How to Read a Poem:



How to Read a Poem:

• Read a poem more than once.

• Keep a dictionary by you and use it.

• Read so as to hear the sounds of the words in your mind. Poetry is written to be heard: its meanings are conveyed through sound as well as through print. Every word is therefore important.

• Always pay careful attention to what the poem is saying. How do sentences work? Before grasping for the complex metaphor or hidden symbol, try to understand what the "plain sense" of these sentences.

• Practice reading poems aloud.

• Ask yourself the following questions:

--Who is the speaker and what is the occasion?

--What is the central purpose of the poem?

--By what means is the purpose of the poem achieved?

A True Poem

by Lloyd Schwartz

I'm working on a poem that's so true, I can't show it to anyone.

I could never show it to anyone.

Because it says exactly what I think, and what I think scares me.

Sometimes it pleases me.

Usually it brings misery.

And this poem says exactly what I think.

What I think of myself, what I think of my friends, what I think about my lover.

Exactly.

Parts of it might please them, some of it might scare them.

Some of it might bring misery.

And I don't want to hurt them, I don't want to hurt them.

I don't want to hurt anybody.

I want everyone to love me.

Still, I keep working on it.

Why?

Why do I keep working on it?

Nobody will ever see it.

Nobody will ever see it.

I keep working on it even though I can never show it to anybody.

I keep working on it even though someone might get hurt.

Questions

1. Who is the speaker in the poem?

2. What is the occasion/situation?

3. What is the purpose of the poem? (What is happening, literally?)

4. What is the meaning of the poem? (What is the poet trying to convey to the reader?)

Poetry

by Marianne Moore

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond

all this fiddle.

Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one

discovers in

it after all, a place for the genuine.

Hands that can grasp, eyes

that can dilate, hair that can rise

if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because

they are

useful. When they become so derivative as to become

unintelligible,

the same thing may be said for all of us, that we

do not admire what

we cannot understand: the bat

holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless

wolf under

a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse

that feels a flea, the base-

ball fan, the statistician--

nor is it valid

to discriminate against "business documents and

school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make

a distinction

however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the

result is not poetry,

nor till the poets among us can be

"literalists of

the imagination"--above

insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them,"

shall we have

it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,

the raw material of poetry in

all its rawness and

that which is on the other hand

genuine, you are interested in poetry.

Questions

1. Who is the speaker in the poem?

2. What is the occasion/situation?

3. What is the purpose of the poem? (What is happening, literally?)

4. What is the meaning of the poem? (What is the poet trying to convey to the reader?)

5. Compare the two poets’ attitudes towards poetry. How do they feel about it? What do they believe is its purpose? What language do they use to convey these attitudes and feelings?

Writing:

Write a poem in which you convey your attitude and feelings about poetry.

1. First, brainstorm what poetry you know. Where have you heard it? How does it make you feel? What purpose does it have for you, any?

2. Second, make some decisions about form. How do poems look/sound? How do you want your poem to look and sound? Does the look and sound of a poem convey meaning to a reader? What meaning do you want to convey?

Incident in a Rose Garden

by Donald Justice

Gardener: Sir, I encountered Death

Just now among our roses.

Thin as a scythe he stood there.

I knew him by his pictures.

He had his black coat on,

Black gloves, a broad black hat.

I think he would have spoken,

Seeing his mouth stood open.

Big it was, with white teeth.

As soon as he beckoned, I ran.

I ran until I found you.

Sir, I am quitting my job.

I want to see my sons

Once more before I die.

I want to see California.

Master: Sir you must be that stranger

Who threatened my gardener.

This is my property, sir.

I welcome only friends here.

Death: Sir, I knew your father.

And we were friends at the end.

As for your gardener

I did not threaten him.

Old men mistake my gestures.

I only meant to ask him

To show me to his master.

I take it you are he?

Questions

1. Who is the speaker in the poem?

2. What is the occasion/situation?

3. What is the purpose of the poem? (What is happening, literally?)

4. What is the meaning of the poem? (What is the poet trying to convey to the reader?)

5. List and give an example for as many uses of figurative language and poetic devices you can find.

Example: personification – “his mouth stood open”

Writing:

On a separate piece of paper, do a free write on one of the following options:

1. Instead of writing your thoughts, write as though you are a used napkin, a scalpel, a turtle turned upside down by a group of children, a washing machine, a framed photograph, a ceiling fan, an unopened letter, or a remote control.

2. Choose an inanimate object you love or hate and write as though you are speaking to it.

Using your free write, write a poem in the following format:

• 2 Stanzas

• Each Line must be 5 or 10 Syllables (your choice)

• Make sure your transition, the separation of the first and second stanzas, is purposeful (change in tone, perspective, purpose?).

This Is Just to Say

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Questions

1. Who is the speaker in the poem?

2. What is the occasion/situation?

3. What is the purpose of the poem? (What is happening, literally?)

4. What is the meaning of the poem? (What is the poet trying to convey to the reader?)

5. Define Tone –

What is Williams tone in this poem?

Writing:

Write a poem below that expresses an “I’m sorry, but . . .” type of situation.

Write it in three stanzas with no line over six syllables.

We Real Cool

by Gwendolyn Brooks

THE POOL PLAYERS.

SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.

Questions

1. Who is the speaker in the poem?

2. What is the occasion/situation?

3. What is the purpose of the poem? (What is happening, literally?)

4. What is the meaning of the poem? (What is the poet trying to convey to the reader?)

5. What is Brooks’ tone? What words or images are used to express this tone?

Listening:



1. From whose point of view is this poem told? (Did your answer to #1 match what Brooks said?)

2. What did Brooks assume the boys thought of themselves? Do you feel this is conveyed in her poem? If so, how? If not, why?

3. When you first read the poem, did you “hear” it the way Brooks performed it? What was different? the same? What were you expecting? What surprised you?

4. What poetic devices become more obvious when hearing Brooks perform her poem?

5. After hearing Brooks talk about and perform the poem, what is your interpretation of the last full sentence of the poem?

Poetry Glossary

1. Basic Terms

denotation: the dictionary meaning of a word

connotation: the implied or suggested meaning connected with a word

literal meaning: limited to the simplest, ordinary, most obvious meaning

figurative meaning: associative or connotative meaning; representational

meter: measured pattern of rhythmic accents in a line of verse

rhyme: correspondence of terminal sounds of words or of lines of verse

2. Figurative Language

apostrophe: a direct address of an inanimate object, abstract qualities, or a person not living or present.

Example: "Beware, O Asparagus, you've stalked my last meal."

hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis (the opposite of understatement)

Example: "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

metaphor: comparison between essentially unlike things without using words OR application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally applicable

Example: "[Love] is an ever fixed mark, / that looks on tempests and is never shaken."

metonymy: a closely related term substituted for an object or idea

Example: "We have always remained loyal to the crown."

oxymoron: a combination of two words that appear to contradict each other

Example: bittersweet

paradox: a situation or phrase that appears to be contradictory but which contains a truth worth considering

Example: "In order to preserve peace, we must prepare for war."

personification: the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities

Example: "Time let me play / and be golden in the mercy of his means"

pun: play on words OR a humorous use of a single word or sound with two or more implied meanings; quibble

Example: "They're called lessons . . . because they lessen from day to day."

simile: comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as "like," as," or "as though"

Example: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"

synecdoche: a part substituted for the whole

Example: "Friends, Romans, countrymen: lend me your ears"

3. Poetic Devices

irony: a contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant (verbal irony) or what is expected in a particular circumstance or behavior (situational), or when a character speaks in ignorance of a situation known to the audience or other characters (situational)

Example: "Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea"

imagery: word or sequence of words representing a sensory experience (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory)

Example: "bells knelling classes to a close" (auditory)

synesthesia: an attempt to fuse different senses by describing one in terms of another

Example: the sound of her voice was sweet

symbol: an object or action that stands for something beyond itself

Example: white = innocence, purity, hope

alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds, particularly at the beginning of words

Example: ". . . like a wanderer white"

assonance: the repetition of similar vowel sounds

Example: "I rose and told him of my woe"

elision: the omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry

"Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame"

onomatopoeia: the use of words to imitate the sounds they describe

Example: "crack" or "whir"

allusion: a reference to the person, event, or work outside the poem or literary piece

Example: "Shining, it was Adam and maiden"

4. Poetic Forms

open: poetic form free from regularity and consistency in elements such as rhyme, line length, and metrical form

closed: poetic form subject to a fixed structure and pattern

stanza: unit of a poem often repeated in the same form throughout a poem; a unit of poetic lines ("verse paragraph")

blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter

free verse: lines with no prescribed pattern or structure

couplet: a pair of lines, usually rhymed

heroic couplet: a pair of rhymed lines in iambic pentameter (tradition of the heroic epic form)

quatrain: four-line stanza or grouping of four lines of verse

sonnet: fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter with a prescribed rhyme scheme; its subject is traditionally that of love

English (Shakespearean) Sonnet: A sonnet probably made popular by Shakespeare with the following rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet: A form of sonnet made popular by Petrarch with the following rhyme scheme: abbaabba cdecde OR cdcdcd

Its first octave generally presents a thought, picture, or emotion, while its final sestet presents an explanation, comment, or summary.

5. Meter

stress: greater amount of force used to pronounce one syllable over another

pause: (caesura) a pause for a beat in the rhythm of the verse (often indicated by a line break or a mark of punctuation)

rising meter: meter containing metrical feet that move from unstressed to stressed syllables

iambic (iamb): a metrical foot containing two syllables--the first is unstressed, while the second is stressed

anapestic (anapest): a metrical foot containing three syllables--the first two are unstressed, while the last is stressed

falling meter: meter containing metrical feet that move from stressed to unstressed syllables

trochaic (trochee): a metrical foot containing two syllables--the first is stressed, while the second is unstressed

dactylic (dactyl): a metrical foot containing three syllables--the first is stressed, while the last two are unstressed

spondee: an untraditional metrical foot in which two consecutive syllables are stressed

iambic pentameter: a traditional form of rising meter consisting of lines containing five iambic feet (and, thus, ten syllables)

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