We wrote the vocab. test on words 1-40 and I collected the poetry compare/contrast compositions.
We started our Poetry Response Journals. See below.
Due Tuesday, April 16th. No lates are accepted so build in time to create a terrific anthology this week.
Poetry Response Journals:
Find five poems that you absolutely love or that you
wish you had written from the Canadian poetry books on display in the
library. You will need to read a lot more than five poems to find the
five you absolutely love. You may also use the following sites:
www.poetryfoundation.org,
www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry,
www.poets.org and www.poets.ca.
Please do not use unauthorized sites as you may encounter some really
unedited poems that will not add to your understanding of poetry. For
this assignment, choose modern, published authors who use concrete
imagery, structure and literary devices to explore their topics.
Due Date: __Tuesday, April 16th_________________________
Purpose:
to train your ear, to get to know Canadian poetry,
to find out what they write about and how they write, to improve your
understanding of poetry, and improve your ability to write about
poetry
For
each poem answer the following questions in paragraph form (where
appropriate)
- Type or photocopy the poem for your report.
- Include the poem’s title, author and bibliographical information: “Carnations”. Patricia Young. Ruin and Beauty. 1999. Anansi Press.
- Highlight or underline your favourite passages in the poem.
- Explain in a brief paragraph what attracted you to the poem. Provide examples to support your opinions.
- Provide an alternative title for the poem.
- Write a statement of the poem’s theme. Write your theme statement like a thesis statement. Example: Engaging in war is a part of human nature: instinctual, animal, common; there is no need to be shocked by it. In the poem, “Cherries”, Janice Kulyk Keefer compares children picking cherries to sniper’s killing children. In the poem, electricity is needed to boil a kettle and also to “keep a baby’s punctured heart from fluttering away.” This juxtaposition reinforces the poem’s theme: war is an everyday occurrence, like eating and drinking. A poem’s theme is not love. What the poem says about love is the poem’s theme (or observation of the world). Next, in a paragraph, explain how you arrived at this theme. Be sure to quote from the poem to support your analysis.
- Discuss the poem’s structure. Possible discussion questions are: Is the poem one long sentence? Why? Do you notice a lot of long lines or a mixture of short and long? What do the line breaks indicate? If you re-wrote the poem in a different form, what would happen to the poem’s meaning? Are stanzas used? What does the title add to the poem? Does the poem’s rhythm or rhyme scheme add meaning? How is the poem punctuated? What effect does the punctuation have on the poem?
- Comment on the ending of the poem. A poem’s ending is the most difficult to write. Does the ending summarize the poem? Surprise? Does it end with an image or an idea? Does it refer back to something mentioned earlier in the poem? Is the ending effective? Would you have ended it somewhere else? Does it feel complete or does the poem need something added to it? Rate the poem’s ending on a scale of 1 to 10 and explain your reasons.
- Research the poem’s author. Find out where he/she lives, what education he/she has, what other books have been published, any awards won etc. A good site is www.poets.ca or try a search in Google. Summarize your findings in a paragraph.
