Free Verse Play

1. Free Verse Play CWI Week 4

2. Repetition In poetry, repetition is used in two main ways: 1. To emphasize a point as with a refrain (a line/ lines that repeat throughout) 2. Beginning each line/stanza to show multiple aspects of a subject Rhyme can add a beat to writing – especially when used as a chant (refrain) throughout.

3. Still I Rise You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may trod me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I'll rise.Does my sassiness upset you?Why are you beset with gloom?'Cause I walk like I've got oil wellsPumping in my living room.Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I'll rise.Did you want to see me broken?Bowed head and lowered eyes?Shoulders falling down like teardrops.Weakened by my soulful cries.Does my haughtiness offend you?Don't you take it awful hard'Cause I laugh like I've got gold minesDiggin' in my own back yard.You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I'll rise.Does my sexiness upset you?Does it come as a surpriseThat I dance like I've got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs?Out of the huts of history's shameI riseUp from a past that's rooted in painI riseI'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that's wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.  Maya Angelou The Sun The sun is an orange sitting on a tablecloth of blue. The sun is a basketball arcing toward the net. The sun is a dingy bobbing in an azure ocean. The sun is a golden button on an indigo shirt. The sun is a cantaloupe in a blue glass bowl. Orange Orange is the sun sliding to the horizon after a summer day. Orange is the sound of a dribbling basetball. Orange is the smell of a tiger lily petal. Orange is the taste of a thirst-quenching Nehi Soda. Orange is the color of peach marmalade on a side of toast. Orange is the sound of a carrot popping out of the ground.

4. Repetition Poem • Select an abstract idea/ emotion • At the top of a page, write ____ is • 3 minutes write a list mixing actions, images, etc – if you get stuck, write ___ is until you come up with a new one – keep your pens moving!!! • Take what you’ve written and create a poem that repeats your focus either in each line or to start each stanza Suggestions: • Loneliness • Love • Anger • Faith • Rejection • Excitement • Hope • Wonder

5. On Location… • Chose a place you know fairly well • Describe it and those who populate it today • Describe how it was years ago • Describe it’s future • Decide on an order and write a three stanza poem that transitions in time between past, present and future • Could be a room, a place outside, a building in total or somewhere imaginary (but real)

6. What our Stuff Says I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful -- The eye of a little god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. Sylvia Plath I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful -- The eye of a little god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. Sylvia Plath

7. Example 2: Capturing Voice of Object Awaking in New York BY MAYA ANGELOU Curtains forcing their will against the wind, children sleep, exchanging dreams with seraphim. The city drags itself awake on subway straps; and I, an alarm, awake as a rumor of war, lie stretching into dawn, unasked and unheeded.

8. Your Goals: • Create a poem that speaks from the voice of an inanimate object • Make clear the importance of the object to people and/or what it says about those who own/use it • Utilize an extended metaphor – like Plath used the lake – tying an aspect of the object to another thing

9. Celebrity… • Being famous comes at a cost… people are constantly looking up to or judging people in the limelight • So, for this piece you have a choice – to idolize or demonize your subject, or even to use sarcasm • First – select a celebrity that you admire or wish to admonish • Next write a piece that focuses on them as a whole or an incident with them • Remember to use your figurative language!!!