HOERSKOOL STAATSPRESIDENT CR SWART

Grade 9 Poetry Part 2 Lockdown assistance material

Ms I Pretorius

3/6/2020

Grade 9s, I trust that you are all safe and healthy. In this resource pack you will find the notes on the 2nd of the poems you guys have to do this year. Ensure that you have the notes and the answers to the questions in you workbooks with a corresponding date. The memo of this poems will be posted a week from the submission date.

POETRY NOTE- for those of you who do not have your textbook at home, I will provide

scanned copies of the pages from the SMILE textbook at the end of each

poem, so no one has an excuse not to do this work. When you return back to

school we will work from the assumption that you have done and completed

these poems, thus no extra time will be spent on it in class.

Poem 2: Page 53 – 55

How to Be a Poet

(to remind myself)

By Wendell Berry

i

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each 5

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your poems, 10

doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live 15

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places; 20

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come 25

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.

Title

Looking at the tile of any poem usually gives us an idea of what this poem will

be about, and this is exactly the case with this poem. By simply reading the

title we already get the idea that this poem is some advice on how one can

become/be a poet. Beneath the title you will see a little note that reads, “to

remind myself”, this gives us the sense that the poet is setting forth his own

ideas and way of life, and that essentially, this poem is not just about how to

be a poet, but how to be a human being.

Structure

This poem consists 29 lines. It has 3 stanzas with 11 lines in stanzas 1 and 2 and

7 lines in stanza 3. Each stanza has also be assigned a roman numeral, i, ii

and iii these represent the numbers 1, 2 and 3. Each stanza seems to be a

step that we must follow.

Rhyme scheme

This poem is what we would call free verse because it has no rhyme scheme.

Digging deeper

Now that we have looked at the “outside” of the poem, let’s move on to the

inside.

Stanza 1 – step 1

In line 1 the speaker tells the reader to "Make a place to sit down." And he

logically follows that command in line 2 with "Sit down. Be quiet." He then lists

for himself and any reader/listener who is interested what the reader must

"depend upon" in order to be a good poet/person. Poets/people must read

widely to gain "knowledge" and "skill," but the poet/person must also have a

measure of love and "affection" in his/her heart. The potential poet/person

must "depend upon" these things because she/he probably has a lack of

"inspiration" and "patience." The speaker says that patience is important

because it "joins time / to eternity." What does time or eternity have to do

with becoming a poet? The speaker does not have to be clear about this

because he is only writing this to remind himself what he thinks it means.

Each potential poet/person will have to answer these questions for

himself/herself on the path to becoming a good poet/person. The speaker

then warns the potential poet/person not to take any compliments others

might make about his/her work seriously. The poet/person can become

arrogant/ self-absorbed and then fail to make greater efforts in creativity, if

he/she is flattered by those "who like your poems”.

Stanza 2 – step 2

The speaker's advice then reveals some rather personal ideas as he criticizes

air-conditioning and electricity. Is he suggesting that people who use less

technology make better poets/people? He continues his modern technology

bashing by telling the potential poet/people to avoid "screens." In addition to

television screens, these "screens" would include computer screens and cell

phone screens. But then he says, "Stay away from anything / that obscures

the place it is in." He seems to suggest that even decorative screens, such as

room dividers, are to be avoided also. The speaker then explains, "There are

no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated

places." This claim takes away the claim that some places are better for

wring poetry/ being a good person than others. The poet/person need only

be aware of the damage in order to remove it from the originally sacred

place. This means that you can be a good person when and where ever you

are if you are able to identify the things that make you a bad person and

then remove them. If you know you do bad things when you are with a

certain person, then perhaps it is time to remove that person from your life

because you cannot blame them for when things go wrong if you know that

it is them that is the problem.

Stanza 3 – step 3

The final stanza focuses on "silence." While listening to and diving into the

silence, the poet must listen for "little words that come / out of the silence." He

says those little words are like prayers—not prayers to God, but "prayed back

to the one who prays." The speaker then warns the future poet/ person to

make poems/ a life that "[do] not disturb / the silence from which [they]

came." This means that you must make sure you actions do not have bad

effects on the world around you. The speaker has established that

poetry/goodness comes from silence, and he advises the new poet/person

to respect that rule. It would not be too impolite to suggest that following

such sage advice would eliminate about 99.9% of the nonsense that has

passed to poetry/life in Western culture for centuries.

Mood

The mood of this poem is one of reflection, not only him reflecting back on his

own experiences, but also him prompting us to reflect on the things that we

have done. The whole idea behind the poem, even though the title states

that it is about how to become a successful poet, is actually about how to

become a good or successful person. We need to look at every action we

have ever taken and apply all of these steps that he has discussed with us ibn

his poem. By doing so we can become the people we want to be, and isn’t

that the whole idea behind reflection, learning from our pasts?

Theme

Focus and inner peace

Our poet wants us to know that we are all capable of greatness. We are all

capable of being good and successful poets/ people. We all have the

capabilities to do anything we want. If we are happy with ourselves and

believe in ourselves we are capable of anything.

Message

The overall message of the poem ties in with the theme. We are all capable

of anything, but then we need to take a step and back take our time. We

need to be mindful of what we say and what we do. We need to be able to

express ourselves in the right way, just as this poet has used this poem to

express himself. However we cannot just go and write or do the first things

that pop into our heads, we need to think things through thoroughly. The

poet is successful in making this poem relevant to the youth of today

because he brings in the idea of technology and how technology affects us.

We are so distracted by technology we don’t even notice the world around

us, we don’t feel the people around us and we can no longer relate to one

another. He makes a big point of cautioning us against technology or

screens.

HOMEWORK

You must now complete the questions on pages n 54 - 55. The memo will be

posted next week.

See the next page for copies from the textbook.