Poetry Appreciation workshop

1. Poetry Appreciation workshop Hayley Durham - Senior Project

2. Why Poetry? • No restrictions and All the freedom A poet wants • No pressure of perfect Grammar and sentence structure • No worries of verbalizing feelings or complex logic • Control over the words in one’s head • Having others understand, where verbalizing would be uncertain

3. What is Poetry? • The oldest form of communication among humans • Celtic Poems tell of historic events • Greek laws were written in stanza (four line) form • Dante Alighieri Divine Comedy • Chaucer Canterbury Tales • Poets were treasured for their talents • “King Assassination Saviors” • King Fredrick’s “Courtly” love of poetry • Then Famous “Shakespeare”

4. How to Read a Poem: Beginner's ManualBy: Pamela Spiro Wagner • “First, Forget everything you have learned, • That poetry is difficult, • That it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you… • To read poetry requires only courage… • Treat poetry like dirt, • Humus (black) rich and heavy from the garden… • Poetry demands surrender, • Language saying what is true… • Read a poem a day… • When you can name five poets…and don’t even notice… • Congratulations. • You can now read poetry.”

5. Who or what is your favorite poet or poem? It’s okay if you don’t know yet. I’m here to help.

6. Why do you like your poem? • Is it simple? Complex? None-sense? • Does the topic interest you? • Does the poem lighten moods? Invoke thought, or bring ease to your day?

7. What makes a poem great? What are your Thoughts?

8. What to expect Inside the Workshops Outside the Workshops • A safe environment where creative minds can wander • Group discuss and readings of written poems • Educate those who attend on the different poetry forms • Activities to show how poetry can be fun and enjoyable • National Poetry Month (April) • Leading up to this: • Expressive Poetry Posters • April 18thPoem in Your Pocket Day • Academy of American Poets • Dear Poet Project

9. Poem in your pocket day

10. Prose • Prose is the form of a written sentence; the universal way of communicating in print. Right now, this is prose.

11. Prose versus poetry • Poetry: • Example Stanza: • Voices clashing, clawing my ears; • Silence? Chaos • clashing and clawing my ears • Prose • Example sentence: • The irritating clashing of voices • from both the older generation of • students and those of the small • children being watched here always • seems to distract me from my work.

12. Try yourself Take that sentence you wrote and try the exercise and write a poem stanza, or more if you’re brave, and see what you get

13. Next workshops • March 22 • + • Month of April • National Poetry Month