Week of 11/27/12

11/29/12

Goal: Learn some more traditional poetic structures:

First step: 

Solar System: How small are you really? Calculations and a demonstration.

Note: Scientists estimate that there are between 100 and 500 billion galaxies in the universe. So, the number of people on earth times about 36 (if there are 250 billion galaxies).

Writing time: You are one of 7 billion people (we passed that number sometime last year) crammed on a tiny speck. What's your next move?

Haiku day. Background and practice.

Haiku structure: 
line 1 has 5 syllables, 
line 2 has 7 syllables, 
line 3 has 5 syllables.

Haiku themes: Usually natural themes, lots of imagery.

Shift: Usually the last line reveals something new about the poem.

Syllabics: 

In My Craft or Sullen Art (by Dylan Thomas)

In my craft or sullen art

Exercised in the still night

When only the moon rages

And the lovers lie abed

With all their griefs in their arms,

I labour by singing light

Not for ambition or bread

Or the strut and trade of charms

On the ivory stages

But for the common wages

Of their most secret heart.

Example (From “Brooklyn Ghazal” by Elizabeth Willse)

Hungry for a kiss, take the train to Brooklyn,

Speeding under the river to your arms in Brooklyn.

Sunset paints the sky through the Manhattan Bridge,

Train stalls. The sky stretches between me and Brooklyn.

Crimson leaves underfoot, the incense of woodsmoke

Rises through the burnished brass air of Brooklyn.

HW for Tuesday: 

1. Write a Ghazal (if you didn't already). A minimum of five couplets--no more than fifteen--that are structurally, thematically, and emotionally linked in some way.

Possible angle (or DYT): Alternate couplets between how people see you on the surface (your "mask") and what's going on inside your mind, heart, psyche, etc. The title should tie things together.

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11/27/12

"Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down." --Robert Frost, 1935.

Goal: Begin to think about how the semester will wrap up. Read some poetry!

First Step: A look at the final: 

(Final Portfolio Document Attached here)

Reading Poetry: Guidelines

1. Select a book. Don't worry too much about the choice. You can always put it back and get another one

2. Check out the cover, the back pages, the copyright date, and anything about the poet.

3. Begin reading. You might want to select individual poem titles, and you might want to begin at the beginning. Up to you.

4. Find three powerful poems or passages.

5. On a sheet of paper, write down the powerful passages. Reflect on each. Why are they powerful, confusing, reminiscent of an experience, though-provoking, etc? Writing and drawing are both fine--just be thoughtful.

6. Turn the reflection page in at the end of the reading period.

Enter The Dragon by John Murillo (example)

Share some powerful passages.

Homework for Thursday: Write a Ghazal. A minimum of five couplets--no more than fifteen--that are structurally, thematically, and emotionally linked in some way

Possible angle (or DYT): Alternate couplets between how people see you on the surface (your "mask") and what's going on inside your mind, heart, psyche, etc. The title should tie things together.

Example (From “Brooklyn Ghazal” by Elizabeth Willse)

Hungry for a kiss, take the train to Brooklyn,

Speeding under the river to your arms in Brooklyn.

Sunset paints the sky through the Manhattan Bridge,

Train stalls. The sky stretches between me and Brooklyn.

Crimson leaves underfoot, the incense of woodsmoke

Rises through the burnished brass air of Brooklyn.

week of 11/13/12

Week of 11/13/12


11/15/12


Goal: Continue our discussion of highly structured poetry.

First Step The Facebook Sonnet

Vocab: exhume: to dig up, as with a body.

Exercise: Draw four big boxes on your paper like so:

For each stanza of this poem, draw a quick cartoon.

Welcome to the endless high-school (A)
Reunion. Welcome to past friends (B)
And lovers, however kind and cruel. (A)
Let's undervalue and unmend (B)

The present. Why can't we pretend (C)
Every state of life is the same? (D)
Let's exhume, resume, and extend (C)
Childhood. Let's all play the games (D)

That occupy the young. Let fame (E)
And shame intertwine. Let one's search (F)
For God become public domain. (E)
Let church.com become our church. (F)

Let's sign up, sign in, and confess (G)
Here at the altar of loneliness. (G)

--Sherman Alexie


Shakespearean Sonnets (Shakespeare, the OG): 

The basics.

Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.

1. 14 lines. 
2. If it's shaped like a box, it's probably a sonnet.
3. Quatrains and a couplet.
4. Rhyme and iambic pentameter.
5. Translating Shakespeare

As a group, let's translate Sonnet 130



11/13/12

Goal: Continue with form and structure in poetry. 

First Step: Charlie and/or Jackie. Slam is tonight. 

Who wants extra credit??



Finish Team Villanelle Assignment. Share some.

HW: Individual Villanelle Assignment (see last week's blog or Edmodo for details)

Week of 11/6/12

11/8/12


 First Step: Read the following passage: 

"i luv writing to umm some good topics are love life changes cancer, death, sriendhip, but i would do something sad like death or cancer they have a greater affect on people cuz love poems r hard to make really emotional but its easy when its sad and it attracts more attention because liike its all heart touching and stuff"

List five things that are good about this passage and five things that are bad. (Only one "bad" thing can be the horrible grammar, capitalization and/or spelling.)

More Connections to hip-hop:

1. Hip-hop tends to use heavy structure, rhythm, and rhyme. In other words, it does everything that scares most people about poetry.

2. Hip-hop tends to speak in code. In other words, it does the same thing that most people fear about poetry.

3.As happened with lots of "traditional" poetic forms, Hip-hop forms developed organically based on performances and sincere, honest writing.

Poetic Form: Villanelle (from poets.org)
"The highly structured villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains. The form is made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain. The first and third lines of the opening tercet are repeated alternately in the last lines of the succeeding stanzas; then in the final stanza, the refrain serves as the poem's two concluding lines. Using capitals for the refrains and lowercase letters for the rhymes, the form could be expressed as: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2." Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night Team Villanelle

HW: Write a Villanelle that starts with one of the following titles: 


“Timbuktu”
“What Hip Is”
“Things You Thought I’d Say When I Left”
“Let the Dog Drive”
“Older, Wiser, Closer to Death”
“Sister”
“Phone Tennis”
“The Prince of Fire”
“Unsettling America”
“The Angle of Refraction”



(Link): Here are some examples of Villanelles

11/6/12

Goal: Finish "Change" Poems and continue hip-hop and slam.

First Step: Change. Poems. Still.

Lupe Fiasco's "The Instrumental."

Lupe Fiasco Lyrics only

Activity in class:

With a partner, Describe the tone in "The Instrumental." 

1. Describe the speakers attitude with three adjectives
2.What words can you point to that influence the tone (diction) 3. What sound devices (alliteration, repetition, rhythm, rhyme) do you notice.
4. What do you think Lupe Fiasco is saying when he titles this poem "Instrumental?"

Make a list on the blog. 

HW: Writing Assignment: Attempt to write a piece that mimicks the tone of either "Hip-Hop," or  "Instrumental" Be able to explain how you use sound devices and specific language to influence your own tone.

Due Thursday. We will read out loud to get ready for the poetry slam!!!

Mos Def's "Hip-Hop" if you need a reminder

Mos Def Lyrics only

week of 10/30

11/1/12

Goal: Finish Change Poems!

Quote: 

"Everything we are is given to us."

---from Michael Lee's Poem "Pass On"

First Step: "Pass On" by Michael Lee


Question: Repetition is used in both "Repetition" by Phil Kaye (sub day poem) and this poem. How are the techniques used similarly/differently?


Next: Finish as many change poems as we can. You will read!
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10/30/12

Sub Day: 

IB 5 on "Repetition" by Phil Kaye. Turn into Edmodo.

HW: Repetition Poem. Write a poem of at least 

20 lines that uses repetition in some way, as 

Phil Kaye’s poem does. You could repeat a 

sound, a word, a phrase, an idea, a rhyme, a 

refrain, or something else. The topic of the 

poem is up to you.