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme

“Daily”

• Identify the repetitive images and language. How does this catalog of images affect the poem’s rhythm?

• Identify the metaphors in lines 21-22. What do they mean?

“Daily”• These shriveled seeds we plant,

corn kernel, dried bean,poke into loosened soil,cover over with measured fingertipsThese T-shirts we fold 5into perfect whitesquaresThese tortillas we slice and fry to crisp stripsThis rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowlThis bed whose covers I straighten 10smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanketand nothing hangs outThis envelope I addressso the name balances like a cloudin the center of the sky 15This page I type and retypeThis table I dust till the scarred wood shinesThis bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash againlike flags we share, a country so closeno one needs to name it 20The days are nouns: touch themThe hands are churches that worship the world

“When I Learn’d…”

• What images are repeated in lines 1-4?

• How does the repetition help the reader understand the speaker’s mood, overall atmosphere of a literary piece?

• Why are “Daily” and “When I Learn’d…” paired together?

“When I Learn’d…”

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in        columns before me,When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,        divide, and measure them, 5When I sitting heard the astronomer where he        lectured with much applause in the lecture room,How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself,In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time, 10Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.

A Japanese haiku…

• Has seventeen syllables– Five in lines 1 and 3– Seven in line 2

• Presents images from everyday life• Usually contains a seasonal word or

symbol (kigo)• Presents a moment of discovery or

enlightenment (satori)

• Miura Chora (1729-1780)

• Chiyo (1703-1775)

• Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

• Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)

“Fog”

• Carl Sandburg– 1878-1967– Son of Swedish immigrants– Born in Galesburg, Illinois –Unknown to world of poetry until 36

“I Wandered as Lonely as a Cloud”

• William Wordsworth (1770-1850)– English Romantic poet– Started writing poetry at 15– At 28, published Lyrical Ballads with

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

“Fog”

The fog comeson little cat feet.  It sits lookingover harbor and cityon silent haunchesand then moves on.

“Fog”

• Do you think the comparison of fog to a cat makes sense?

• What details extend the image of the cat in the last stanza?

• Mood of poem?

“I Wandered as Lonely as a Cloud”

• Simile?

• Personification?

• Rhyme Scheme?

“Kidnap Poem”

• Nikki Giovanni (1943- )– Born in Knoxville, Tennessee – Grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio– Called Princess of Black Poetry—enthusiasm

and pride that she feels for her heritage – “Writes out of her own experiences”

• Pun: is a play on the multiple meanings of a word or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings.

“Fire and Ice”

• Robert Frost (1874-1963)– Influenced by nature– Traveled to England to begin writing

career–Was a poet, farmer, teacher– One of the most popular American poets

• Implied metaphor: does not tell us the comparison directly—suggests it.

“Kidnap Poem”

• What is unusual about the speaker’s use of “meter”?

• How would you describe Giovanni’s style based on this usages and poem’s lack of punctuation?

• Puns?

“Fire and Ice”

• Metaphor?– Emotion compared with fire?– Emotion compared with ice?

• Irony? • Word choice: what is the effect of

“suffice” at the end?

“Women”

• Alice Walker (1944- )–Wrote “Women” for her mother– Short story writer, poet, and essayist–Most famous for her novel, The Color

Purple

• Implied metaphor?

“My Papa’s Waltz”

• Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)– Born in Michigan– Family: German immigrants– Teacher at Pennsylvania State University,

Bennington College in Vermont, and University of Washington (Seattle)

• Rhyme Scheme: • Meter: iambic trimeter – Iamb: Unstressed syllable followed by

stressed syllable– Trimeter: contains three iambs

“Combing”

• Gladys Cardiff– Born in Montana – Writing is a celebration to her where she can connect Cherokee

heritage

• Repetition

• Alliteration: repetition of the same (very similar) consonant sounds in words that are close together in poetry. – “Open here I flung the shutter, when with a flirt and flutter” (Poe, “The

Raven”)

• Assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds that are followed by different consonant sounds in words that are close together in poetry– Base and fade– Love and young

“Fifteen”

• William Stafford(1914-1993)– Born in Kansas–Native American heritage–Worked as a laborer, construction

worker, and in an oil refinery – Jailed during WWII for objecting the

war

“Fifteen” Questions

• Write your responses on a sheet of paper. You may work with a partner. – Identify speaker of poem. – Identify the literary devices that you

notice. –How does the boy in “Fifteen” feel

about the motorcycle? What lines covey this feeling?

“American Hero”

• Essex Hemphilll (1957-1995)– Born in Chicago–Writer, poet, and cultural activist– Author of two books of poetry and

collection of prose

• Onomatopoeia: use of a word whose sound imitates its meaning: buzz, chug, clang, splat, etc.

“American Hero”

• Write your responses on a sheet of paper. You may work with a partner.– Identify the speaker of the poem.– Identify the onomatopoetic words in the

poem. – Any other literary devices that you notice? –What is the speaker saying about racism?

Do you agree or disagree with the speaker? Why or why not?