Poet Presentations

AGENDA:

Begin poet presentations

Poet Project

For this project, you will need to:

1. Select a contemporary poet/poetry book.  Read the poems

2. Research this person's life and writing

3. Prepare a written report about your findings and deliver an oral presentation 4-5 minutes

Here are the topics you need to cover in your research and your report:

Personal Background

In no more than 1 paragraph, give some information about your selected poet's life.  Include things like when and where this person lived, where he/she went to school, major life events and accomplishments, and so on.  I do not want this person's entire life story—just some highlights!

Poetic Style

In another paragraph or two, discuss the poetic type, style, and subject matter this person is known for.  For example, did he/she write free verse or sonnets?    Did he/she write about love or war or death or funny things?  What are some of his/her most famous poems? Why are those poems famous?

Selected Poem

Read several poems by your poet and then select one to include in your report.   Type it out or copy it into your work.  Be sure to include the title of the poem (if there is one) and the year that it was written.

Poem Analysis

For the poem you chose in the step above, provide your own analysis of the poem's meaning.  This should be at least 1 paragraph in length, but could be two or more paragraphs long depending on the poem you chose.  In your analysis, explain what the poem is about.  What is the poet trying to convey to the reader?  Provide evidence from the poem to support your thoughts.  Remember, DO NOT use "I" in your formal writing.

GRADING

You will be evaluated on the following things:

Following the written directions above          Thoroughness/Completeness of work Writing content, organization, and style Proper grammar and writing conventions

Research/Evidence of learning Neatness Use of sentence patterns

Shoveling snow with Buddha/The Hand

AGENDA:

View "The Hand"

The Hand

Mary Ruefle, 1952

The teacher asks a question.
You know the answer, you suspect
you are the only one in the classroom 
who knows the answer, because the person
in question is yourself, and on that 
you are the greatest living authority,
but you don’t raise your hand.
You raise the top of your desk
and take out an apple.
You look out the window.
You don’t raise your hand and there is
some essential beauty in your fingers,
which aren’t even drumming, but lie 
flat and peaceful.
The teacher repeats the question. 
Outside the window, on an overhanging branch,
a robin is ruffling its feathers
and spring is in the air.

HANDOUT: Shoveling Snow with Buddha
Write a poem about performing an activity (any activity) with a famous person fictional or real.

Work on poet presentations!

Completing your poetry project!

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

AGENDA:

Read the Wallace Stevens poem and student examples  (POEM IN PARTS)

Create your own poem in parts--

1. Twenty Little Poetry Projects

2. small Words

3.15 Sentence Portrait Poem

1. For the first-line starter, choose one of the following:

• You stand there… / No one is here… / In this (memory, photograph, dream, etc.), you are… / I think sometimes… / The face is… / We had been… / Now complete this sentence.

2. Write a sentence with a color in it.

3. Write a sentence with a part of the body in it.

4. Write a sentence with a simile (a comparison using like or as).

5. Write a sentence of over 15 words.

6. Write a sentence under eight words.

7. Write a sentence with a piece of clothing in it.

8. Write a sentence with a wish in it.

9. Write a sentence with an animal in it.

10. Write a sentence in which three or more words alliterate; that is they begin with the same initial consonant, as in “Suzie sells seashells by the seashore.”

11. Write a sentence with two commas.

12. Write a sentence with a smell and a color in it.

13. Write another sentence with a simile.

14. Write a sentence with four words or less in it.

15. Write a sentence to end this portrait that uses the word or words you chose for a title.

4. Ekphrastic Poem--postcard poem

5. 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

6. Poet Project--present biographical information about the poet, describe the style of his/her writing
(themes, imagery), and read two poems

Ekphrastic poetry/Picture Postcards

Ekphrastic poetry

Ekphrasis: writing that comments upon another art form, for instance a poem about a photograph or a novel about a film.  Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a prime example of this type of writing, since the entire poem concerns the appearance and meaning of an ancient piece of pottery.

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
    Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
    A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunt about thy shape
    Of deities or mortals, or of both,
        In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
    What men or gods are these?  What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit?  What struggle to escape?
        What pipes and timbrels?  What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
    Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
    Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
        Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve;
        She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
    Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
    For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
    For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
        For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
    That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
        A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
    To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
    And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
    Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
        Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
    Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
        Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape!  Fair attitude! with brede
    Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
    Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
    When old age shall this generation waste,
        Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
    Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
        Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.





The Poet Speaks of Art

Introductory Remarks by Harry Rusche on Poets and Paintings

Ever since the Roman poet Horace set down in his Ars Poetica (c. 13 BC) the dictum "ut pictura poesis"--"as is painting, so is poetry"--the two arts have been wedded in the critical mind. Poets and painters sometimes turn to one another for inspiration, and the dialogue has been mutually beneficial. Painters and illustrators have often been inspired by literature, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The critic Richard Altick says, for example, that between 1760 and 1900 there existed around 2,300 paintings based on Shakespeare's plays alone. These Shakespeare paintings are only one-fifth of the 11,500 paintings on subjects and scenes from literature--and we are talking only about paintings done in England during those years! Sheer numbers indicate the influence of authors on artists. Listed in the section on additional readings are several books that discuss the relationships between art and literature.
The road runs both ways, of course, and writers turn as well to paintings for their inspiration. In the small anthology of poems and paintings exhibited here, some interesting questions arise as we contemplate the relationship between the poem and the picture. Is the poem simply an objective verbal description of the work of art, or does the poet make conclusions about what the painting means? Could you reconstruct the painting from the poem without actually seeing it? Why does the poet dwell on some features of the the painting and ignore other aspects of the picture? Do you agree with the meaning the poet "reads" in the painting, or do you think the writer misreads it or warps the scene depicted to personal ends?



Work in progress:

Twenty Little Poetry Projects
Small Words
15 Sentence Poem
Ekphrastic Postcard Poetry