Notes

1. Notes By: Kullen Bailey

2. What types of sad poems are there? • The different types of sad poems include depression poems, sad love poems, death poems, and sad poems written by teenagers. (“Sad Poems” Read Poems). Subcategories of poems: Lost – Love Sad Poems: Presents poetry that explains pain and devastation of losing love. (“Sad Poems.” Love Poetry). Usually these types of poems revolve around the idea of a breakup. Poetry about Death and Loss: Poems that are about losing our beloved to the one enemy none can escape. (“Sad Poems.” Love Poetry). These types of poems focus mainly on the death of a son, daughter, sibling, father, of mother. Poems about Depression and Suicide: “These poems cover a wide range of topics ranging from melancholy to suicide.” (“Sad Poems.” Love Poetry). Poems about Society: Poems that discover the evils and hurt found within a society. (“Sad Poems.” Love Poetry). This subtopic of sad poetry is fairly graphic and discusses rape and child abuse. Poems about Lost Friends: “Contains poems about the loss of friendship and how it can impact out lives.” (“Sad Poems.” Love Poetry).

3. How do sad poetry writers persuade their readers? • Sad poetry writers persuade their readers by adding their own personality or attitude about a subject. (“Authors Purpose”). “The author may try to convince readers by using tone to appeal to their feelings and/or values.” (“Authors Purpose”). • Sad poetry writers also persuade their readers by stirring all of the senses. (“Ballade of suicide”). This stirring all of the senses or affecting the five senses is known as imagery.

4. How do sad poetry authors hook and hold their readers? • Sad poetry authors hook and hold their readers by using a literary element such as an allusion. An allusion is a reference to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature. • In a Farewell to False Love, a poem by Sir Walter Raleigh, he describes in one of his stanzas the sorrow that an individual faces by referencing or “alluding” to Greek Mythology: • “A fortress foiled, which reason did defend, A siren song, a fever of the mind, A maze wherein affection finds no end, A raging cloud that runs before the wind, A substance like the shadow of the sun, A goal of grief for which the wisest run.”(“A Farewell to False Love”). • Within this stanza, you can identify several mythological characters from “A siren song, A maze, and A raging cloud.” The siren song represents the sirens in Greek Mythology. The creatures sing songs that bring people and soldiers that board boats into deep peril, fear, and sorrow by their piercing songs. The maze represents the minotaur in Greek Mythology. In Greek Mythology, the minotaur lies within a maze that seems to never end for heroes that adventure through the maze. This creature also presents danger, fear, and sorrow to the people who adventure into his domain. The raging cloud represents the Greek God Zeus. Zeus is the God of the sky and weather. (“Information on Zeus”) This raging cloud within Raleigh’s poem describes the rage that Zeus has by portraying tainted or bad weather. This bad weather also envisions or symbolizes ideas of danger, fear, and sorrow. All three symbols within the allusion of Raleigh’s poem represent the sadness and miserable feelings that one has for a lost love. However, Raleigh does this in a way that hooks and holds the reader by making the reader interested and amazed at the cleverness Raleigh has to connect Greek Mythology to a sad poem.

5. When is an appropriate time to read/write sad poetry? • “Sad love poems are written when the writer is depressed due to love.” (“Sad Love Poems”.) These forms of lost love appear as a breakup, death of a loved one, being affected by a divorce or separation of some kind, or because of being cheated. (“Sad Love Poems”.) • Sad love poems are read when you are upset due to the loss of a loved one. (“Sad Love Poems”.) • For example, it might be a good idea to read “Please, Dad” by Michael Anderson if you have lost your father. • This poem describes the loss of the author’s dad and how his death has impacted his life. • Some powerful questions that appeared on the page: “How can you live when the best part of you dies? Where do you draw strength when your sole source of strength is taken from you?” (Anderson).

6. When is an appropriate time to read/write sad poetry? (Poem) Please, Dad by Michael Anderson As soft winds sweep away the daysI look back on life through a haze.Remember playgrounds, parks and friends,In childlike gaze that never ends.The laughter in a game of catch,Shall memory ever attach...To innocence in youthful eyes,Catching the ball to Dad's surprise.I recall my first bike, first wreck,Who picked me up, said, "What the heck?"Convinced me to give one more try,While, knees skinned, I forgot to cry.Just the joy knowing he was there,Making him proud my only care.There was nothing I couldn't do,My heart held fast that to be true.

7. When is an appropriate time to read/write sad poetry? (Poem continued) Though teenage years were kind of rough,I sure wasn't too big or tough.You taught me to defend what's rightAnd never back down from a fight.So I learned the hard way to stand,Still, with each lump, I found your hand.Drawing from you an inner strength,And stubborn pride of equal length.But there the line of fate was drawn,As though I blinked and you were gone.I found myself facing the sun,Not man, not boy, fatherless, one.Eyes blinded by a void inside,I could not live that you had died.Alas finding it to be true,I could do nothing without you.Please, Dad, today just hear my call,I'm sorry that I dropped the ball.My life is wrecked, my knees are skinned,My emotions undisciplined.I can't get up although I try,Please don't be upset if I cry.Though I can't fight what I can't see,Please, Dad, say you're still proud of me. (Anderson).

8. *Why do people read sad poetry? • People read sad poetry because “Sad Poems can be able to communicate one’s melancholy emotions and also create a mirror image of how one’s reflections of the situation and themselves.” (“Sad Poems” Read Poems). • Sad poetry gets the writer to put intense feelings and emotions into their works. This gives the poet a different type of tranquility. When people read the sad poems, it allows them to understand and realize the situation that the poet has endured, “the hurdles faced and the rough moments spent.” (“Sad Love Poems”.). After the reader understands the circumstances that the writer of the sad poem has been through, the poet and the reader have a connection because they have gone through related tragedies that they have once endured in their life. • Another reason why people read sad poetry without even enduring a similar mournful situation as the author is to learn. Poems that were written because of the loss of a love would give you guidance on how to react in future situations, how to learn from your mistakes and not make the same mistakes, and also how to appreciate the blessing you are given. This blessing being not facing the misery that the author of the sad poem has gone through and discovering the good idea that is released through the sad poem without actually facing what the author has tolerated. (“Sad Love Poems”.)

9. *Why do people read sad poetry? (2) • An additional reason as to why sad poetry is read is so that people can communicate with other people in their lives and compare the different conditions that each person has suffered. (“Sad Love Poems”.) This would allow you to form a bond with that person that has gone through a matching circumstance by being able to sense their reaction. (“Sad Love Poems”.) • “Reading sad poems have a special way of bringing tranquility to your mind when you are also feeling upset. It's an amazing way of clearing you off your depression and comforting you that you are not the only one with such feelings. It helps you realize that there are others on the same path as you are on and gives you the ability to deal with sadness.” (“Sad Love Poems”.) • Also, sad poetry is read because It has an exclusive way of healing your soul of sadness and bringing a different type of peace you haven't felt before. (“Sad Love Poems”.)