Poetry Inspired by Art

1. Poetry Inspired by Art Bridget Murphy brimurph@nmu.edu

2. Poetry Inspired by Art • Unit designed for 10th grade, however it is easily adaptable for any grade 6-12. • Geared towards poetry, but would work well for narratives as well! • So without further adieu……

3. EKPHRASIS! • Introduce students to the term “Ekphrasis”- meaning writing inspired by art. • Hook students with Don McLean song “Vincent” inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, “Starry Night”

4. The Hook….. • Vincent (Starry Starry Night) Lyrics • Starry starry night, paint your palette blue and greyLook out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my soulShadows on the hills, sketch the trees and the daffodilsCatch the breeze and the winter chills, in colors on the snowy linen land Now I understand what you tried to say to meHow you suffered for you sanity How you tried to set them freeThey would not listen they did not know how, perhaps they'll listen nowStarry starry night, flaming flowers that brightly blazeSwirling clouds in violet haze reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blueColors changing hue, morning fields of amber grainWeathered faces lined in pain are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand Chorus:For they could not love you, but still your love was true And when no hope was left in sight, on that starry starry nightYou took your life as lovers often do,But I could have told you, Vincent,This world was never meant for one as beautiful as youStarry, starry night, portraits hung in empty hallsFrameless heads on nameless walls with eyes that watch the world and can't forget.Like the stranger that you've met, the ragged man in ragged clothesThe silver thorn of bloody rose, lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow Now I think I know what you tried to say to meHow you suffered for you sanity How you tried to set them freeThey would not listen they're not listening still Perhaps they never will. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM

5. The Examples….. • Stealing The Scream •   by Monica Youn • It was hardly a high-tech operation, stealing The Scream. That we know for certain, and what was left behind--a store-bought ladder, a broken window, and fifty-one seconds of videotape, abstract as an overture. And the rest? We don't know. But we can envision moonlight coming in through the broken window, casting a bright shape over everything--the paintings, the floor tiles, the velvet ropes: a single, sharp-edged pattern; the figure's fixed hysteria rendered suddenly ironic by the fact of something happening; houses clapping a thousand shingle hands to shocked cheeks along the road from Oslo to Asgardstrand; the guards rushing in--too late!--greeted only by the gap-toothed smirk of the museum walls; and dangling from the picture wire like a baited hook, a postcard: "Thanks for the poor security." The policemen, lost as tourists, stand whispering in the galleries: ". . .but what does it all mean? "Someone has the answers, someone who, grasping the frame, saw his sun-red face reflected in that familiar boiling sky. The Scream by Edvard Munch

6. Example Tres! • Classic Scene • William Carlos Williams • A power-housein the shape ofa red brick chair90 feet high • on the seat of whichsit the figuresof two metalstacks--aluminum-- • commanding an areaof squalid shacksside by side--from one of which • buff smokestreams while undera grey skythe other remains • passive today-- Classic Landscape by Charles Sheerer

7. And now the REAL fun starts ;) • http://pinterest.com/bqmur039/englishart-class/ • To allow students to explore art and create their own poetry based on the images they select.

8. Grammar Goodness! • Figurative Language • metaphor - a comparison between two seemingly unlike things. • simile - a comparison between two seemingly unlike things using like or as. • personification - giving human characteristics to inanimate objects. • allusion - a reference to a famous person, event, or other literary work. • apostrophe - a speech given to an inanimate object, an idea, or someone who is dead. • hyperbole - a deliberate exaggeration. • meiosis - a deliberate understatement. • pun - when a word or phrase is used with two different meanings. • http://www.brighthubeducation.com/high-school-english-lessons/49132-figurative-language-poems-and-teaching-ideas

9. The Big Bad Assessment Wolf!

10. Visual Teaching Strategies… Yes Please! • http://www.vtshome.org/what-is-vts