Poetry!What’s in a name?

That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.

William Shakespeare(1564-1616)

Prewriting Read the following question. Take a couple of minutes to ponder your answer. Write your answer on the lines provided. (Be honest, and justify) Be prepared to discuss your answer in class.

What is Poetry?

The Energy Wheel(A classroom experience)

The energy wheel can spin fast or slow depending on your mood and feelings.

Use the following template to create an energy wheel of your own. Be prepared to share your work with the class.

My Energy Wheel

_______________________________(Title)

1

___________________ is ___________________like__________________________________. (Feeling) (Colour)

And also like __________________________________________________________________.

It ________________________through / in my ______________________________________,(Verb)

(Noun)

It reminds me of the time_________________________________________________________.

It makes me feel ______________________________like______________________________.

Or

It makes me want to_____________________________________________________________.

When you’ve finished with the template, recopy your energy wheel on separate sheet. Feel free to experiment with colours, forms and new words. Write another one! Be ready to share it with the class. Hold on to your new poem! Put it in your portfolio.

2

My Energy Wheel11:23 am, Friday, February 8By C. O’Gallagher

Hunger is black like an empty hole.It’s desperate like the depths of a bear’s cave.It rumbles impatiently in my gut.Gradually getting louder.It reminds me of buns, burgers, bananas, brie, bacon, butter and biscuits.It makes me want to eat, drink and be merry.It commands me to satisfy my needy needs and EAT, EAT, EAT

3

Self Portrait

With words we can create a portrait of ourselves.

Use the following template to create your Self-Portrait. Please use the words and similes from the brainstorming or from previous exercises.

Self-Portrait

___________________________(Title)

My _____________________________ is like_____________________________

__________________________________________________________________.

My ____________________________ are like _____________________________.

My ______________________________ are _______________________________.

My ______________________________ is ________________________________.

My heart holds ______________________________________________________(Feeling)

that is ________________________________as____________________________.

I live in _______________________________

and eat_________________________________.

When you’ve finished with the template, recopy your self-portrait on separate sheet. Feel free to experiment with colours, forms and new words. Write another one! Be ready to share it with the class. Hold on to your new poem! Put it in your portfolio. Remember that you can write a portrait of someone you know.

4

Portrait of Anne Hébert

By D.G. Jones

The sunlight, here and there, Touches the table

And a draught at the window Announces your presence,

You take your place in the roomWithout fuss,

Your delicate bones,Your frock,Have the grace of disinterested passion.

Words are arrayedLike surgical instrumentsNeatly in trays.

Deftly, you make an incisionProbingThe obscure disease.

Your sensibilityHas the sure fingers of the blind:

Each decisionCuts like a scalpelThrough tangled emotion.

You defineThe morbid tissue, laying it bare

Like a tatter of laceDarkOn the paper.

5

Beautiful Creatures Brief as TheseFor Jay MacphersonBy: D.G. Jones

Like butterflies but lately comeFrom long cocoons of summerThese little girls start back to schoolTo swarm the sidewalks, playing-fields,And litter air with colour.

So slight they look within their clothes,Their dresses looser than the sulphur’s wings,It seems that even if the wind aloneWere not to break them in the lofty trees,They could not bear the weight of things.

And yet they cry into the morning air And hang from railings upside downAnd laugh, as though the world were theirsAnd all its buildings, trees, and stonesWere toys, were gifts of a benignant sun.

6

Haiku

A Haiku is an unrhymed verse form of Japanese origin having three lines containing usually five, seven, and five syllables respectively; also, a poem in this form usually has a seasonal

reference.

Use of three lines written in 5-7-5 syllables;

Use of three (or fewer) lines of no more than 17 syllables in total;

Use of metrical feet rather than syllables. A haiku then becomes three lines of 2, 3, and 2 metrical feet, with a pause after the second or fifth;

Use of the "one deep breath" rule: the reader should be able to read the haiku aloud without taking a second breath.

First autumn morning:the mirror I stare intoshows my father's face.

On New Year's DayI long to meet my parentsas they were before my birth.

The crow has flown away:swaying in the evening sun,a leafless tree.Night, and the moon!My neighbour, playing on his flute -out of tune!

I kill an antand realize my three childrenhave been watching.

The winds that blows -ask them, which leaf on the tree

will be next to go.

Glass balls and glowing lights.Dead tree in living room.Killed to honour birth.

Spring backup in CS lab:time to fall in love withcertain humanware.

the morning paperharbinger of good and ill- - I step over it

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Notes:Synaesthesia

(A Classroom Experience)

The ability to use our senses in order to give us a deeper perception of the world around us is a powerful poetic device.

Like What...1. Pretend you’re in a dark room...

bright orange, light blue, lime green....imagine your blood is this Colour.How does it feel? Hot, cold....like what?Help me see it with you. make it personal. Is it small, gigantic.

2. Let’s try something else....sense mixing (with sounds)

Imagine the Colour red going through your bodies...get ready. This Colour is coming fast and you won’t have time you think... RED, BRIGHT RED. Quick, what do you hear? Hands up.

3. Now let’s try mixing feelings with tastes.

What does anger taste like?

4. Update the LIKE WHAT list

Colour like hot like cold likesounds liketastes likesmells likelooks like (shape, size)texture like (rough, slimy)moves like

Any object or feeling can be taken through the LIKE WHAT list and can be used whenever you’re stuck writing anything not just poetry.

Like What… (Model)

______________________ is _________________________ (Feeling / emotion) (Colour)Like _____________________________________________ Hot like___________________________________________

Cold like__________________________________________

Sound like_________________________________________

Tastes like_________________________________________

Smells like_________________________________________

__________________ like ____________________________(Looks: shape, size)_________________________ like _____________________(Texture: rough, slimy)

________________________ like ______________________(Moves: verb, action)

Now you’re ready to write about a feeling or an object using your deeper perception of the world around you.

The Colour of my DesperationBy C. O’Gallagher

Anger is red like tomato sauce boiling over on the stove.

Gray like a storm cloud creeping upon the horizon.

Cold like icicles hanging from the gutters.

Cold like the sniper’s gaze peering from atop an abandoned building.

Smells like a dead skunk oozing of maggots and puss.

Tastes like a mouthful of rotten eggs.

Slithers like a cobra burrowing in my brain poisoning my thoughts.

Rough as sandpaper; sharp as porcupine quills.

Cow

The cowComingAcross the grassMovesLike a mountainTowards us;Her hipbonesJut Like sharp PeaksOf stone,Her hoofsThumpLike droppedRocks:AlmostToo lateShe stops.

Valerie Worth

List the Like What devices does she uses?

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

To Look At Any Thing

To look at any thing,If you would know that thing, You must look at it long:To look at this green and say“I have seen spring in theseWoods” will not do! you mustBe the thing you see:You must be the dark snakes of Stems of ferny plumes of leaves,You must enter inTo the small silences betweenThe leaves,You must take your timeAnd touch the very peaceThey issue from.

B John Moffitt

The Unwritten

Inside this pencilcrouch words that have never been writtennever been spokennever been thought

They’re hiding

They’re awake in theredark in the darkhearing usbut they won’t come outnot for love not for time not for fire

even when the dark has worn awayThey’ll still be there hiding in the airmultitudes in days to come may walk through thembreathe thembe none the wiser

what script can it bethat they won’t unrollin what languagewould I recognize itwould I be able to follow itto make out the real namesof everything

maybe there aren’t manyit could be that there is only one wordand it’s all we needIt’s here in this pencil

every pencil in the worldis like this

By W.S. Merwin

Inside This

William Carlos Williams

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much dependsupon

a red wheelbarrow

glazed with rainwater

beside the whitechickens.

This is Just to Say

I have eatenthe plumsthat were in the icebox

and whichyou were probablysavingfor breakfast

Forgive methey were deliciousso sweetand so cold

Strong Verbs

The old man walks into the room.

The little girl walks into the room.

Strong verbs B alternate activity

I saw Jean-Philippe in the cafeteria yesterday.He was eating pizza.Andrée-Anne was eating potato chips.Maïté was eating chicken.Alexandre was drinking soda.

How could we improve these descriptions?

I saw Jean-Philippe in the cafeteria yesterday.

He was ___________________ pizza.

Andrée-Anne was ___________________ potato chips.

Maïté was ____________________ chicken.

Alexandre was ______________________ soda.

Hurricane

All nightthe wind poured through the trees,

roared like a waterfall,tugged andtore.

In the morning lightthe stunned treeslooked down on

tattered leavesheaped inbrownhills

torn twigsflung in barbed wiretangles

batteredbranchescrossed likeswords.

White Clouds Wave

A blizzard is a big Puffy Cloud.Wind blows like Waving Water.Snow is like Winnie-The -Pooh stamping in the snow.When your Hair Blows it is a forest treeBlowing to the old west.

Brianne Blazer 3rd grade

The LibraryBy: Group 344 (4th period, March 19th)

All day in The Library liveThe sounds of studentsYawning and turning pages,

The light tapping of fingers on a keyboard.

A girl imagines the stories she reads.

Discretely, trying to open a bag of gummies.

The loud explosion of a sneeze,

a squeaking door lets someone in and out.

The librarian releases a long sigh.So tired of saying shhhh...

The Lightning Lady

If you ever meet the lightning ladyYour head will start spinning.Your eyes will start dripping.

If you bump into the lightning ladyYou would fall right over!

Jessica Gabriels 4th grade

The Animal In Me

The Bird of Night

A shadow is floating through the moonlight.Its wings don’t make a sound.Its claws are long, its beak is bright.Its eyes try all the corners of the night.

It calls and calls: all the air swells and heavesAnd washes up and down like water.The ear that listens to the owl believesIn death. The bat beneath the caves,

The mouse beside the stone is still as death.The owl’s air washes them like water.The owl goes back and fourth inside the night,And the night holds its breath.

By Randall Jarrell

Roaches

Last night when I got upto let the dog out I spieda cockroach in the bathroomcrouched flat on the cool

porcelain,delicate

antennae probing the toothpaste capand feasting himself on a gob

of it in the bowl;I killed him with one unprofessional

blow,scattering arms and legs

and half his body in the sink...

I would have no truck with roaches,crouched like lions in the ledges of sewerstheir black eyes in the darkness

alert for tasty slime,breeding quickly and without design,labouring up drainpipes through filth

to the light;I read once they are among

the most antediluvian of creatures,surviving everything,and in more primitive times

thrived to the size of your hand...

yet when sinking asleepor craning at the stars,

I can feel their light feetprobing in my veins,

their whiskers nibblingthe inside of my toes;

and neck arched,feel their patient scrambling

up the dark tubes of my throat.

B Peter Wild

Hummingbird

A hummingbird flies standing stilland never sings a note.

His whirling wings make circles,little helicopter circlesmaking music of their own

a wherry sounda blurry sounda feathers in a flurry sound.

How can anything that is so smallmake such a great big hurry sound?

The Animal in Me -- Model

Describe yourselves.

sounds

What part of the body does it live in?

Do you feel your arms lifting like wings?

Do you have a hungry bear living in your stomach?

There is a ________________in me ________with ____________________like __________ (fins, fur, feathers)

and_____________________like __________It ___________________like_____________ (hisses, roars)

It____________________like____________ (wiggles, flaps, creeps)

It lives in my _________________________and makes me_________________________

I wish________________________________

orIt makes me want to____________________

or

It makes me feel like___________________

possibleendings

Beat Perfect Poem

Compose a poem using only these words.

we / us / oursee / saw / seenhave / haswork / works / workedface / faces / faced enemy /enemiesandtheoftoitthetoan

Alan Ginsberg Said:

Our goal was to save the planet and alter human consciousness. That will take a long time, if it happens at all.

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does.

Master thyself and others will follow.

First thought, best thought. (referring to his, and other Beat writers' unique style of writing poetry)

The CIA and the Mafia are in cahoots.

Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)[1] was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.

He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau’s philosophy of civil disobedience influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thoreau is sometimes cited as an individualist anarchist [2] [3] as well as an inspiration to anarchists. Though Civil Disobedience calls for improving rather than abolishing government – "I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government"[4] – the direction of this improvement aims at anarchism: “‘That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”[4]

An excerpt from WaldenBy: Henry David Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.  For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

Walter Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.[1] His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.

Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War in addition to publishing his poetry. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle.

O Captain my Captain! By Walt Whitman

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;But O heart! heart! heart!O the bleeding drops of red,Where on the deck my Captain lies,Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;Here Captain! dear father!This arm beneath your head!It is some dream that on the deck,You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;Exult O shores, and ring O bells!But I, with mournful tread,Walk the deck my Captain lies,Fallen cold and dead.

Limerick:A limerick is a light or humorous verse

form of five chiefly anapestic verses of which lines 1, 2, and 5 are of three feet and lines 3 and 4 are of two

feet with a rhyme scheme of aabba

It is said in popular Irish folklore that Limericks originated in the town of Limerick.

Glossary:

Flue: channel in a chimney for conveying flame and smoke to the outer airGuffaw: a loud or boisterous burst of laughterLoo: British slang for toiletPauper: a very poor personThrice: three times

(1)

A flea and a fly in a flue (a)

Were caught, so what could they do?(a)

Said the fly, "Let us flee."(b)

"Let us fly," said the flea.(b)

So they flew through a flaw in the flue.(a)

There once was a pauper named MegWho accidentally broke her ___________.She slipped on the ____________.Not once, but thriceTake no pity on her, I _____________.

LimericksExamples of Limericks

Take turns reading the following Limericks out loud. Practice the rhyme and rhythm.

Then use the vocabulary (cities, names, verbs) to create your own Limericks. Present your Limericks to the class.

A Baboon Where?

There once was a lady from FranceWho kept a baboon in her pantshalf the people who sawcouldn't help but guffawbut the rest of them asked her to dance.

No Saint

There once was an artist named Saint, Who swallowed some samples of paint. All shades of the spectrum Flowed out of his rectum With a colourful lack of restraint

Tonga Conga

There once was a man from Tonga

Who started to dance the conga But the floor was wet He slipped I bet For now he dances no longa

Boo Hoo

There once was a lad called Roo, Who slipped and fell in some poo,

He landed with a smack With a crack up his back, Why can't dogs just use the loo

Small Smarts

There once was an old man of Esser,Whose knowledge grew lesser and lesser,It at last grew so smallHe knew nothing at all,And now he's a college professor.

I Wish I Could Writes ‘em

Lordy, Please Don't Ye Smite 'em'Cause I Smiles When I Sight 'emI Laugh At The GimerickWhen I Reads A LimerickI Only Cuss Because I Knows I Cain't Write 'em

The Pain in Spain

There was a fighter in Spain Whom you'd imagine caused a lot of pain People had to get braces To fix their teeth and faces And that’s how he let all dentists gain

No Thanks Frank

I once loved a man named Frank

But to me he would never thank So, I pulled out my whip Sent him on a trip And emptied his account at the bank