Introduction to

Poetry

Poetry Quiz• Please get out a blank piece of paper.• At the top of the page please write:

– “TERM 4 – ”– Poetry Quiz

• Then list 1-15 down the left side of your paper.

• As I read the following passages please label “poem” for those that you think are a poem and “not” for those that you think are something other than a poem.

• Then write a sentence describing why you believe it is or isn’t a poem.

Passage 1Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.From what I’ve tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo day that for destruction ice

Is also greatAnd would suffice.

Passage 2Maybe life was better

When I used to be a wetter.

Passage 3Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,

Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,I heard a Negro play.

Down on Lenox Avenue the other nightBy the pale dull pallor of an old gas light

He did a lazy sway . . . He did a lazy sway . . .

To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.With his ebony hands on each ivory key

Hey made that poor piano moan with melody.O Blues!

Passage 4Steamed Rice Whole Wheat BagelEgg WhiteBaked Chicken

Tomato SoupBroccoliCheddar CheeseGarlic Clove

Grape Nuts and Non-Fat MilkAlmonds AppleIce Water

InsulinHypodermic

Passage 5maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sangso sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded starwhose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thingwhich raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may came home with a smooth round stoneas small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Passage 6so much dependsupon

a red wheel barrow

glazed with rain water

beside the whitechickens.

Passage 7I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman - -

I have detested you long enough.

I come to you as a grown child

Who has had a pig-headed father;

I am old enough now to make friends.

It was you that broke the new wood,

Now is a time for carving.

We have one sap and one root - -

Let there be commerce between us.

Passage 8Hold on, slow down, again from the top now,

and tell me everything,I know I've been gone for, what seems like forever,but I'm here now waiting,to convince you that I'm not, a ghost or a stranger,but closer than you think,she said "Just go on to what youpretend is your life butplease don't die on me."

Passage 9Hope is a thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little birdThat kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,And on the strangest sea;Yet, never, in extremity,It asked a crumb of me.

Passage 10What throws you out is what drags you inWhat drags you in is what throws youWhat throws you out is what dragsWhat drags is what throws youWhat throws you dragsWhat drags throwsThrows dragThragsDrags throwWhat throws dragsWhat drags you throwsWhat throws is what drags youWhat drags you in is what throwsWhat throws you out is what drags youWhat drags you in is what throws you outWhat throws you in is what drags youWhat drags you out is what throwsWhat throws you out drags youWhat drags throws you inWhat throws drags youDrags throw youThrags

Passage 11I see your dirty face

Hide behind your collar What is done in vain

Truth is hard to swallowSo you pray to God

To justify the way you live a lie, live a lie, live a lieAnd you take your timeAnd you do your crime

Well you made your bedI made mine

Passage 12Once on returning home, purse-proud and hale,

I found my choice possessions on the lawn, An auctioneer was whipping up a sale.

I did not move to claim what was my own.

“One coat of pride, perhaps a bit threadbare;Illusion’s trinkets, splendid for the young;

Some items, miscellaneous, marked ‘Fear’;The chair of honor, with a missing rung.”

The spiel ran on; the sale was brief and brisk;The bargains fell to bidders, one by one.

Hope flushed my cheekbones with a scarlet disk.Old neighbors nudged each other at the fun.

My spirits rose each time the hammer fell,The heart beat faster as the fat words rolled.

I left my home with unencumbered willAnd all the rubbish of confusion sold.

Passage 13This handless clock stares blindly from its tower,

Refusing to acknowledge any hour.But what can one clock do to stop the gameWhen others go on striking just the same?

Whatever mite of truth the gesture held,Time may be silenced but will not be stilled,Not we absolved by any one’s withdrawing

From all the restless ways we must be goingAnd all the rings in which we’re spun and swirled,

Whether around a clockface or a world.

Passage 14Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate;Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed;But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;Nor sahll Death brag thou wander’s in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Passage 15Freeway overpass--Blossoms in grafitti on

fog-wrapped June mornings

Time to Check your Answers1. Poem – “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost 2. Poem – “Thoughts on getting out of a nice warm bed

in an ice-cold house to go to the bathroom at three o’clock in the morning” Judith Viorst

3. Poem – “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes4. Poem – “2” by Sherman Alexie5. Poem – “maggie and milly and molly and may” by E.E.

Cummings6. Poem – “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos

Williams7. Poem – “Ezra Pound - A Pact” by Ezra Pound8. Poem – “Ready to Fall” by Rise Against

Checking your Answers cont. . .

9. Poem – “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickenson

10. Poem – “Overboard” by May Swenson

11. Poem – “Let it Rock” by Kevin Rudolf

12. Poem – “The Auction” by Theodore Roethke

13. Poem – “A Clock in the Square” by Adrian Rich

14. Poem – “Sonnet 18” by Shakespeare

15. Poem – “Urban Haiku” by Michael R. Collings

So, what is poetry anyways?

• All of these poems we just looked at are very unique, and very different.

•So, what is poetry anyway?

According to. . . World Book Dictionary a poem is:

“any composition in verse; arrangement of words lines usually with a regularly repeated accent and often with rhyme. Poems are highly imaginative or emotional, designed to express or convey deep feelings and thoughts.”

According to. . .The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary

Terms poetry is:“Generally said to be one of the three or four

major literary genres, a term defined and described in so many different ways that one might easily argue that there are as many ways to characterize it as there are people . . . Seen from this angle, any imaginative artistic work might be called poetic.”

Assignment #1• Haiku

– Originates from Japan– Is made up of three lines – Follows the pattern of 5, 7, 5 (syllables)– Originally haikus were used to celebrate and

focus on nature. – Now still used to celebrate nature, but also

used to describe everyday life.

Haiku Examples

How beautifully

That kite soars up to the sky

From the small boy’s hand

She has no home but

Her nails are always polished

Waiting for the bus. By: Peter Saint-Andre

Assignment cont. . . • Write three Haiku’s

• Pick your favorite one

• Give to a friend to Edit

• Share your Haiku and the Haiku you edited.

• Then on the same page as your poetry “quiz” write your own definition of poetry.