Introduction to Poetry Poetry Quiz Please

Introduction to Poetry

Poetry Quiz • Please get out a blank piece of paper. • At the top of the page please write: – “TERM 4 – ” – Poetry Quiz • Then list 1 -15 down the left side of your paper. • As I read the following passages please label “poem” for those that you think are a poem and “not” for those that you think are something other than a poem. • Then write a sentence describing why you believe it is or isn’t a poem.

Passage 1 Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To day that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

Passage 2 Maybe life was better When I used to be a wetter.

Passage 3 Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway. . . To the tune o’ those Weary Blues. With his ebony hands on each ivory key Hey made that poor piano moan with melody. O Blues!

Passage 4 Steamed Rice Whole Wheat Bagel Egg White Baked Chicken Tomato Soup Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Garlic Clove Grape Nuts and Non-Fat Milk Almonds Apple Ice Water Insulin Hypodermic

Passage 5 maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach (to play one day) and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone. For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Passage 6 so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.

Passage 7 I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman - I have detested you long enough. I come to you as a grown child Who has had a pig-headed father; I am old enough now to make friends. It was you that broke the new wood, Now is a time for carving. We have one sap and one root - Let there be commerce between us.

Passage 8 Hold on, slow down, again from the top now, and tell me everything, I know I've been gone for, what seems like forever, but I'm here now waiting, to convince you that I'm not, a ghost or a stranger, but closer than you think, she said "Just go on to what you pretend is your life but please don't die on me. "

Passage 9 Hope is a thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I’ve heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.

Passage 10 What throws you out is what drags you in What drags you in is what throws you What throws you out is what drags What drags is what throws you What throws you drags What drags throws Throws drag Thrags Drags throw What throws drags What drags you throws What throws is what drags you What drags you in is what throws What throws you out is what drags you What drags you in is what throws you out What throws you in is what drags you What drags you out is what throws What throws you out drags you What drags throws you in What throws drags you Drags throw you Thrags

Passage 11 I see your dirty face Hide behind your collar What is done in vain Truth is hard to swallow So you pray to God To justify the way you live a lie, live a lie And you take your time And you do your crime Well you made your bed I made mine

Passage 12 Once on returning home, purse-proud and hale, I found my choice possessions on the lawn, An auctioneer was whipping up a sale. I did not move to claim what was my own. “One coat of pride, perhaps a bit threadbare; Illusion’s trinkets, splendid for the young; Some items, miscellaneous, marked ‘Fear’; The chair of honor, with a missing rung. ” The spiel ran on; the sale was brief and brisk; The bargains fell to bidders, one by one. Hope flushed my cheekbones with a scarlet disk. Old neighbors nudged each other at the fun. My spirits rose each time the hammer fell, The heart beat faster as the fat words rolled. I left my home with unencumbered will And all the rubbish of confusion sold.

Passage 13 This handless clock stares blindly from its tower, Refusing to acknowledge any hour. But what can one clock do to stop the game When others go on striking just the same? Whatever mite of truth the gesture held, Time may be silenced but will not be stilled, Not we absolved by any one’s withdrawing From all the restless ways we must be going And all the rings in which we’re spun and swirled, Whether around a clockface or a world.

Passage 14 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 sahll Death brag thou wander’s in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Passage 15 Freeway overpass-Blossoms in grafitti on fog-wrapped June mornings

Time to Check your Answers 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Poem – “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost Poem – “Thoughts on getting out of a nice warm bed in an ice-cold house to go to the bathroom at three o’clock in the morning” Judith Viorst Poem – “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes Poem – “ 2” by Sherman Alexie Poem – “maggie and milly and molly and may” by E. E. Cummings Poem – “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams Poem – “Ezra Pound - A Pact” by Ezra Pound Poem – “Ready to Fall” by Rise Against

Checking your Answers cont. . . 9. Poem – “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickenson 10. Poem – “Overboard” by May Swenson 11. Poem – “Let it Rock” by Kevin Rudolf 12. Poem – “The Auction” by Theodore Roethke 13. Poem – “A Clock in the Square” by Adrian Rich 14. Poem – “Sonnet 18” by Shakespeare 15. Poem – “Urban Haiku” by Michael R. Collings

So, what is poetry anyways? • All of these poems we just looked at are very unique, and very different. • So, what is poetry anyway?

According to. . . World Book Dictionary a poem is: “any composition in verse; arrangement of words lines usually with a regularly repeated accent and often with rhyme. Poems are highly imaginative or emotional, designed to express or convey deep feelings and thoughts. ”

According to. . . The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms poetry is: “Generally said to be one of the three or four major literary genres, a term defined and described in so many different ways that one might easily argue that there as many ways to characterize it as there are people. . . Seen from this angle, any imaginative artistic work might be called poetic. ”

Assignment #1 • Haiku – Originates from Japan – Is made up of three lines – Follows the pattern of 5, 7, 5 (syllables) – Originally haikus were used to celebrate and focus on nature. – Now still used to celebrate nature, but also used to describe everyday life.

Haiku Examples How beautifully That kite soars up to the sky From the small boy’s hand She has no home but Her nails are always polished Waiting for the bus. By: Peter Saint-Andre

Assignment cont. . . • • Write three Haiku’s Pick your favorite one Give to a friend to Edit Share your Haiku and the Haiku you edited. • Then on the same page as your poetry “quiz” write your own definition of poetry.