In-Class Discussion, 12 April 2007 Poetry

Evaluating Poetry
beyond the likes and dislikes...
"not all poems are created equally"
poems with a capital "P"!!
Comments from the class about high-quality poetry:
deeper meaning
heart
surprises
new ideas/outside the box
not clearly spelled out
language
descriptive
metaphor
Alliteration/Assonance
details
structure
unforced rhyme
flow
Then, off to groups for poem analysis...
"Ode to the Watermelon"--- CAPITAL "P", a Pulitzer-prize winning poet!Contemporary
"ode to the Oaken Bucket"--- small "p", popular in its time, but didn't stand up
"Digging"---CAPITAL "P"
"The Old Rocking Chair"--- small "p"
"Ode to the West Wind"---CAPITAL "P"
"Where the Sidewalk Ends"---CAPITAL "P", Shel Silverstein, a contemporary poet(capital might be up for debate!)

Journal Entry for "Smorgasbord of Poetry"

What is GOOD poetry?
Marianne Moore shares that when one reads a poem, one discovers the genuine quality of it. That your hair can rise and that though we may not always understand "why", that it is beautiful beyond the basic education one acquires or the job one does. Words provide "imaginary gardens...", and the raw quality of poetry is what attracts one to it.
Archibald MacLeish suggests in his poem that a poem should be "palpable" and almost edible. That the words disappear within the construction of the poem. Also, that a poem should be timeless, yet all the "rules" of poetry should not be the measuring system for what is "good" or what is "poetry". A poem just is.
John Keats suggests in his poem that if words "constrain" one while writing poetry, then let the words be woven into a pattern, complete and strong. To listen to what we write and control the sounds and rhythm to reach true poetic achievement.
Emily Dickinson dwells in "possibility" that poetry is full of opportunity to create a vision beyond the world as we know it.That she will try to "gather paradise" in her narrow hands using words with double meanings and full of multiple interpretations.
last, but not least!: Alexander Pope eloquently writes that poems are beyond judgement, right or wrong. That expected rhyming is bland and that a thoughtful twist of words with unexpected delights stimulates the mind and the soul. That "sweetness" is formed when the art if writing is employed...a gentle blow to make a point with effortless rhythm and thundering surprises of delight.

Well, if these poets can make such beautiful assertions about their craft with such wonderful descriptions...THEY are good poets and I certainly can see why they are all masters in their own right for tooling the language to create such thought-provoking works. They do seem quite humorous, too.

In-Class Discussion, April 10, 2007 POETRY...sounds and language/reviewing quiz from chapter 11

AMBIGUITY....."nice" what can "nice" mean....good, or even "nice, but not too attractive"
Precision...few words to pinpoint an idea...choosing the particular word that the poem needs at that place.
Denotation "stone"...may equal "death", with an underlying meaning...
"My Papa's Waltz", by Theodore Roethke
Literal meaning...father dancing with his son on the way to bed
Underlying meaning...drunken father barely sober enough to carry son or treat him gently....simile: "hung on like death"...
+++ an ambiguous poem....maybe just a fond childhood memory or a mildly abusive dad saying goodnight...?
The extended metaphor of "23rd Psalm" is how shepherd is used to mean "Jesus/God"
Rhythm and Meter: the flow, the "beat",
Onomatopoeia: a word that almost describes how something sounds..."buzz", "splash", & "pop"
Alliteration: similar sounds in consonants, "wild nights-wild nights!
were I with thee
wild nights should be
our luxury

Assonance: similar sounds in vowels same sentence as above...but notice the vowels..."ee"..and "Y"

Chapter 12, THE SOUNDS OF POETRY

Poems sounds are full of meanings, a poet chooses words for meaning as well as sound.
"Poetry is a vocal art", and it is hard to experience a poem unless you hear it.
"YOU MUST READ ALOUD"
"Dirge", a chant, a lament, hymn..requiem
Robert Frost said..."a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart..."
Rhythm, onomatopoeia...a copy, a mirror image, repetition, a reproduction.
A poet uses open vowels, expletives, monosyllabic words, predictable rhymes, long/slow lines....
The effects of a passage come from an interaction of many strategies perhaps.
Manipulate sound to control the rhythm.
Iambic Pentameter: when lines are written in a meter of five iambic feet.
"The baseball game was televised at nine"
"Trochee-an accented syllable followed by an unstressed one
Anapest-two unaccented syllables followed by a stressed one
dactyl-an accented syllable followed by two stresses ones
Spondee-a pair of accented syllables
Caesura-a short pause often signaled by a mark of punctuation such as a comma.
Iambic-one unstressed syllable followed by a stresses syllable
One can scan a poem to sort out its metrical pattern.
FREE VERSE- a poem which expresses without any governing rules of pattern or stresses.
"The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe
Wow...long, and beautiful. tongue-tied as I tried to read it after a day of work. Plus, trying to read it aloud as my son watched TV, quite a bad idea! But, I did see an artist work of this poem set in the shape of a raven...it was beautiful. And, Poe is/was a genius with prose and balance...a cool expression of words that seem to take a mind to air and prick the ear to beauty. After reading these wonderful creations, I take pause at even trying to write on my own!

"And the silkin sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain"
Wahoo...what a gift

"Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken"

"And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor"

This poem is so sad and yet so beautiful, I wish I could hear someone read it right now.

In-Class Notes from "Metaphor" Discussion

METAPHORS are the foundation of poetry...

Technical Writing Poetry
BARGE Jet Ski
POTATOES/RICE/BREAD Ice Cream
WORKHORSE Unicorn

No frills, no connotations, etc. for tech writing...and Poetry is the fluff...the beauty, the suggestion...

Guard Dog Lap Dog
Horse Trailer Carriage
Skim Milk Whip Cream

Sometimes when you discuss metaphors, you think of the vehicle(the word you use) and the tenor (what you want to describe with embellishment)Vehicle Tenor
Rose A beautiful girl
Noah's ark/unicorn beauty of life/things
Reviewed in class discussion:
"Marks" by Linda Pastan
the family enlists a grading scale for a mom's chores, then she uses the same system of words and "drops out"
"The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" by Francis William Bourdillon

Look for precise language, less is more,
timing, separation of words, sentences, accent to certain words, "new words", capitalization, spacing, speed, symbolism, controlling metaphors, allusions,

Poetry, Chapter 11 and reading from Debra Marquart

LANGUAGE
Precision and Ambiguity
Particular meanings and implications of individual words are what drives poetry. Using only "essential words," carefully placed and used to just barely communicate in the most "elemental signs" to tell a concentrated story with the least possible words. The word choice of the poet, the "diction" determines the "meaning and every effect the poem produces."
Sometimes, the use of a single word can create "multiple meanings or shiftiness."
"Dramatic irony": an "incongruity between what we expect to happen and what actually dies happen."
Furthermore, when a word "denotes" a meaning it goes beyond a simple dictionary description to what other meanings a specific word can mean. I.e. "Terminal"...an airport station...or a boundary, or a terminus, an extremity...and/or something that is limited, a junction, a place where a connection may be made.
Words have a "personal side" that carry "emotions and shades of suggestion."
"Connotations": suggestions of emotional coloration that imply one's attitude and invite a similar one from the reader.
"Word order": the way the words are put together, using rhyme and meter to construct sentences that allow subtlety and force of a word to create a particular emphasis.
Visual applications of words may "represent" can help the reader of poem see a specific image that lies within the poet's mind. An artist uses paint and canvas to create a visual idea...and a poet uses words to express a visual experience.
"Metaphor": when a comparison is implicit, with something described as if it were something else.I.e. "her lap was a big comfy couch.."
"Simile": when a comparison is explicit,when one thing is compared directly to something else.I.e. "his eyes were as blue as the sky."
The above are figures of speech, and figurative language uses words to communicate and insist upon the reader to see in their mind what the poet is imagining.
"Extended metaphors" are metaphors which extend over a long section of a poem.
"Controlling metaphors" are metaphors which are present for the entirety of the poem.
"Symbol" use of a word that gets "beyond what words signify and makes larger claims about meanings in the verbal world." A word that stands for something else. I.e. flag, a rose, a logo, a trademark.
"Symbolic poem" is when the symbol becomes the whole poem, written to not only use the symbol, but it becomes the symbol.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", by William Shakespeare
The title gives me a "heads up" that he is about to describe his love for another and compare it to a summer's day. And, then in the poem the poet makes statements about how much better his love is than summer, "thou art more lovely and more temperate." and "But thy eternal summer shall not fade" as if summer as a season comes to an end, yet his love's wonderful qualities shall always remain. And, wow...as long as this poem exists, so will his love and her fairness, "So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." So beautiful and short. Like it was a quick jot down of a poem while he sat a Starbucks drinking coffee and thinking about the one he loves. While the language denotes a more formal time and the tone of the poem is love, I think it is timeless because the way the figures of speech are used make it so easy for any reader to visualize a summer day in their own memory and then apply these good memories to how a man loved this woman and how he saw her as timeless and beyond the goodness of summer...forever. Is there a controlling metaphor of summer? And, the word order flows with his feelings and keeps the rhythm without needed the rhyme.
Excerpts from "From Sweetness", poems by Debra Marquart
"Older Sister"
I enjoyed most of her poems, and this one really struck a personal chord with me.
"Forever, she rides in front of me on the school bus,"...yes, even though the school bus may be a bus, it also symbolizes the sister's order through life...her sister will always be in front of her. "No sweaty back seats on her conscience, no cigarettes in her drawers"...as if her sister lived a "good girl" kind of life. The kind of life that makes it hard for a younger sister to live up to. The older sister word the right respectful clothes and always got a recipe right. Touche! How much we love our older sisters and yet how hard they can make it for us to meet the standards they set. The younger sister doesn't discuss what the older sister might be feeling inside, and how could she know? Maybe there is some fear for the older sister as she grows up, maybe tons of pressure to be a good role model and meet the requirements her parents expect. The older sister breaks through the barriers first, without the benefit of seeing someone else in the household do it first. And, the younger sister sees all this external accomplishment from her older sister and probably feel like "how can I live up to this or even exceed it?"
I loved the imagery the poet uses and the word order doesn't rely on rhyme, but wonderful concrete items to bring the reader into the world of what she sees of her older sister. I think the tone of the poem is love and sarcasm. The younger sister looks up to her sister, yet seems to be almost stacking a deck of all these qualities her older sister has and how "perfect" the older sister seems. Of course, the older sister has to have some skeletons, if only emotional or academic. Yet, the younger sister will always be younger and the older sister will always hold that image in the younger sister's mind of riding in front on the school bus of life.

Poetry, Chapter 8, "Understanding the Text: Tone"

"Poetry is full of surprises."
Predictable subjects can still surprise.
Theme: What a says about its subject.
Tone: The feelings or attitude about the theme.
Common themes: Love, death, marriage, childhood, specific event, an inanimate object, flora, animals, ocean, a meal, growing up, declaration of feeling/independence...pretty much anything can be made into a poem.
"Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy
Wow...with the imagery of childhood toys, this poem speaks to a dead woman who could not bear to live in a world that sees physical perfection as the highest currency.
The title brought the expectation for me that the poem would be about a favorite childhood toy, yet as I read the comments she heard from others, "exercise, diet, smile, and wheedle." I was led to the theme that it's common to feel we don't live up to others expectations. "To every woman a happy ending." seems to allude to the idea that in the end, she was dressed up pretty and got a new nose from the mortician, "a turned-up putty nose." and finally she looked good! Such a sad poem, really hit home about "fitting in" and how cruel people can be. I think the tone of the poem was sarcasm...as if...."are you happy now, jackass...she's pretty. She may be dead, but she looks good!"
The speaker: a family friend...a neighbor...some one who saw or heard what comments were made to the girl about her physical characteristics...yet just seems to be watching from beyond interaction and sees the hypocracy of the conditional love and then expresses the sarcastic telling of the sad turn of events.

"Leaving the Motel" by W. D. Snodgrass

Snodgrass...love that name!
Anyway, the theme is romance and a one-nighter. "We've nowhere we could keep a keepsake-"...like it's a clandestine meeting, private and secret. The tone is acceptance for a temporary pleasure. Hmm...could be something else, like...sweet memories. "That's all. We can't tell when we'll come back, can't press claims, we would no doubt have other rooms then, or other names." They have checked into separate rooms, under assumed names, and join in one room only to cover their affair. They might get to meet again, yet...who know when...and who knows what name they'll use next time. There are no names mentioned in the poem, so that keeps the "secret" facade going...and the acceptance of the limitations of their relationship and no discussion of the physical intimacy they shared, only the terms of their meeting. Sad, and happy...glad they could find some temporary happiness and pleasure and sad that they have to sneak around to get it. Maybe "lilacs" is a metaphor for the love they made...and that the flowers are left behind in the rented room at their "wayside" meeting place?

"Woodchucks" by Maxine Kumin

The theme is animals..."The food from our mouths, I said, righteously thrilling to the feel of the .22, the bullets' neat noses. I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace." The animals the speaker had tried to kill with cyanide had a percentage of survivors who were hiding below where the poison couldn't reach. The tone is anger...the writer, feeling he was a non-violent man, was brought to anger and violence with his anger toward the food thieves. I think the speaker is a man, the provider of the family...and felt vexed by the survival of the little animals which now lived to eat their food. Then, the speaker writes about shooting the survivors...like a triumph over an enemy, "Ten minutes later I dropped the mother." And, there is one more left...and he hunts this one at night and he dreams of killing it, "I sight along the barrel in my sleep." Eeww! This guy has an axe to grind...just waiting to pick off the last one! Then, he uses the simile of the Nazi camps of death that he wished they had all died without a fight with the first poisoning attempt....unseen, as if he didn't see the prisoners at the internment camps of Hitler, yet he knew there was death, "If only they'd all consented to die unseen gassed underground the quiet Nazi way."I wouldn't equate the murder of scores of human with a few garden-eating rodents...yet the idea of how badly the speaker wanted them all dead really came across. Wow! I just read the paragraphs about the poem on page 425 and the speaker was a woman! I really called that one wrong! She's a gritty and angry survivor...ain't she? And, so crass and cold.