Song Lyrics as Poetry

SONG ANALYSIS WEBQUEST






Introduction:
     Poetry can be defined as "focused writing which communicates a mood and/or experience".  The popular music we listen to today, be it Britney Spears or Metallica or Eminem, fits this definition just as surely as the works of Shakespeare, Poe, or Dickinson.  Now, imagine your favorite song and consider how its lyrics might work as poetry.


Task:
    Write a short essay analyzing the presence and effect of poetic devices in the lyrics of a song of your choice.  How does your chosen song fit the definition and function of a poem/


Process:
1.    Select a song.  It must fit the following criteria:

• The song must have lyrics; no instrumentals.
• The song must be school appropriate; check with me if you have questions.
• Ideally, the song will have rich, diverse lyrics.

2.    Use the resources below to find the lyrics of the song online. 3.    Copy and paste or retype a copy of the lyrics into a word processor.
4.    Print TWO copies of the lyrics.  Save one copy and use the other for notes.
5.    Analyze the lyrics for the presence of some/all of the following:

• Imagery (note the sense being used)
• Poetic devices (metaphor, simile, allusion, conceit, etc.)
• Sound devices (alliteration, repetition, rhyme, etc.)
• The experience communicated by the song
• The mood communicated by the song

6.    Write an essay covering the following:

• What are the experience and mood of the song?
• What imagery and devices are present?
• How do the images and devices create the experience and mood?

7.    Attach the 2nd copy of the lyrics to the end of your essay. 
Resources:
(All of the following are collections of song lyrics online)
Lyrics.com
Getlyrics.com
Worldwide Internet Music Resources
Google.com
(Search for: "song name" "artist name" "lyrics")
 
 


Conclusion:
    Now that you have analyzed your song lyrics, take some time to be aware of the poetry in the music you hear every day.  The next time you turn on the radio, listen closely!  You'll hear similes, metaphors, alliteration, and all of the devices we've been learning about during our unit.  Imagine that!

Here are some good songs for analysis (lots of poetic devices).  Check with me about your song choice.:

“Fire and Rain” – James Taylor

“Hey There Delilah” – Plain White T’s

“Ain’t No Sunshine” – Bill Withers

“Turn Turn Turn!” – The Byrds

“Einstein on the Beach” – Counting Crows

“I Say a Little Prayer” – Dionne Warwick

“Time” – Hootie and the Blowfish

“Carolina in my Mind” – James Taylor

“Love Song for No One” – John Mayer

“Highwayman” – The Highwaymen

“Brandy” – Looking Glass

“Walking in Memphis” – Mark Cohn

“In Your Eyes” – Peter Gabriel

“The Sound of Silence” – Simon and Garfunkel

“Come Sail Away” – Styx

“Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” – The 5^th Dimension

“Just the Way You Are” – Billy Joel

“We Didn’t Start the Fire” – Billy Joel

“Allentown” – Billy Joel

“Candle in the Wind” – Elton John

“More than a Feeling” – Boston

“My Way” – Elvis Pressley

“Don’t Stop” – Fleetwood Mac

“I Will Survive” – Gloria Gaynor

“Annie’s Song” – John Denver

“Ring of Fire” – Johnny Cash

“I Walk the Line” – Johnny Cash

“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” – Paul Simon

“Every Rose Has Its Thorn” – Poison

“Scarborough Fair” – Simon and Garfunkel

“On the Road Again” – Willie Nelson

“Sweet Caroline” – Neil Diamond

“Tragedy” – Bee Gees

“Midnight Train to Georgia” – Gladys Knight

“Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” – Gordon Lightfoot

More instructions:

1. Listen to your song choice several times. Pay attention to the lyrics. Write them down and make notations if it helps. Try to read between the lines. Look for literary devices such as simile, metaphor and parallelism. These devices are often used in well-written song lyrics. Consult a literary device guide to help you understand these literary elements (see Resources).

4

Look for poetic devices and poetic structure, such as internal and other rhyme schemes found in poetry. Search the lyrics for hyperbole, symbolism and beautiful language you would be more inclined to find in the works of noted poets. You can find more about poetic devices by referring to a guide as you analyze your song (see Resources).

5

Discuss the music of your song in terms of tone, mood, and how it works with the song lyrics to enhance the overall message of the song. You don't need to be able to read music to hear what's going on musically within a song.

Read more: How to Write a Song Analysis for English Class | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5032515_write-song-analysis-english-class.html#ixzz1h4xbnQ00

 2. Look for poetic devices and poetic structure, such as internal and other rhyme schemes found in poetry. Search the lyrics for hyperbole, symbolism and beautiful language you would be more inclined to find in the works of noted poets. You can find more about poetic devices by referring to a guide as you analyze your song (see Resources).

3. Discuss the music of your song in terms of tone, mood, and how it works with the song lyrics to enhance the overall message of the song. You don't need to be able to read music to hear what's going on musically within a song.

Howl Part 1/Allen Ginsberg/Beat poetry

other links

JACK KEROUC

youtu.be/ym-pnrpdJEQ

youtu.be/hBKGfPg4A6c

youtu.be/BKgiebewLi0

www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5646

Joy Harjo Long poems in the Native American tradition

View Bill Moyers interview of Joy Harjo


Read poems in She Had Some Horses

www.joyharjo.com/JoyHarjoHome.html

Nautica and Kennethea perform poem.

Continue to work on your slam poems....

Advice About Writing Slam Poetry

MORE DEF POETRY

Watch Disc 2 of Def Poetry for themes and ideas!
poetry.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.poetryslam.com/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfS6GCCYKoQ&feature=related
Work on Slam poems--2nd period--in groups or alone

 How to Write Slam Poetry

Slam poetry is an increasingly more popular form of poetry and one that is gaining recognition in academic poetry publications and contests. However, slam poetry has been popular since the early 1990s. Follow these few concise steps toward composing and delivering your own unique slam poem.

Read more: How to Write Slam Poetry | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2058321_write-slam-poetry.html#ixzz1fwoZN6pX

Instructions

1. • 1
     Select a topic to write your poem about. Then begin writing your poem. It should consist of short rhythmic stanzas that play upon the theme you have chosen. Slam poetry is typically quite strong and blunt.
   • 2
     Write your poetry to reflect some sort of current social more or rhetoric. Slam poetry makes a statement typically in a liberal fashion about something in modern society.
   • 3
     Research new slang words or relevant modern contextual references and then go back and revise your poetry, attempting to utilize these new resources. If you are trying to say the word "say," you might try "spit" or "spew" for more impact. The more visceral the better. Do not be too formal in your presentation since formality is the antithesis to slam poetry.
   • 4
     Read your poem out loud to a trusted friend who will give you honest feedback--preferably someone who knows a little about slam poetry culture.
   • 5
     Record yourself delivering your poem. Typically slam poetry contests are entered through visual submissions or in person. Make sure you are adamant and passionate in your delivery.

Read more: How to Write Slam Poetry | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2058321_write-slam-poetry.html#ixzz1fwo7SK2g

SLAM POETRY

www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5672

My Words Consume Me:

youthspeaks.org/voice/2011/05/17/my-words-consume-me-free-download/

Wikipedia entry:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_slam

Spoken word:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoken_word 

Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events.^[1]
In entertainment, spoken word performances generally consist of storytelling or poetry, exemplified by people like Hedwig Gorski, the originator of performance poetry, the lengthy monologues by Spalding Gray, and improvising ranters/commentators like Henry Rollins.

Final Portfolios for MP2/ Philosophy Contest

Your MP2 portfolio should have 10 polished poems from both marking periods.  Please be sure to include several poems that are finished versions of some of the forms we tried this marking period (ode, elegy, villanelle, sestina, pantoum, sonnet, haiku, senryu, etc) as well as free verse.


Here is an essay writing contest you might be interested in:


philosophyslam.org/rules_fin.html#special

Wednesday Workshops

Today we will workshop poems from students who have not completed a workshop or want to go again.

Remember:  Marking Period #2 portfolio due on Friday.  Make sure you have 10 polished poems from both marking periods.

Show that you have used the text book or experimented with forms!

Be sure your poems have titles.

Finally, THE SONNET!

 

www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5791

 

History
by Robert Lowell
History has to live with what was here, clutching and close to fumbling all we had-- it is so dull and gruesome how we die, unlike writing, life never finishes. Abel was finished; death is not remote, a flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic, his cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire, his baby crying all night like a new machine. As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory, the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter's moon ascends-- a child could give it a face: two holes, two holes, my eyes, my mouth, between them a skull's no-nose-- O there's a terrifying innocence in my face drenched with the silver salvage of the mornfrost.

American Sonnet (10)
by Wanda Coleman
after Lowell our mothers wrung hell and hardtack from row and boll. fenced others' gardens with bones of lovers. embarking from Africa in chains reluctant pilgrims stolen by Jehovah's light planted here the bitter seed of blight and here eternal torches mark the shame of Moloch's mansions built in slavery's name. our hungered eyes do see/refuse the dark illuminate the blood-soaked steps of each historic gain. a yearning yearning to avenge the raping of the womb from which we spring

 

Writing a Sonnet

By The Poetry Center and John Timpane

Learn to write a sonnet in iambic pentameter, just like Shakespeare did. Discover the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the quatrains and couplets that make up a Shakespearean sonnet.

Here are the rules:

• It must consist of 14 lines.

• It must be written in iambic pentameter (duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH).

• It must be written in one of various standard rhyme schemes.

If you're writing the most familiar kind of sonnet, the Shakespearean, the rhyme scheme is this:

A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G

Every A rhymes with every A, every B rhymes with every B, and so forth. You'll notice this type of sonnet consists of three quatrains (that is, four consecutive lines of verse that make up a stanza or division of lines in a poem) and one couplet (two consecutive rhyming lines of verse).
Ah, but there's more to a sonnet than just the structure of it. A sonnet is also an argument — it builds up a certain way. And how it builds up is related to its metaphors and how it moves from one metaphor to the next. In a Shakespearean sonnet, the argument builds up like this:

• First quatrain: An exposition of the main theme and main metaphor.

• Second quatrain: Theme and metaphor extended or complicated; often, some imaginative example is given.

• Third quatrain: Peripeteia (a twist or conflict), often introduced by a "but" (very often leading off the ninth line).

• Couplet: Summarizes and leaves the reader with a new, concluding image.

One of Shakespeare's best-known sonnets, Sonnet 18, follows this pattern:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
          So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
          So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The argument of Sonnet 18 goes like this:

• First quatrain: Shakespeare establishes the theme of comparing "thou" (or "you") to a summer's day, and why to do so is a bad idea. The metaphor is made by comparing his beloved to summer itself.

• Second quatrain: Shakespeare extends the theme, explaining why even the sun, supposed to be so great, gets obscured sometimes, and why everything that's beautiful decays from beauty sooner or later. He has shifted the metaphor: In the first quatrain, it was "summer" in general, and now he's comparing the sun and "every fair," every beautiful thing, to his beloved.

• Third quatrain: Here the argument takes a big left turn with the familiar "But." Shakespeare says that the main reason he won't compare his beloved to summer is that summer dies — but she won't. He refers to the first two quatrains — her "eternal summer" won't fade, and she won't "lose possession" of the "fair" (the beauty) she possesses. So he keeps the metaphors going, but in a different direction. And for good measure, he throws in a negative version of all the sunshine in this poem — the "shade" of death, which, evidently, his beloved won't have to worry about.

• Couplet: How is his beloved going to escape death? In Shakespeare's poetry, which will keep her alive as long as people breathe or see. This bold statement gives closure to the whole argument — it's a surprise.

And so far, Shakespeare's sonnet has done what he promised it would! See how tightly this sonnet is written, how complex yet well organized it is? Try writing a sonnet of your own.

Poets are attracted by the grace, concentration, and, yes, the sheer difficulty of sonnets. You may never write another sonnet in your life, but this exercise is more than just busywork. It does all the following:

• Shows you how much you can pack into a short form.

• Gives you practice with rhyme, meter, structure, metaphor, and argument.

• Connects you with one of the oldest traditions in English poetry — one still vital today.

More workshops! and prose poems

Continue to do workshops for classmates.

Prose poetry?

Poetry Prompt - Write an Anaphora poem. An Anaphora is "the repetition of a word or expression several times within a clause or within a paragraph". In poetry the repetition of the phrase can be just at the beginning of each line, setting the tone as a meditation or a mantra, or it can be utilized more subtlety within the poem. The poem can be free verse or prose style.

Poetry Prompt - Write a free verse poem using "sparrows".

Poetry Prompt - Write a series of questions and answers to compose a poem.

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem that describes a walk through a house from the perspective of a child.

Poetry Prompt - Write three different impressions of "saturation". (e.g.: color, sound, aroma, urban-ness, etc.)

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using the prompt: "chain-link fence"

Poetry Prompt - Write a three part poem using "metronome".

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem concerning the "absence" of something. Consider the absence as a positive, or a negative.

Poetry Prompt - List ten items that you would buy at an auction, or tag sale. Write a poem including those items. You may chose to title your poem, "Things Found At An Auction". Variation, have someone else create a list for you.

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem that starts with a one word title, two words in the first line, three in the next, and continues by adding one word per line. (Variation: use as a prose exercise.)

Poetry Prompt - "This and That"- Write a list of phrases such as "salt and pepper", "cats and dogs", "love and war". Write a poem with the first stanza about the first word and the second stanza about the second word.

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem based on the concept or idea of a "Mobeus strip".

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem that begins with a description of an event, telling what appears to be happening. Then give a description of what is really occurring.

Poetry Prompt - As an exercise, write a solo "renga". (Not to argue the authenticity of a renga being written by two poets - not one) A renga is a Japanese poetic form similar to haiku, but a series of stanzas linked by an idea. Please visit these pages for a full, non-confrontational definition of renga:

http://www.ahapoetry.com/renga.htm#sea

http://thewordshop.tripod.com/renga.htm

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using, "paper and chalk".

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using the following title: "Another Language", or "Translation".

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using the following start: "What good is a day..."

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem about the "ultimate" poem, or what a poem "should" do.

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem in the disguise of a postcard message. Continue by writing a reply postcard message.

Poetry Prompt - Create a poem using three trinkets. Such as, a shell, a silver charm, and a feather.

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using the phrase "a foreign language".

Poetry Prompt - On a slip of paper write a list of 15 "free association" words. Use the 15 words in a poem. Variation: Create and exchange a list with another person. Then use their list of words to write a poem.

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using, "how to...". For example, "how to write a poem", "how to break my heart"," how to distinguish a flower from a frog".

Poetry Prompt - Write three shaped-verse poems. Shaped-verse poems are a form of "pattern poetry", where the letters, words, and lines of the poem are arranged to form a picture/outline of the subject of the poem. An example is a poem in the shape of a Christmas tree discussing your thoughts about Christmas itself, family traditions, and so on.

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem that repeats a selected word in each line. Consider using foreign translations of the word. (cat, gato, catze).

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem with a seasonal theme.

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem about seasonings. For example, "Salt and Saffron".

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using the title, "Paradise of Strangers".

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using, " Between Silences".

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using "Writers Anonymous" as your title. (Or, "Hi My Name Is�")

Poetry Prompt - Transitory - Write a poem based on transitory things.

Poetry Prompt - Make a list of your favorite lines from poetry. Use these lines in a collage or create a pocket journal that has one line per page. Memorize them. (And then, optionally, for you Mark Strand fans, eat them.)

Poetry Prompt - Write a Tercet. Examples:

http://www.gardendigest.com/poetry/tercet.htm#Selected

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem about something that "spirals".

Poetry Prompt - Write a culinary poem celebrating food.

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem that is representative of language/communication.

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem about a very small object.

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem using images of things that are connected, such as "paperclip(s)", or "trains".

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem that is about the "un-truth".

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem about things that are transparent.

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem that starts at the end, moving backwards.

Poetry Exercise - Write a villanelle, or a terzanelle.

vil�la�nelle
A 19-line poem of fixed form consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain on two rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain. (fromhttp://www.dictionary.com)

terzanelle
A terzanelle is a poetry form which is a combination of the villanelle and the terza rima. It is nineteen lines total, with five triplets and a concluding quatrain. The rhyme scheme is as follows: Ending Type 1:fAFA' (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terzanelle)

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem using the theme of, "x-ray", or seeing through layers.

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem that focuses on sound.

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem about playing Jacks, Hopscotch, or another such game.

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem in three parts about�three different people and their interaction with an item that is the same. The object can be passed between them, or it can be the "same" possession and not the "actual" object the other people have.

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem that uses the style of a devotion and prayer.

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem that is written in the style of magnetic poetry. For your word bank you can use one or two pages from a book, magazine or newspaper. You might want to make a photocopy of the pages and cut the words apart,�or just transcribe them randomly to your word bank.

Poetry Exercise - Write a poem that is based on a painting. (You can find many classic paintings here: http://www.wga.hu/index.html)

Example: Pieter Brueghel, The Fall of Icarus
http://www.english.emory.edu/Paintings&Poems/Williams.html
http://www.english.emory.edu/Paintings&Poems/Auden.html

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem that refers to "Romeo and Juliet".

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using the title, "Lines of Conversation".

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using the title, "Love Poem Number 137".

Poetry Prompt - Write a poem using the title, "You Need to Have a Plan".

Workshops/ The Prose Poem

The following people need to do a class workshop:
Addie, Monica, Brianna, Justice, Jerry, Danielle, Zach, Aubrey, Victoria, Alaina, Ledibel, Shayla, Marissa

If you have done your workshop and this information is not correct, let me know!

New exercises: Ch. 21-30 in Poetry Writing, look over these exercises and try the ones that interest you!

What's a Prose Poem?

The prose poem is a type of poetry characterized by its lack of line breaks. Although the prose poem resembles a short piece of prose, its allegiance to poetry can be seen in the use of rhythms, figures of speech, rhyme, internal rhyme, assonance (repetition of similar vowel sounds), consonance (repetition of similar consonant sounds), and images. Early poetry (such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, both written by Homer approximately 2,800 years ago) lacked conventional line breaks for the simple fact that these works were not written down for hundreds of years, instead being passed along (and presumably embellished) in the oral tradition. However, once poetry began to be written down, poets began to consider line breaks as another important element to the art. With the exception of slight pauses and inherent rhyme schemes, it is very hard for a listener of poetry to tell where a line actually breaks.
The length of prose poems vary, but usually range from half of a page to three or four pages (those much longer are often considered experimental prose or poetic prose). Aloysius Bertrand, who first published Gaspard de la nuit in 1842, is considered by many scholars as the father of the prose poem as a deliberate form. Despite the recognition given to Bertrand, as well as Maurice de Guerin, who wrote around 1835, the first deliberate prose poems appeared in France during the 18th Century as writers turned to prose in reaction to the strict rules of versification by the Academy.
Although dozens of French writers experimented with the prose poem in the 1700s, it was not until Baudelaire's work appeared in 1855 that the prose poem gained wide recognition. However, it was Rimbaud's book of prose poetry Illuminations, published in 1886, that would stand as his greatest work, and among the best examples of the prose poem. Additional practitioners of the prose poem (or a close relative) include Edgar Allen Poe, Max Jacob, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Amy Lowell, Gertrude Stein, and T.S. Eliot. Among contemporary practitioners of the prose poem are: Russell Edson, Robert Bly, Charles Simic, and Rosmarie Waldrop.


Poets of Interest: Charles Baudelaire
Russell Edson
N. Scott Momaday
Arthur Rimbaud
Charles Simic
Gertrude Stein
Rosmarie Waldrop
Michael Benedikt - Highly Recommended Site!

The Prose Poem

ABOUT THE FORM
Excerpt from poets.org:
Though the name of the form may appear to be a contradiction, the prose poem essentially appears as prose, but reads like poetry. In the first issue of The Prose Poem: An International Journal, editor Peter Johnson explained, "Just as black humor straddles the fine line between comedy and tragedy, so the prose poem plants one foot in prose, the other in poetry, both heels resting precariously on banana peels."
While it lacks the line breaks associated with poetry, the prose poem maintains a poetic quality, often utilizing techniques common to poetry, such as fragmentation, compression, repetition, and rhyme. The prose poem can range in length from a few lines to several pages long, and it may explore a limitless array of styles and subjects.
The form quickly spread to innovative literary circles in other coutries: Rainer Maria Rilke and Franz Kafka in Germany; Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz in Latin America; and William Carlos Williams and Gertrude Stein in the United States. Each group of writers adapted the form and developed their own rules and restrictions, ultimately expanding the definitions of the prose poem.
Among contemporary American writers, the form is widely popular and can be found in work by poets from a diverse range of movements and styles, including James Wright, Russell Edson, and Charles Simic. Campbell McGrath’s winding and descriptive "The Prose Poem" is a recent example of the form; it begins:

On the map it is precise and rectilinear as a chessboard, though driving past you would hardly notice it, this boundary line or ragged margin, a shallow swale that cups a simple trickle of water, less rill than rivulet, more gully than dell, a tangled ditch grown up throughout with a fearsome assortment of wildflowers and bracken. There is no fence, though here and there a weathered post asserts a former claim, strands of fallen wire taken by the dust. To the left a cornfield carries into the distance, dips and rises to the blue sky, a rolling plain of green and healthy plants aligned in close order, row upon row upon row.

There are several anthologies devoted to the prose poem, including Traffic: New and Selected Prose Poems and Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present, as well as the study of the form in The American Prose Poem: Poetic Form and the Boundries of Genre.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16310

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20957 

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19111

Elegies and Odes

Elegies and Odes

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi33BQRtIKo&feature=related 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi33BQRtIKo&feature=related

 

The Elegy
The elegy began as an ancient Greek metrical form and is traditionally written in response to the death of a person or group. Though similar in function, the elegy is distinct from the epitaph, ode, and eulogy: the epitaph is very brief; the ode solely exalts; and the eulogy is most often written in formal prose.
The elements of a traditional elegy mirror three stages of loss. First, there is a lament, where the speaker expresses grief and sorrow, then praise and admiration of the idealized dead, and finally consolation and solace. These three stages can be seen in W. H. Auden’s classic "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," written for the Irish master, which includes these stanzas:

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

Other well-known elegies include "Fugue of Death" by Paul Celan, written for victims of the Holocaust, and "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman, written for President Abraham Lincoln.
Many modern elegies have been written not out of a sense of personal grief, but rather a broad feeling of loss and metaphysical sadness. A famous example is the mournful series of ten poems in Duino Elegies, by German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. The first poem begins:

If I cried out
           who would hear me up there
    among the angelic orders?
And suppose one suddenly 
           took me to his heart
           I would shrivel

Other works that can be considered elegiac in the broader sense are James Merrill’s monumental The Changing Light at Sandover, Robert Lowell’s "For the Union Dead," Seamus Heaney’s The Haw Lantern, and the work of Czeslaw Milosz, which often laments the modern cruelties he witnessed in Europe.

THE ODE
www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5784


www.motherbird.com/pablo.htm

www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/H - World Religions and Poetry/Poetry/Pablo Neruda/Eight Elementary Odes/Elementary Odes Pablo Neruda.htm

"Ode" comes from the Greek aeidein, meaning to sing or chant, and belongs to the long and varied tradition of lyric poetry. Originally accompanied by music and dance, and later reserved by the Romantic poets to convey their strongest sentiments, the ode can be generalized as a formal address to an event, a person, or a thing not present.
There are three typical types of odes: the Pindaric, Horatian, and Irregular. The Pindaric is named for the ancient Greek poet Pindar, who is credited with inventing the ode. Pindaric odes were performed with a chorus and dancers, and often composed to celebrate athletic victories. They contain a formal opening, or strophe, of complex metrical structure, followed by an antistrophe, which mirrors the opening, and an epode, the final closing section of a different length and composed with a different metrical structure. The William Wordsworth poem "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" is a very good example of an English language Pindaric ode. It begins:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight
                 To me did seem
            Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;--
             Turn wheresoe'er I may,
              By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The Horatian ode, named for the Roman poet Horace, is generally more tranquil and contemplative than the Pindaric ode. Less formal, less ceremonious, and better suited to quiet reading than theatrical production, the Horatian ode typically uses a regular, recurrent stanza pattern. An example is the Allen Tate poem "Ode to the Confederate Dead," excerpted here:

Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves
Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament
To the seasonal eternity of death;
Then driven by the fierce scrutiny
Of heaven to their election in the vast breath,
They sough the rumour of mortality.

The Irregular ode has employed all manner of formal possibilities, while often retaining the tone and thematic elements of the classical ode. For example, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats was written based on his experiments with the sonnet. Other well-known odes include Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind," Robert Creeley's "America," Bernadette Mayer's "Ode on Periods," and Robert Lowell's "Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket."

How to Write an Ode

Created by Pindar out of the traditional forms of Greek tragedy, the ode is generally defined as a rhymed poem of irregular meter that praises its subject. The English ode consists of an undefined number of 10-line stanzas.

1. 
   
   Consider the subject matter that you wish to write about, and remember that beauty can be found in the least expected places. Was watching "American Beauty" the first time you thought a plastic bag caught in the wind was beautiful?
   
2. Write a 10-line stanza of iambic verse using an ababcdecde rhyme scheme.
   
3. Proceed to write as many 10-line stanzas as desired. Use the same rhyme scheme pattern in the following stanzas, but with different rhymes. If you do this correctly, the "a" of a stanza will rhyme only with the "a" of that same stanza.
   
4. Revise as needed.

Workshops/Ghazals

Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghazal


 www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5781

Poets.org:  Heather McHugh  www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15452

Just Another Yuppie Raising Children
Eric Folsom
When the lights came on, our apartment
had been reborn as a red hibiscus.

In those days everything went into my journals,
each ordinary discovery about love and children.

The sweetness of our cumulative sleep deficit;
the baby woke again, and we danced with her till dawn.

I said to my anti-war friends: we've won,
don't you see they're all getting old and dying?

Weighing the hour in my chapped hands,
I borrowed the lanolin you bought for your breasts.

Laboring with love for love, the wedding ring
on the spice shelves while I do the dishes.


A Taste of Entry
Werner Reichhold
Dark matter, in her eyes the health of distance,
when with delay the plane landed in a burst of flames.

Barefaced in transformation starboard, first touch
of essential ground; temporarily not embodied, wave

of a soul enters the mosaic of a time-shredding reptile;
it is mushroom, hot consistency rooming with a taste

of sudden entry; no disc preformatted, abundant energy
offers a first tickle to Anna's toes.

Her three-month-old fetus rebuilding its watery
boundaries into the unnamed; slip, slit sliding unlimited

stream of fear? The pilot on its nomadic journey,
flight flooded, pouring air; the the navigator's needle oscillating

to a picture in his wallet said no; nineteen, college.
karate and breath of a surfer bursting leeward.

here the one sail's move changes speed.-
There lingers a logic of no withdrawal from barefooted

flames on delay, a manifold of almost-touch.
may I, the mail go greeting foamed stamps?
The Ghazal page:   www.ghazalpage.net/2010/fall_schmottlach.html

• A ghazal is a series of couplets. Each couplet is an independent poem, although a thematic continuity may develop. This feature leads to "jumps" between couplets, a discontinuity similar to the linking in a Japanese renga. According to Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr., what in English is a couplet is, in Persian, one long line with a strong caesura.
• Traditional themes that focus on romantic love and mysticism.
• Both lines of the first couplet (called the "matla") and the second line of each succeeding couplet have the same monorhyme ("qafia") and refrain ("radif").
• The refrain (radif) is the same word or short phrase (or even syllable, according to Ali).
• A. J. Arberry says that each couplet of the Persian ghazal ends in a monorhyme (words ending with the same vowel+consonant combination), but he does not mention the refrain.
• All the couplets are in the same meter. (Ali does not mention meter.)
• The poet "signs" the last couplet ("makhta") by including her/his name or pen name ("takhallus").

Ghazal (pronounced "ghuzzle") is an Arabic word that means "talking to women."

History.

The Ghazal was developed in Persia in the 10th century AD from the Arabic verse form qasida. It was brought to India with the Mogul invasion in the 12th century. The Ghazal tradition is currently practiced in Iran (Farsi), Pakistan (Urdu) and India (Urdu and Hindi). In India and Pakistan, Ghazals are set to music and have achieved commercial popularity as recordings and in movies. A number of American poets, including Adrienne Rich and W.S. Merwin, have written Ghazals, usually without the strict pattern of the traditional form.

Form.

A traditional Ghazal consists of five to fifteen couplets, typically seven. A refrain (a repeated word or phrase) appears at the end of both lines of the first couplet and at the end of the second line in each succeeding couplet. In addition, one or more words before the refrain are rhymes or partial rhymes. The lines should be of approximately the same length and meter. The poet may use the final couplet as a signature couplet, using his or her name in first, second or third person, and giving a more direct declaration of thought or feeling to the reader.

Style.

Each couplet should be a poem in itself, like a pearl in a necklace. There should not be continuous development of a subject from one couplet to the next through the poem. The refrain provides a link among the couplets, but they should be detachable, quotable, grammatical units. There should be an epigrammatic terseness, yet each couplet should be lyric and evocative.

For examples and more on Ghazals, see the anthology edited by Agha Shahid Ali: Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English (Wesleyan University Press, 2000). Included are seven lovely Ghazals by William Matthews and a number of other fine ones.

Work on pantoum and senryu/RPO poems and contests

Period 1--Computer lab in library

Workshop writers:  So far Alex, Valerie, Whitney, Wade, and Nautica have done workshops.

Workshops

Wade and Whitney workshops

Pantoums and Senryu

RPO Contest and Others

RPO Project and Contests

The next RPO project/contest is for the November concerts.  These have a Spanish/Latin theme.
Please listen to the following recordings and think about creating poems inspired by the music.  The winning poems will be read at the concerts, just like the postcards in September.

 Arild envisioned the poetry to flow off of the Ravel Bolero and/or the Gabriela Lena Frank Three Latin American Dances (Spanish/Latin elements).


Bolero
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-4J5j74VPw

Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.^[1]
The term is also used for some art music. In all its forms, the bolero has been popular for over a century.

Bolero rhythm.^[2]

The bolero is a 3/4 dance^[3] that originated in Spain in the late 18th century, a combination of the contradanza and the sevillana.^[4] Dancer Sebastiano Carezo is credited with inventing the dance in 1780.^[5] It is danced by either a soloist or a couple. It is in a moderately slow tempo and is performed to music which is sung and accompanied by castanets and guitars with lyrics of five to seven syllables in each of four lines per verse. It is in triple time and usually has a triplet on the second beat of each bar.

Sample poem:

Interpretation: Ravel's "Bolero"

User Rating: -- /10 (0 votes) - vote - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Print friendly version E-mail this poem to a friend Send this poem as eCard Add this poem to MyPoemList

Softly, slyly, flute and drum begin to weave their net Of notes; the slow seductive beat evokes the stomp of gypsy feet Inside some smoky dim cantina, where a woman's silhouette Is dancing with abandon to the pulsing, pounding theme Of the flamenco or fandango...the bolero or beguine. It's unremitting rhythm, darkly sensual in tone, Restrains a fierce and frenzied spirit in it's own Measured meter...persistent and alone Beneath the sultry overtones Of the trumpets and trombones, Echoed closely by the throbbing of the strings In which the melody continuously, sinuously sings A refrain that is almost overcome By the passion and the power of the drum, Of the drum. Now, in the same obsessive cadence, and without accelerando, It mounts to it's finale in a thunderous crescendo With the crashing of the cymbals and the gong! And the hot, erotic beat of the drum, Of the drum, of the drum. 2003 Jane Clark

Bolero

Bolero

By Gerald Stern b. 1925 Gerald Stern

So one day when the azalea bush was firing

away and the Japanese maple was roaring I

came into the kitchen full of daylight and

turned on my son’s Sony sliding over the

lacquered floor in my stocking feet for it was

time to rattle the canisters and see what

sugar and barley have come to and how Bolero

sounds after all these years and if I’m loyal

still and when did I have a waist that thin?

And if my style was too nostalgic and where

were you when I was burning alive, nightingale?   

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  Dove, Rita. "Bolero.(Poem)." Ploughshares. Ploughshares, Inc. 2003. HighBeam Research. 20 Oct. 2011 <http://www.highbeam.com>.

  Chicago

  Dove, Rita. "Bolero.(Poem)." Ploughshares. 2003. HighBeam Research. (October 20, 2011). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-101261170.html

  APA

  Dove, Rita. "Bolero.(Poem)." Ploughshares. Ploughshares, Inc. 2003. Retrieved October 20, 2011 from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-101261170.html

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Bolero.(Poem)

March 22, 2003 | Dove, Rita | 

COPYRIGHT 1999 Ploughshares, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights or concerns about this content should be directed to Customer Service.

 

 
In "Bolero," for example, the rhythm of the dance is duplicated visually
 on the page, with one extremely long line followed by two short lines 
in an approximation of the "slow / quick-quick" of this very slow and 
sensuous dance. I wanted the reader to be stretched out to the limit of 
the page, and only then snapping back to the left margin--to reality? 
back to earth?--where he is allowed to take a breath (i.e., the stanza 
break) before returning to the fray. 

Bolero 
 
   Not the ratcheting crescendo of Ravel's bright winds 
   but an older, 
   crueler 
 
   passion: a woman with hips who knows when to move them, 
   who holds nothing back 
   but the hurt 
 
   she takes with her as she dips, grinds, then rises sweetly into 
   his arms again. 
   Not 
 
   delicate. Not tame. Bessie Smith in a dream of younger, 
   (Can't you see?) 
   slimmer 
 
   days. Restrained in the way a debutante is not, the way a bride 
   pretends she 
   understands. 
 
   How everything hurts! Each upsurge onto a throbbing toe, 
   the prolonged descent 
   to earth, 
 
   to him (what love … 

Ravel's Bolero
by Kate Burnside
Saturday, May 01, 2004

Ravel's Bolero...

Passions building,
throbbing, pulsating
Tautly rising towards
climactic crescendo

Flashing steel blades
dice and toss,
mixing together
a mele of images:

Firstly, figure skaters
searing through hot ice
Bodies fully charged and tensed
Athletically counterbalanced
Sinuously connected
Sensuous poetry in motion
Pure sex on a stick, oral as gelatti:
even the delicate
touch of his hand
on the small of her back
is suggestive
as the breeze dances
and plays with
the hem of her skirt;
Theirs is a muscular power
braced and under control -
the gleaming flanks of the
purebred stallion
stamping and nodding,
waiting to be unleashed from the stockade...

Then the bathing-suited beauty,
tanned and svelte
bounding along Bondi Beach;
freely flowing later
in the buff,
humping and pumping
slow and rhythmic
Cleopatra cat-like features,
her clattering beaded braids
swaying in time to the music...

Moist heat or dry ice
Ravel's Bolero
Legs 11 out of 10 every time!

Gabriela Lena Frank Three Latin American Dances 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mavn0xKNcEs

And don't forget Hollins (10th and 11th women poetry)


Bennington

 www.bennington.edu/NewsEvents/YoungWritersCompetition/YW_Submission.aspx
Scholastic, New England Young Writers Conference, etc.

 

2

Submission Form

Students in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades during the current academic year are invited to submit one of the following by the November 1 deadline.

• Poetry (a group of three poems). Poems must be typed.
• Fiction (a short story or one-act play). Short stories must be typed, double-spaced, and fewer than 1500 words. Scripts must be typed, double-spaced, and run no more than 30 minutes (playing time).
• Nonfiction (a personal or academic essay). Stories and nonfiction must be typed, double-spaced, and fewer than 1500 words.

Scholastic Haiku contest

www.scholastic.com/dellhaiku/?eml=SMP/e/20111018//txtl/DellHaiku/0/ContestDeadline/SL1//////&ym_MID=1373091&ym_rid=6224539

Pantoums
www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5786

Senryu
startag.tripod.com/HkSenDiff.html

HMWK: Bring in Poetry Writing books for Monday,  Read Ch. 11-15