Purpose: This lesson is designed to explore sensory detail and illustrate imagery as an effective function of figurative language in poetry

Objectives:1. Introduce students to the concept of “sensory detail” and imagery in poetry2. Have students read, annotate and discuss a selection of poems that feature strong imagery4. Have students write a poem based on imagery. Language Arts Learning Outcomes met by this activity: Speaking and Listening: GCO: 1: (1.1, 1.2, 1.4) GCO: 3(3.1, 3.3)Reading and Viewing: GCO: 4: (4.1, 4.2, 4.3) GCO: 6: (6.2, 6.3, 6.4) GCO: 7 (7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5,7.7)Writing and Other Ways of Repersenting: GCO: 8: (8.1, 8.3) GCO: 9: (9.1, 9.2) GCO: 10: (10.1, 10.4) 

Sensory Imagery Basics

Sensory imagery is any description that involves one or more of the five senses -- touch, sight, taste, smell and sound.

Poetry that is rich in sensory detail helps the reader perfectly envision the scene the poet is describing. "I walked in the grass" becomes rich in sensory detail when changed to, "The charred scent of the crisp, freshly-burned grass stabbed my nose as it crumbled under my feet."

Adjectives play a prime role in developing sensory imagery, but some adjectives are better than others. Stating that grass is green helps the reader picture the color, but explaining the hue of green or comparing the color to another color can make the image more vivid.

Sensory Imagery Tools

Sensory imagery doesn't just rely on adjectives. Metaphors can also play a prime role. Describing a break-up as creating a sharp, stabbing pain, for example, helps the reader better understand the emotions a poet is feeling.

Similes are also common; a poet might describe her emotions as "like a rolling tide." Some poems that describe emotions or sensations create sensory images. A person writing about depression, for example, might talk about being trapped in a dark, silent cell.

Sensory Poems

Most good poems use some sensory imagery, but sensory poems are poems that are particularly rich in sensory imagery. These poems sometimes take one scene or emotion and use a wide variety of sensory images to analyze and explain it. For example, a poet might state that anxiety is paralyzing, stabbing, cold and prickly.

The strawberries were blood-red with ripeness and almost scraped the ground on a long line of wild bushes.

What picture do you see in your mind when you read this?

You probably imagined the deep color of the ripe strawberries, the warmth of the summer sun, and perhaps the feeling of the grainy smoothness of

the fruit.

Imagery in poetry creates similar snapshots in a reader's mind.

IMAGERY

In essence, images show us meaning; when we compare the snapshots in our mind to our own memories or experiences, we connect emotionally to the poem.

Visual

Visual imagery refers to words that illicit something that can be seen in the mind’s eye. In Robert Frost's “After Apple Picking,” he writes, “magnified apples appear and disappear every fleck of russet showing clear.”

Auditory

In his poem, “Mowing,” Frost uses auditory, or sound, imagery: “the scythe whispering to the ground.”

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Gustatory

To evoke the sense of taste in his poem, Frost also uses gustatory imagery:

“the walking boots that taste of Atlantic and Pacific salt.”

OlfactoryClick icon to add picture

In the poem, “To Earthward,” the experience of smell, or olfactory imagery, is offered: “musk from hidden grapevine springs.”

Tactile imagery

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Tactile imagery which allows the reader to imagine the feel or texture of certain things.

An example of tactile imagery is: "The blanket was as soft as cotton and as smooth as silk

Kinesthetic imagery,

Kinesthetic imagery, where the reader can envision the movements and actions of a character or object.

An example of kinesthetic imagery is: "His body moved fluidly throughout the obstacle course, dodging every object thrown at him with agility and grace while speeding down the path.“

Organic imagery

Organic imagery uses language to approximate any internal sensation, such as fear, hunger or thirst. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot transports the reader into an internal feeling of fatigue with the lines,

"And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep tired or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.” William Wordsworth also uses kinesthetic imagery, or the imagery of movement, in his poem, "Daffodils": "Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."

Night CloudsThe white mares of the moon rush along the skyBeating their golden hoofs upon the glass Heavens The white mares are all standing on their hind legs Pawing at the green porcelain doors of the remote Heavens Fly, mares!Strain your utmost Scatter the milky dust of stars Or the tigers will leap upon you and destroy youWith one lick of his vermillion tongue  ******************************************

Are there any words that you do not understand?

Identify the sensory detail in the poem.

What function do they serve?

           

Identify the most striking images in this poem?

Fishing on the I have never been fishing on the Susquehannaor on any river for that matterto be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any monthhave I had the pleasure -- if it is a pleasure --of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found in a quiet room like this one --a painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table –trying to manufacture the sensationof fishing on the Susquehanna. There is little doubtthat others have been fishingon the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,sliding the oars under the waterthen raising them to drip in the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to fishing on the Susquehannawas one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia,

when I balanced a little egg of time in front of a painting in which that river curled around a bend

Susquehannadense trees along the banks,and a fellow with a red bandana

sitting in a small, greenflat-bottom boatholding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely ever to do, I remembersaying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on to other American scenesof haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown harewho seemed so wired with alertnessI imagined him springing right out of the frame.

Another reason why I don't keep a gun in the house

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.He is barking the same high, rhythmic barkthat he barks every time they leave the house.They must switch him on on their way out.

In JulyUnd The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.I close all the windows in the houseand put on a Beethoven symphony full blastbut I can still hear him muffled under the music,barking, barking, barking,and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,his head raised confidently as if Beethovenhad included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,sitting there in the oboe section barking,his eyes fixed on the conductor who isentreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectfulsilence to the famous barking dog solo,that endless coda that first established Beethoven as an innovative genius.

--Billy Collins 

Imagery

The poem imaginatively describes clouds. Clouds are made up of moisture, either water droplets or frozen crystals of ice, and move on currents of air. There are four major types of clouds.

Cirrus clouds are the thin and feathery clouds that appear highest in the sky. Stratus clouds form when cirrus clouds descend, thicken, and turn gray.

Nimbus clouds are stratus clouds that have descended even lower and produce precipitation, such as rain or snow.

Cumulus clouds are also low-lying, but they are the puffy, white clouds that float by on an otherwise clear day

Imagery In Poetry

Listen to the following clip the following clip

As you listen, write down every thing that comes to mind

What do you see in your mind’s eye?

What comes to mind?

Think about your other senses?

Imagery in Poetry

Now we are going to watch the clip, as you watch write down what ever comes to mind, remember to think about imagery and other types of figurative language as you write

With a partner, you are going to write a fourteen line poem inspired bt the clip that utilizes a variety of images to invoke a particular response in the reader