1. Poetry Unit
English 9

2. Reading Poetry
Look for punctuation in the poem telling where sentences begin and end.
Do not make a full stop at the end of a line if there is no period, comma, colon, etc.
If a passage of a poem is difficult to understand, look for the subject and verb of each sentence.
Be alert for literary devices.
Read the poem aloud and multiple times.

3. “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” Emily Dickinson
A narrow fellow in the grass Occasionally rides; You may have met him—did you not? His notice sudden is. The grass divides as with a comb, 5 A spotted shaft is seen; And then it closes at your feet And opens further on. He likes a boggy acre, A floor too cool for corn. 10 Yet when a boy, and barefoot, I more than once, at noon,
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash Unbraiding in the sun— When, stopping to secure it, 15 It wrinkled, and was gone. Several of nature’s people I known, and they know me; I feel for them a transport Of cordiality; 20 But never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone.

4. Literary Devices Review
Metaphor: a comparison of two unlike things; doesn’t use “like” or “as”
X is Y
Simile: compares two unlike objects using “like” or “as”
X is like Y
Personification: gives human characteristics to inanimate objects
Symbol: an ordinary object with extraordinary meaning and significance

5. Literary Devices Speaker: the voice talking to us in the poem.
Imagery: language that appeals to the senses; creates a picture in reader’s mind
Repetition: purposeful re-use of words and phrases for an effect. Also known as parallelism.
Rhythm: musical quality in language produced by repetition

6. “Daily” Naomi Shihab Nye
Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1952
Written several collections of poetry
Inspired by her childhood memories and travels
Lives in San Antonio, Texas
Catalog poem: is built on a list of images. The repetition of items in the list creates a rolling rhythm when the poem is read aloud.

7. “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
Walt Whitman ( )
Born in Long Island, New York
Transformed poetry by writing in free verse, common speech, and slang
Wrote and published himself, Leaves of Grass
Free verse: poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme

8. “Daily”
Identify the repetitive images and language. How does this catalog of images affect the poem’s rhythm?
Identify the metaphors in lines What do they mean?

9. “Daily”
These shriveled seeds we plant, corn kernel, dried bean, poke into loosened soil, cover over with measured fingertips These T-shirts we fold into perfect white squares These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl This bed whose covers I straighten 10 smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket and nothing hangs out This envelope I address so the name balances like a cloud in the center of the sky This page I type and retype This table I dust till the scarred wood shines This bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash again like flags we share, a country so close no one needs to name it The days are nouns: touch them The hands are churches that worship the world

10. “When I Learn’d…” What images are repeated in lines 1-4?
How does the repetition help the reader understand the speaker’s mood, overall atmosphere of a literary piece?
Why are “Daily” and “When I Learn’d…” paired together?

11. “When I Learn’d…”
When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in         columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,         divide, and measure them, 5 When I sitting heard the astronomer where he         lectured with much applause in the lecture room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself, In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time, 10 Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.

12. A Japanese haiku… Has seventeen syllables
Five in lines 1 and 3
Seven in line 2
Presents images from everyday life
Usually contains a seasonal word or symbol (kigo)
Presents a moment of discovery or enlightenment (satori)

13. Miura Chora ( )
Chiyo ( )
Matsuo Basho ( )
Kobayashi Issa ( )

14. “Fog” Carl Sandburg 1878-1967 Son of Swedish immigrants
Born in Galesburg, Illinois
Unknown to world of poetry until 36

15. “I Wandered as Lonely as a Cloud”
William Wordsworth ( )
English Romantic poet
Started writing poetry at 15
At 28, published Lyrical Ballads with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

16. “Fog”
The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.

17. “Fog” Do you think the comparison of fog to a cat makes sense?
What details extend the image of the cat in the last stanza?
Mood of poem?

18. “I Wandered as Lonely as a Cloud”
Simile?
Personification?
Rhyme Scheme?

19. “Kidnap Poem” Nikki Giovanni (1943- )
Born in Knoxville, Tennessee
Grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio
Called Princess of Black Poetry—enthusiasm and pride that she feels for her heritage
“Writes out of her own experiences”
Pun: is a play on the multiple meanings of a word or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings.

20. “Fire and Ice” Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Influenced by nature
Traveled to England to begin writing career
Was a poet, farmer, teacher
One of the most popular American poets
Implied metaphor: does not tell us the comparison directly—suggests it.

21. “Kidnap Poem” What is unusual about the speaker’s use of “meter”?
How would you describe Giovanni’s style based on this usages and poem’s lack of punctuation?
Puns?

22. “Fire and Ice” Metaphor? Irony?
Emotion compared with fire?
Emotion compared with ice?
Irony?
Word choice: what is the effect of “suffice” at the end?

23. “Women” Alice Walker (1944- ) Implied metaphor?
Wrote “Women” for her mother
Short story writer, poet, and essayist
Most famous for her novel, The Color Purple
Implied metaphor?

24. “My Papa’s Waltz” Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) Rhyme Scheme:
Born in Michigan
Family: German immigrants
Teacher at Pennsylvania State University, Bennington College in Vermont, and University of Washington (Seattle)
Rhyme Scheme:
Meter: iambic trimeter
Iamb: Unstressed syllable followed by stressed syllable
Trimeter: contains three iambs

25. “Combing” Gladys Cardiff Repetition
Born in Montana
Writing is a celebration to her where she can connect Cherokee heritage
Repetition
Alliteration: repetition of the same (very similar) consonant sounds in words that are close together in poetry.
“Open here I flung the shutter, when with a flirt and flutter” (Poe, “The Raven”)
Assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds that are followed by different consonant sounds in words that are close together in poetry
Base and fade
Love and young

26. “Fifteen” William Stafford(1914-1993) Born in Kansas
Native American heritage
Worked as a laborer, construction worker, and in an oil refinery
Jailed during WWII for objecting the war

27. “Fifteen” Questions
Write your responses on a sheet of paper. You may work with a partner.
Identify speaker of poem.
Identify the literary devices that you notice.
How does the boy in “Fifteen” feel about the motorcycle? What lines covey this feeling?

28. “American Hero” Essex Hemphilll (1957-1995)
Born in Chicago
Writer, poet, and cultural activist
Author of two books of poetry and collection of prose
Onomatopoeia: use of a word whose sound imitates its meaning: buzz, chug, clang, splat, etc.

29. “American Hero”
Write your responses on a sheet of paper. You may work with a partner.
Identify the speaker of the poem.
Identify the onomatopoetic words in the poem.
Any other literary devices that you notice?
What is the speaker saying about racism? Do you agree or disagree with the speaker? Why or why not?