What is Poetry?

1. What is Poetry? • What is poetry? Who Knows? • Not a rose, but the scent of a rose; • Not the sky, but the light in the sky; Not the fly, but the gleam of the fly; • Not the sea, but the sound of the sea; • Not myself, but what makes me • See, hear and feel something that prose • Cannot; and what it is, who knows? • Eleanor Farjeon

2. Poetry is language of the senses • Taste • Smell • Touch • Sight • sound

3. Praying It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. -Mary Oliver

4. Poetry is paying attention

5. Poetry lives in concrete detail • Don’t use abstraction • Listen to poem and write down 3-5 strong images.

6. I come from… • I come from_____________ • I am from___________ • Things to consider: Favorite book as a child? Expression of parents Strangest gift Happiest memory Favorite food Season song

7. Review terms • Simile: Comparison between two dissimilar things using the word like or as: • My love is like a rose • Metaphor: Comparison using the word is • My love is a rose unfolding slowly • Imagery: pictures created through sensory detail • Personification: giving human attributes to inanimate objects • The night crept slowly down the streets

8. Quote of the day • Don’t be bored, don’t be lazy, don’t be trivial, and don’t be proud. The slightest loss of attention leads to death. -Frank O’Hara

9. Quote Of the Day( put in your writer’s notebook) • A detail is concrete if it appeals to one of the five senses; it is significant if it also conveys a judgment, an idea, or both.” • Janet Burrowway

10. Revise topic sentence • I thought the video was interesting and I learned lots of things that I didn’t know about. • Don’t be vague in writing. BE SPECIFIC! • The documentary on the Refugee All Stars taught me about the hardships of refugees.

11. Homework • Revise I come from poem 10 points TYPED or written neatly in pen • Arrange lines in order that makes sense • -connect different lines with conjunctions • Line breaks make sense? • Concrete detail? • Good landing of poem?

12. Poem of the day: Silos • Identify similes and metaphors • What is she saying about her town? • What do the silos represent?

13. Personification • Giving human attributes (characteristics or traits) to inanimate (not alive) objects. • The nightcrept on silent feet

14. Class poem • Poetry uses sensory detail to create concrete images in the mind of the reader. • Poets take abstract ideas and make them create through sensory detail • Touch, smell, taste, sight, sound • Poets don’t just say: Love hurts. • Poets say: Love hurts like a thorn in my foot • OR: to make it a metaphor: Love is a thorn in my foot • Or: Love is a thorn

15. Lets Brainstorm on topics • seasons, countries, music, youth, excitement, pain, hate, chaos, depression, peace, war

16. insanity • Insanity runs wild like first graders on the playground • Insanity tastes like burning acid • Insanity looks like an earthquake • Insanity smells like acrid smoke • Insanity feels like insects crawling under your skin

17. Form groups • Each group brainstorms a list of similes or metaphors that describe your sense. • Example: Love is unstable like an airplane (motion) • Love is like morning dew on a single blade of grass • Revise: Love SHINES like morning dew

18. Share Time • Each group presents their lines and tapes sheet to board • Class votes on two favorite lines from each group • Students copy down the two best lines from each sheet • ASSIGNMENT: Revise class poem. Make it your own. Switch order, cut, add, etc.

19. Assignment • Revise poem by rearranging lines in an order that makes sense to you. • Try arranging in stanzas • Try arranging in couplets • Don’t rhyme

20. How to revise • Re-arrange order • Turn similes into metaphors and combine images: • Winter tastes cold like ice cubes • Winter tastes like arctic glaciers Winter is an arctic glacier • Moving across my tender tongue • Trapping words in ice

21. 1. Change simile into metaphors: Chaos looks like a crowded street Chaos is a crowded street 2. Add on to the image: Chaos is a crowded street filled with____________

22. Use strong verbs • Cut is and was and replace with verbs • Cut out the likes and replace with is to make metaphor • Combine similar images • Thing of line breaks

23. Tips on revision • Cut unnecessary words • Winter tastes cold like ice cubes on my tongue • Winter tastes like arctic ice cubes • Add specific nouns -Winter glaciers freeze my tongue • Use strong verbs Winter glaciers claim my tongue Trapping words In the deep freeze of silence

24. 3. Add next line or image: Chaos is a crowded street filled with_______________ It (Put a verb here that expresses chaos) ____________like______________ And____________________

25. Homework • Today last day to turn in response to Refugee All Stars (worth a D) • 4th Hour: I come from poem due today • 4/5 hours: Revision of class poems due tomorrow • At the end of the day today: 2 6 line poems Insect Lord Speaks is due.

26. “Revision is really a desperate process. It’s a desperate desire to make it better, make it right, make it work so that it can last. That’s the only reason to revise, to make it strong enough so that it will be around after you are gone.” Maxine Kumin

27. Terms Alliteration: Repetition of consonant sounds: • Big black bear • End Rhyme: end at end of words or lines • Middle rhyme: middle of word or line rhyme • Find examples of these in POD • What imagery tells us this is a city court? • How does imagery relate to title and main idea of poem? • Who does the speaker compare himself to?

28. Alliteration: rain rusted orange/rinm • Bolted against a /metal black board sky • Playground planetarium • The images of the city court are juxtaposed with the images of the constellation. The speaker is suggesting that taking a 3 pointt shot is not easy. It seems as long of a distance as shooting from outer space. The speaker compares himself to a “black god flying” across the court to deliver the point.

29. General tips on revision • Use lines you like, and add lines if you want. • Rearrange the order so it makes sense • Cut unnecessary words • Use strong verbs • Make nouns specific (bird? Raven, Cardinal) • Redo line breaks. Play with form: Brick by brick

30. Insect Lord speaks • Underline 3 or 4 lines that you like • Write 2 6-line poems that end with one line from Insect Lord Speaks.

31. Music feels like blood pumping through your veins Music feels like an adrenaline rush Music moves like the waves in the ocean Music moves like the blood through your veins Music tastes like blueberry yum yum Music tastes like alcohol and drugs Music looks like money Music looks like video vixens Music smells like a camp fire on a cool night Music smells like a freshly lit cigarette Music is the sound of your brain’s creativity Music is the sound of inspiration

32. Tips • The line is more important than the sentence • Let someone else have space in your poem • (a brother, parent, friend)