Poetry INTRODUCTION TO
Heritage Hall Freshmen English
Chapter 1
Figurative Language Figurative language includes metaphors, similes, and personification. Poets use these tools to illuminate an idea by juxtaposing it with another different idea, and in the process creating delight or shock in the reader. By using this kind of heightened, compact language, poets can make the abstract concrete and visible or suggest a figurative rather than literal truth about what they are writing. A metaphor connects two different things together, often but not always using the word is. It is a stronger and more powerful way of making us see something in a new light, unlike a simile which uses the word like or as to suggest the similarity between two things, but with a more comfortable distance. Take for example Plath’s poem “Words” in which she says words are axes, as opposed to MacLeish’s “Ars Poetica” in which he uses a simile to say a poem is “mute as a globed fruit”.
In personification, human characteristics are given to non-human things. In “Words”, Plath says the water is striving to reestablish itself. Striving is an activity we associate with humans, but by using it to describe water, the reader sees an inanimate object in the role of a character in the poem.
Poetry that demonstrates
Figurative Language TERMS TO KNOW:
Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins
1. Metaphor: figurative language that makes one thing like another, often using “is”
I ask them to take a poem
2. simile: figurative language that compares two thing using “like” or “as”
like a color slide
3. personification: giving human characteristics to non-human things
and hold it up to the light
or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.
2
Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish
A poem should be palpable and mute
Not true.
As a globed fruit,
* A poem should be equal to:
For all the history of grief
Dumb
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
As old medallions to the thumb,
For love
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown-
A poem should not mean A poem should be wordless
But be.
As the flight of birds.
* A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs,
Words by Sylvia Plath Axes
Leaving, as the moon releases
After whose stroke the wood rings,
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Off from the center like horses.
Memory by memory the mind-
A poem should be motionless in time
The sap
As the moon climbs.
Wells like tears, like the 3
Water striving
And never stops—at all—
To re-establish its mirror Over the rock
And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard— And sore must be the storm—
That drops and turns,
That could abash the little Bird
A white skull,
That kept so many warm—
Eaten by weedy greens. Years later I
I've heard it in the chillest land—
Encounter them on the road----
And on the strangest Sea— Yet, never, in Extremity,
Words dry and riderless,
It asked a crumb—of Me.
The indefatigable hoof-taps. While From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars Govern a life.
# 254 by Emily Dickinson "Hope" is the thing with feathers— That perches in the soul— And sings the tune without the words— 4
Review 1.1 Figurative Language
The difference between a metaphor and a simile is...
A. only one compares 2 things B. only one is a type of figurative language C. only one uses “like” or “as” D. there is no difference
Check Answer
5
Chapter 2
Sound Effects & Rhyme Often we forget that poetry was meant to be heard. Poets engage the sense of hearing by using alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, as well as different kinds of rhyme including slant rhyme and internal rhyme. Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds near each other. Think of every tongue twister you ever learned as a child (Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers) and you have an example of alliteration. Assonance is more subtle because it repeats vowel sounds. In the example “Only the owl hoots once at the lonely moon”, the repetition of long o sounds creates a sad mood. Onomatopoeia is a word that tries to recreate the sound it means. Buzz, Crash, Ping, Moo and Whirr are all examples.
In addition to traditional end rhymes, sometimes poets want to make their rhymes more subtle, so they use slant rhymes. Slant rhymes are rhymes that are not exact, pure rhymes but instead they either echo some similar consonants as in stuns/ stones, or appear on the page as if they should rhyme because they have the same ending, but when you say them out loud, you discover they don’t rhyme (enough/through). Doing this once in a poem that uses otherwise pure rhymes can draw attention to a particular moment in the poem that the poet wants to heighten. Another way to make the rhymes less subtle is to employ enjambment, in which the sentence continues beyond the end of a line or stanza. When reading poetry out loud, make sure to pay attention to punctuation marks and not just end when the line ends. Although most rhymes are found at the end of each line, internal rhymes are rhymes that pair up a word in the middle of a line with the end word of the same line to achieve a rhyme. In Poe’s “The Raven”, for example, the line “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary”, the words dreary and weary rhyme but occur on the same line of the poem.
Poetry that demonstrates
Sound Effects & Rhyme TERMS TO KNOW: 1. Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds in words close together. 2. Alliteration: repetition of two or more consonant sounds in successive words in a line of prose or poetry. 3. Onomatopoeia: when a word recreates the sound of what it describes 4. slant rhyme: rhymes that are close but not perfect rhymes 5. internal rhyme: rhyming words within a line of poetry 6. Enjambment: when a sentence continues beyond the end of a line or stanza. Example of marking rhyme pattern:
The Secretary Chant by Marge Piercy My hips are a desk, From my ears hang chains of paper clips. Rubber bands form my hair. My breasts are quills of mimeograph ink. My feet bear casters, Buzz. Click. My head is a badly organized file. My head is a switchboard where crossed lines crackle. Press my fingers and in my eyes appear credit and debit. Zing. Tinkle. My navel is a reject button. From my mouth issue canceled reams. Swollen, heavy, rectangular I am about to be delivered of a baby Xerox machine. File me under W because I wonce was a woman. 7
Gretel in Darkness
By Louise Gluck
This is the world we wanted.
Nights I turn to you to hold me
All who would have seen us dead
but you are not there.
are dead. I hear the witch’s cry
Am I alone? Spies
break in the moonlight through a sheet
hiss in the stillness, Hansel,
of sugar: God rewards.
we are there still and it is real, real,
Her tongue shrivels into gas. . . .
that black forest and the fire in earnest.
Now, far from women’s arms and memory of women, in our father’s hut we sleep, are never hungry. Why do I not forget? My father bars the door, bars harm from this house, and it is years.
No one remembers. Even you, my brother, summer afternoons you look at me as though you meant to leave, as though it never happened. But I killed for you. I see armed firs, the spires of that gleaming kiln— 8
Excerpt fr. The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door - Only this, and nothing more.' Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore - For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore - Nameless here for evermore.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!' This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!' Merely this and nothing more.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating `'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door - Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; - This it is, and nothing more,'
Audio 2.1 Poe’s The Raven
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, `Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; - Darkness there, and nothing more.
9
Sonnet 116 by Shakespeare 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
Audio 2.2 Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116
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.
10
Review 2.1 Sound Effects and Rhyme
The difference between assonance and alliteration is...
A. Assonance deals with vowels, alliteration deals with consonants. B. Assonance repeats sounds, alliteration does not. C. One rhymes and the other does not. D. There is no difference.
Check Answer
Chapter 3
Meter Meter in poetry is similar to meter in music--a way of counting out and measuring the beats (or in the case of language, the syllables) that make up a piece of work. We count the number and pattern of accented and unaccented syllables to determine the meter. The name of the meter is made up of the type of foot plus the number of feet in a line, for example five iambs in a line would be iambic pentameter, the meter in which Shakespeare wrote his sonnets. Iambic pentameter is the most commonly used meter because it mimics the sound of the heartbeat and naturally fits the English language. If the iambic pentameter doesn’t rhyme, it is known as blank verse. Not all poems have meter, however. Poems that have neither rhyme nor meter are known as free verse. Without the presence of meter, free verse poets rely on other techniques such as rhyme and sound effects to create a sense of structure and cadence. The following lines from Milton shows how a metered poem is scanned using a U symbol for unaccented syllables and a / for accented syllables.
Poetry that demonstrates
Meter TERMS TO KNOW 1. meter: the recurrence of regular beats in a poetic line, found by determining the number and type of feet. 2. feet/foot: a combination of two or three stressed and/or unstressed syllables. Types of feet include iambs, dactyls, spondees, trochees, and anapests. 3. Iambs: a type of metrical foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed. 4. pentameter: meter that has five feet per line 5. blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter 6. free verse: poetry that lacks regular meter and rhyme scheme.
The Ball Poem by John Berryman What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over--there it is in the water! No use to say 'O there are other balls': An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down All his young days into the harbour where His ball went. I would not intrude on him, A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now He senses first responsibility In a world of possessions. People will take balls,
13
Balls will be lost always, little boy, And no one buys a ball back. Money is external. He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes, The epistemology of loss, how to stand up Knowing what every man must one day know And most know many days, how to stand up And gradually light returns to the street A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight, Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere, I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move With all that move me, under the water Or whistling, I am not a little boy.
Mending Wall by Robert Frost
 Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. 14
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
But here there are no cows.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
What I was walling in or walling out,
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
And to whom I was like to give offence.
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He said it for himself. I see him there
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
My apple trees will never get across
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
He will not go behind his father's saying,
If I could put a notion in his head:
And he likes having thought of it so well
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Where there are cows? 15
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by John Lennon and Paul McCartney Picture yourself in a boat on a river, With tangerine trees and marmalade skies Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
Picture yourself on a train in a station, With plasticine porters with looking glass ties, Suddenly someone is there at the turnstyle, The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes. Cellophane flowers of yellow and green, Towering over your head. Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes, And she's gone. Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain Where rocking horse people eat marshmellow pies, Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers, That grow so incredibly high. Newspaper taxis appear on the shore, Waiting to take you away.
Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
And you're gone.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 16
Review 3.1 Meter
The difference between blank verse and free verse is...
A. nothing. They both mean the same thing. B. Blank verse is in meter and free verse is not. C. Blank verse doesn’t rhyme but free verse does. D. Blank verse is poetry by Shakespeare but free verse can be by anyone.
Check Answer
17
Chapter 4
Forms Just as there are several styles of music that each require different kind of rules in their creation (country and rap sound very different because they are obeying two different traditions), poets can also choose different forms to present their poetry, each of which comes from a long line of tradition. A Villanelle is a 19-long poem that comes from Italy and uses repetition of lines to create an interlocking, weaving effect. It is well suited to poems that wants to explore a reoccurring theme or the feeling of being haunted by an idea over and over again. A Sestina is a French troubadour form that repeats the same six words as end words over and over again in a pattern throughout the six stanzas. Because the poet must reuse the same words, the challenge becomes how to make the words take on new meanings when used in each line. Sonnets come in two varieties: Shakespearean/ English or Petrarchan/Italian, named after the poet/ country that made them famous. They both contain 14 lines, but they follow different rhyme patterns and the volta, or turn, in each occurs at a different location.
A Petrarchan sonnet has an octave (eight line stanza or “paragraph” in a poem) followed by a sestet (a six line stanza). The volta occurs in between these two stanzas. Often the octave explores a question or problem that is answered or resolved in the sestet. A Shakespearean sonnet has 3 quatrains (four line stanzas each) followed by an end couplet (two lines). The volta occurs at the couplet. Traditional sonnets often, but not always, explored the topic of love. Today’s modern poets have taken all these older forms and adapted them to a certain degree to make them fit their own purposes, so don’t be surprised if some of the more modern formal poems break some of the strict rules of these forms.
Poetry that demonstrates
Forms TERMS TO KNOW 1. stanza: a group of lines in a poem, similar to a paragraph in prose. 2. couplet: a stanza of two lines of verse 3. quatrain: a stanza of four lines of verse 4. sestet: a stanza of six lines of verse 5. octave: a stanza of eight lines of verse 6. Petrachan sonnet: a poem made up of 14 lines that has an octave rhyming ababcdcd and a sestet that rhymes cdecde or efgefg. The volta occurs between the two stanzas. 7. Shakespearean sonnet: a poem made up of 14 lines that has 3 quatrains and a rhyming couplet at the end. The overall rhyme pattern is ababcdcdefefgg. 8. Villanelle: 19 line poem with three line stanzas that use an aba rhyme pattern. Two lines are repeated throughout the poem. 9. sestina: a poem with six sestets that use the same six end words in each stanza.
19
Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet Formula 1 a
Saint Judas by James Wright When I went out to kill myself, I caught
2b 3a
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
4b
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
5c
My name, my number, how my day began,
6d 7c
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
8d
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
VOLTA
9c 10 d
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
11 e 12 c 13 d
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
14 e
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
(rhyme patterns vary)
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms: Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten, The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope, I held the man for nothing in my arms.
20
Sonnet 138 by William Shakespeare
Shakespearean (English) Sonnet Formula
1a 2b 3a 4b
When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutored youth, Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows my days are past the best, Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue: On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed: But wherefore says she not she is unjust? And wherefore say not I that I am old? O! love's best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love, loves not to have years told: Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
5c 6d 7c 8d 9e 10 f 11 e 12 f VOLTA 13 g 14 g
21
Sestina Formula 1 line ends w/ WORD A
29
WORD F
30
WORD B
31
WORD B
2
WORD B
3
WORD C
4
WORD D
32
WORD D
5
WORD E
33
WORD F
6
WORD F
34
WORD E
35
WORD C
36
WORD A
7
WORD F
8
WORD A
9
WORD E
10
WORD B
11
WORD D
12
WORD C
13
WORD C
14
WORD F
15
WORD D
16
WORD A
17
WORD B
18
WORD E
19
WORD E
20
WORD C
21
WORD B
22
WORD A
23
WORD F
24
WORD D
25
WORD D
26
WORD E
27
WORD A
28
WORD C
37/38/39
ALL SIX WORDS
22
Bilingual Sestina By Julia Alvarez
Gladys, I summon you back with your given nombre to open up again the house of slatted windows closed
Some things I have to say aren't getting said
since childhood, where palabras left behind for English
in this snowy, blonde, blue-eyed, gum chewing English,
stand dusty and awkward in neglected Spanish.
dawn's early light sifting through the persianas closed
Rosario, muse of el patio, sing in me and through me say
the night before by dark-skinned girls whose words
that world again, begin first with those first words
evoke cama, aposento, suenos in nombres from that first word I can't translate from Spanish.
you put in my mouth as you pointed to the world-not Adam, not God, but a country girl numbering
Gladys, Rosario, Altagracia--the sounds of Spanish
the stars, the blades of grass, warming the sun by saying
wash over me like warm island waters as I say
el sol as the dawn's light fell through the closed
your soothing names: a child again learning the nombres
persianas from the gardens where you sang in Spanish,
of things you point to in the world before English
Esta son las mananitas, and listening, in bed, no English
turned sol, tierra, cielo, luna to vocabulary words-sun, earth, sky, moon--language closed
yet in my head to confuse me with translations, no English doubling the world with synonyms, no dizzying array of words,
like the touch-sensitive morivivir. whose leaves closed
--the world was simple and intact in Spanish
when we kids poked them, astonished. Even Spanish
awash with colores, luz, suenos, as if the nombres
failed us when we realized how frail a word
were the outer skin of things, as if words were so close
is when faced with the thing it names. How saying
to the world one left a mist of breath on things by saying
its name won't always summon up in Spanish or English the full blown genii from the bottled nombre.
their names, an intimacy I now yearn for in English-words so close to what I meant that I almost hear my Spanish blood beating, beating inside what I say en ingles. 23
Villanelle Formula 1 a
One Art by Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn't hard to master;
2
b
so many things seem filled with the intent
3
a
4
a
5
b
1
a
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master.
7
a
8
b
3
a
Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
10
a
11
b
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
1
a
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
13
a
14
b
3
a
16
a
17
b
1
a
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
3
a
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
24
Review 4.1 Forms
The difference between a Shakespearean sonnet and a Petrarchan sonnet is...
A. the location of the volta B. the rhyme pattern C. the number of lines D. both A & B
Check Answer
25
Chapter 5
Imagery Imagery is a mental picture that evokes the five senses and often uses figurative language such as metaphor and simile. But be careful not to assume that everything you can visualize in a poem is an image. If the poem uses the word lemon and you can imagine what a lemon looks like, this doesn’t mean that the poet has used imagery. However, if the poet were to say, “the yellow in the lemon made me wince,” this comes closer to being an image because it has evoked the sense of taste (wincing due to the sourness of the lemon). It takes more than description to make an image. Although the word “America”, for example, might make you think of lots of images (eagle, flag, the shape of the country on a map), such an abstract word isn’t really using imagery. A poet needs to use more concrete language to evoke the senses, such as in Claude McKay’s poem “America”. How many different senses does he evoke in this poem?
America by Claude McKay Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth. Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate, Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer. Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
Poetry that demonstrates
Imagery TERMS TO KNOW:
In Just- by e.e. cummings
1. imagery: a mental picture that evokes the five senses and often uses figurative lanuage
in Justspring when the world is mudluscious the little lame baloonman
it's spring and the
whistles
far
and wee goat-footed
and eddyandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it's spring
baloonMan
whistles
far and wee
when the world is puddle-wonderful the queer old baloonman whistles far and wee and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
27
Preludes by T S Eliot I The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o'clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. And then the lighting of the lamps. II The morning comes to consciousness Of faint stale smells of beer >From the sawdust-trampled street With all its muddy feet that press To early coffee-stands. With the other masquerades That time resumes, One thinks of all the hands That are raising dingy shades In a thousand furnished rooms.
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands; Sitting along the bed's edge, where You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands. IV His soul stretched tight across the skies That fade behind a city block, Or trampled by insistent feet At four and five and six o'clock And short square fingers stuffing pipes, And evening newspapers, and eyes Assured of certain certainties, The conscience of a blackened street Impatient to assume the world. I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing. Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; The worlds revolve like ancient women Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
III You tossed a blanket from the bed, You lay upon your back, and waited; You dozed, and watched the night revealing The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. And when all the world came back And the light crept up between the shutters, 28
Some Days by Billy Collins Some days I put the people in their places at the table, bend their legs at the knees, if they come with that feature, and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs.
Movie 5.1 “Some Days� by Billy Collins All afternoon they face one another, the man in the brown suit, the woman in the blue dress, perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. But other days, I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs, then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse to sit with the others at the long table. Very funny, but how would you like it if you never knew from one day to the next if you were going to spend it striding around like a vivid god, your shoulders in the clouds, or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper, staring straight ahead with your little plastic face? 29
Budapest by Billy Collins My pen moves along the page like the snout of a strange animal
Movie 5.2 “Budapest” by Billy Collins
shaped like a human arm and dressed in the sleeve of a loose green sweater I watch it sniffing the paper ceaselessly intent as any forager that has nothing on its mind but the grubs and insects that will allow it to live another day It wants only to be here tomorrow dressed, perhaps, in the sleeve of a plaid shirt nose pressed against the page writing a few more dutyful lines while I gaze out the window and imagine Budapest or some other city where I have never been
30
Review 5.1 Imagery
Which of the following is an example of imagery that evokes the sense of touch?
A. “slapping a blackjack against an open palm” B. “the yellow in the lemon made me wince” C. “I have two hands and ten fingers” D. “she feeds me the bread of bitterness”
Check Answer
31
The Poets (row 1, l to r) 1. e.e. cummings 2. Archibald Macleish 3. Phillip Larkin (top) 4. John Berryman (bottom) 5. Marge Piercy (row 2) 6. William Shakespeare 7. Julia Alvarez 8. Elizabeth Bishop 9. Edgar Allen Poe (row 3) 10.James Wright 11.Sylvia Plath 12.Louise Gluck (row 4) 13.Robert Frost 14.Emily Dickinson 15.T.S. Eliot
Poetic Terms
Definitions
alliteration
The repetition of two or more consonant sounds in successive words in a line of prose or poetry
assonance
Repetition of vowel sounds in words close together
Blank verse
Unrhymed iambic pentameter
couplet
A group of two lines
enjambment
When a sentence continues beyond the end of a line or a stanza.
Free verse
Poetry that lacks regular meter and rhyme scheme
Foot
a combination of two or three stressed and/or unstressed syllables.
iamb
A type of metrical foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
Imagery
A mental picture that evokes the five senses and often uses figurative language
Internal rhyme
Rhyming words within a line of poetry
metaphor
Figurative language that makes one thing like another, often using “is”
meter
the recurrence of regular beats in a poetic line, found by determining the # and type of feet
onomatopoeia
When a word recreates the sound of what it describes
Octave
A group of 8 lines
pentameter
Meter that has five feet per line
Petrarchan sonnet
Italian in origin; has an octave that rhymes ababcdcd and a sestet that rhymes cdecde
quatrain
a group of four lines of verse
Sestet
A group of 6 lines
sestina
A poem with six sestets that use the same six end words in each stanza
Simile
Figurative language that compares two things using “like” or “as”
Shakespearean sonnet
English in origin; 14 lines long with a rhyming couplet at the end. The rhyme scheme is ababcdcdefefgg.
Slant rhyme
Rhymes that are imperfect such as stuns/stones
stanza
A group of lines in a poem, similar to a paragraph in prose
villanelle
19 line poem with 3 line stanza that use an aba rhyme pattern. Two lines are repeated throughout the poem creating a woven, cyclical effect
volta
“the turn” in a sonnet which marks a transition. Occurs between the octave and sestet in a Petrarchan sonnet, or before the couplet
34