1. BELLWORK
Please work on Page 24 of your Poetry Packet.

2. PLANNER: HOMEWORK
Tonight, you will try to create your own pantoum! This can be on any school appropriate subject you wish.

3. Sylvia Plath and the Pantoum

4. The Pantoum
The Pantoum, as a poetic form, originated in Malaysia in the 1400s
The Pantoum originally served as a folk poem
However, over time the Pantoum became a very popular poetic form in the British and French world
The Pantoum has a little bit of a complicated form, so let me help you figure it out...

5. The Pantoum Here is a Pantoum: What do you notice about the form?
We pace each other for a long time. I packed my anger with the beef jerky. You are the baby on the mountain. I am in a cold stream where I led you. I packed my anger with the beef jerky. You are the woman sticking her tongue out in a cold stream where I led you. You are the woman with spring water palms.

6. The Pantoum
The Pantoum can be anything longer than a stanza, but there is a specific form it takes
In a Pantoum, the second and fourth lines of the stanza before the next become the first and third lines of the next stanza
I will try to show you better than it is explained

7. Now...
The person in position 3, please write one quatrain on a new piece of paper
When you are done, start the next stanza by making the second line of the stanza the first and the fourth line of the stanza the third
Then…
Pass it to your shoulder neighbor!
We will do this until you have a complete poem at your table 3* 4 1 2

8. The Pantoum Tonight, you will write your own Pantoum!
It’s okay if it’s not completely correct yet-- I will help you out when I’m grading
This is a super fun form, so seriously, have fun with it!
Now, we will move on to a poet...

9. Sylvia Plath

10. Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Boston
She was the daughter of a German immigrant and his wife
When she was eight, her father died, which deeply affected her
With money being tight, her and her mother moved out of Boston
It was after moving away that Plath showed a lot of talent
She won numerous awards and won many writing contests
She even won a fellowship with prestigious magazine Mademoiselle before entering college on scholarship

11. Sylvia Plath
Later on, her experiences with the magazine were fictionalized
Plath wrote about her time with the magazine
She published it later as her only novel, The Bell Jar
This book does not only talk about her magazine internship
Instead, this book heavily deals with Plath’s internal struggles
This book chronicles her struggle with mental health

12. Sylvia Plath Although Plath struggled, she was a star student
She won many awards and was being published at a young age
She married poet Ted Hughes, and lived in England
They had children together
And Plath was a beekeeper!
Her poetry details some of this
Her and Hughes had a rough marriage, but Plath loved being a mother

13. Sylvia Plath Plath was known for her “confessional” style of poetry
Confessional poetry details the life in an extremely personal way
Plath had no problem talking about herself and her life
It is said that Plath always wrote about an “idealized” self
She wrote about what she wished she were
Plath paved the way for personal poetry-- almost to an extreme

14. Sylvia Plath Plath had a personal world that was hard to tap into
Her metaphors are strange and hard to grasp
However, her writing is stunningly beautiful

15. Sylvia Plath
At the age of 30, Plath’s mental health was the worst it had been
She was significantly struggling
Unfortunately, her mental health took her life
She was extremely young, and left behind her children
However, she also left behind a beautiful catalogue of work

16. Sylvia Plath Plath is a reminder to us that it is okay to open up
We should always self examine, but look outward as well