If you were absent today, you missed a KEY lesson in our poetry writing development. Be SURE to call your homework buddies tonight and get the exercises that we did and the explanations for why we did them.
Homework: Write and then type up two poems for Wednesday's class. Use the criteria which we created in class at the beginning of the unit. Our goal is to get these poems published so read and re-read The Claremont Review and www.youngpoets.ca and The Aerie International and Polyphony H.S.
All four publications require the best in student writing.
Write what is important to you and develop your understanding of poetry.
1. Titles are key. (they set the tone, invite the reader in).
2. Use of language (Tessa's example of the dinosaurs curled in a feotal position says soooo much). Be unique in your use of language. If you have heard the expression before don't use it. Make the reader think and feel and experience the subject of your poetry in a new and profound way.
3. Sound (alliteration, assonance, dissonance, rhythm, rhyme, repetition, onomatopoeia,) At the editing stage, choose the words carefully to add the right tone through sound and diction.
4. Theme (it's not only how well you say something but how committed you are to your vision--angry at death? Make us angry. Angry at hypocrisy in government leaders? Make us see why. Madly in love with your dog? Make us see that relationship in a new way. Avoid Hollywood themes (dog as saviour (Lassie, Rin Tin Tin) or dog as confidant/loyal etc).
5. Form--line break, enjambement, caesura, stanzas, line length, pantoums, haikus, glosas, lyrics, sonnets, list poems, narrative poems. Which form works best for your topic?
We will be editing the poems in class on Wednesday so make sure that you have two poems to share and be ready to cut, revise, re-shape, start again, praise, etc.
Great work today. The poems you created during class may be used as part of your portfolio.
The goal is to create 4 publishable poems. If we hurry, we can still send some in to the BCTELA contest and you can submit them on-line to Aerie International and we can mail them to The Claremont Review and email them to Polyphony.
Good luck. Your stories were great so I suspect your poems will be too. As a class, you have a sensitivity to language and to ideas and you also have the perseverance to be willing to edit and you are not afraid to share your opinions. These attributes mean you are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. (Percy Shelley). You have the visions of artists.
