Reviving Contemporary Poetry

Prefatory Statement:

                This unit will have students explore contemporary themes and authors, post WWII, in poetry.  The purpose in participating/completing a contemporary poetry unit is to expand a student’s knowledge of poetry beyond the knowledge of great past poets.  Young adults infrequently discover an appreciation or understanding of poetry written in this contemporary time.  Appreciation and understanding of contemporary poetry will enable students to see the present world with a critical eye.

                The set induction plans to engage students by revealing how one may approach writing and analyzing poetry.  Samples of art and music will be used to prompt students to free write; they may use any genre to express analyses, emotions, and thoughts.  A simple painting can leave a lot of room for imagination and creativity.  Music is a form of poetry that resembles many techniques used in poetry.  Students will then transform their free writing into scansion or free verse poetry. By approaching poetry in the form of a familiar genre, such as song or art, students may begin to establish similarities between the different representations of artistic expression.  Poetry helps to reveal the world around us.  By focusing on reading contemporary poetry, students will gain a sense of poetry’s relevancy and abundance in this contemporary time.

Throughout the course of the unit, some topics of discussion include authors, the history, and transformation of poetry (post WWII).  I plan to expand students’ perspectives of their history, culture, and world by using a diversity of poets. Final assessment will compose of six total pieces of poetry written from each subject throughout the unit.  The six pieces will then be bound together with all other classmates’ poems and will be published for all to have a copy.  This bound book with the students’ one to two poems and all other work—daily journal reflections, research papers, pier critiques of papers, and participation—will go into figuring out the overall grade.

The concluding lesson to the unit will involve contacting a published neighborhood or statewide poet who will volunteer time to read some of his\hers poetry and some of the student’s poetry (if a student permits it) aloud.  There is no reason for preaching about contemporary poetry without hearing from a real poet from our age.  There will also be a day where students can perform their poetry in an open mike forum.

 

Class Specification:

                This unit is designed for 10th and 11th graders.  Younger students have the ability to approach poetry, however, with the addition of other dimensions—history, culture, and poet perspective—analyzing/interpreting poetry may be too hard.  The poets covered will be men and women from all over the world.  A possible alternative for lower grades could be to teach each poetic device, such as paradox, consonance, along with poetry which effects each device then have students write poetry mirroring certain devices.

 

Significant Assumptions:

Ø       Students will know some history of contemporary America (Vietnam, presidents, etc.) 

Ø       Students will know how to write a formal essay (analytical, comparative, with a thesis and supporting evidence along with an introduction and conclusion).

Ø       Students have a basic knowledge of poetic devices

o        Handout of terms attached that they should know.

Ø       Students will know how to keep a journal.

Ø       Students have access to computers and Internet.

Ø       Students know how to work well individually, in small groups, and as a whole class.

 

Desired Outcomes:

Ø       Competent completion of Minnesota High School Graduation Standard 3.2: Literature and arts analysis and interpretation.

Ø       Students will demonstrate the ability to interpret and evaluate poetry by: describing poet’s intent, historical influences, theme, and elements of style and structure; applying specific criteria, personal review and response to interpret and evaluate selected poems; describing how particular effects are produced by poet’s use of style and structure; and communicating an thoughtful/informed understanding or interpretation using the vocabulary of poetry.

 

Possible Whole Class Activities:

Ø       Discussions about poems and poets.

o        See attachment terms of possible discussion questions              

Ø       Discussions about historical influences and elements of poetic style.

o        See attachment terms of possible discussion questions.

Ø       Silent and aloud reading of poems by both students and teacher.

Ø       Collection of Poetry Journals

 

Possible Small Group Activities:

Ø       Discussions of poems in pairs and small groups.

o        See attachment terms of possible discussion questions.

Ø       Group performance/presentation of a poem.

o        Rationale for why the group thought to present the poem in this way?

o        Group led discussion.

o        See attachment.

 

Possible Individual Activities:

Ø       Journal reflections.

Ø       Personal poems influenced by poets and historical implications.

Ø       Final research papers on a contemporary poet covered in the unit.

 

Ongoing Activities:

Ø       Journal writing.

Ø       Personal poems influenced by poets and historical implications.

o        See assessment essay interpretation attachment.

Ø       Final research papers on a contemporary poet covered in the unit.

 

Student resources:

Web sources:

Fooling with Words- http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/index.html

        Glossary of terms and links- http://shoga.wwa.com/~rgs/gl-lnks.html

        More links- http://www.onlinepoetryclassroom.org/how/index.cfm?prmPageID=39

Book sources:

        Heath Anthology of American Literature 4th Edition

        Harper Anthology of American Literature Second Compact Edition

 

Bly, Robert. American Poetry. New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. 1990

 

Moyers, Bill.  Fooling with Words.  New York, NY:

William Morrow and Company, 1999

 

Unit Launch/Anticipatory set/Set Induction:

 

Objectives: The standard of this lesson will work towards students demonstrating elements of their skills in creative writing and artistic decisions to communicate intent.  Students should begin to understand poetry’s relevancy in their lives.

 

Methods:

1.  Explain what will be expected from students during the unit; tell about what authors will be covered; and tell about some historical implications—women’s movement, Vietnam war, etc.)

2.  Begin listening to selections of student chosen music (no explicit lyrics, let the students choose groups, only 4 to a group, if someone needs a group, then be considerate and invite him/her in).  Keep the song length to a maximum of 3-4 minutes). 4 minutes (each)

3.  After each selection free write on songs. (5 minutes)

4.  Finish the hour with volunteers that would like to read what s/he wrote.

 

Homework:

1. Begin reading James Wright *Spring Images  *In Fear of Harvests

*To the Evening Star: Central Minnesota

2. Tell students to come back with paragraph responses to include in journal.

 

Assessment:

1. I will know that the lesson went well if students read aloud what they wrote.

2. If Day 2s homework is completed.

3. If everyone participates.

 

Organization of the Unit:

 

Week 1.

    Day 1. Intorduction to the unit with free genre writing of music and art

    Day 2. Introduction to and Historical Implications of James Wright

    Day 3. Discussion of       *Spring Images                        *To the Evening Star: Central Minnesota

                                                *In Fear of Harvests

    Day 4. Discussion of       *Milk Weed                              *Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio

                                                *A Blessing                             

    Day 5. Conclusion           Journal writing of Wright and working with creative writing elements, structure, meaning or expression illustrated in each.                                     

 

Weak 2.

    Day 1. Introduction to and Historical Implications of Robert Lowell

    Day 2. Discussion of       *Skunk Hour                            *Memories of West Street and Lepke                          

                                                *Four the Union Dead           *Near the Ocean

 

    Day 3. Introduction to and Historical Implications of Etheridge Knight

    Day 4. Discussion of       *Freckled Faced Gerald       *The Idea of Ancestry

                                                *A Poem for Myself                

    Day 5. Discussion of       *The Bones of My Father       *Former Sergeant Crothers

 

Week 3.

    Day 1. Introduction to and Historical Implications of Lucile Cliffton

    Day 2. Discussion of       *adam thinking                       *eve thinking  

                                                *won’t you celebrate me        *oh absalom my son my son

 

    Day 3. Introduction to and Historical Implications of Adrienne Rich

    Day 4. Discussion of       *Driving into the Wreck        *Coast to Coast               *Power

                                                *From a Survivor

 

    Day 5. Introduction to and Historical Implications of Lorna Dee Cervantez

 

Week 4. Research and Journal Transformation.

    Day 1. Discussion of       *Poet’s Progress                     *Poem for the Young White Man . . .

    Day 2.                                 *Bananas

Day 3-5.  Library research and time to finish poetic responses  **First Drafts Due on Fifth Day**

 

Week 5.

Day 1-2. Rap up, hand back teacher revisions and assign peer review partners, peer reviews are due back on the second day of the week,

Day 3-4. Everything is due on the third day; send Poems for Publication; Open Mike of Student Poetry

Day 5. Speaker – Notable Poet. (teacher found)

 

Detailed Plans for Three Days of the Unit:

 

Week 2 Day 3 Etheridge Knight

 

Objectives:  The standard of this lesson will work towards students describing how particular effects are produced by the author’s use of elements in a piece literature, and communicating an informed interpretation through group performance.

 

Methods:

  1. Begin the lesson with reading “The Idea of Ancestry” and discuss.  (6 min)
  2. Read “Freckled Faced Gerald” and discuss. (7 min)
  3. Read “A Poem for Myself” and discuss. (7 min)
  4. Do creative performances of either “A Poem for Myself “ or “Freckled Faced Gerald (30 min)

5 groups of 6 students; this may carry on to next day.  (20 min)

 

Homework:

1.        Ask students to come back with paragraph responses to include in journal.

2.       Begin reading “The Bones of My Father”       “Former Sergeant Crothers”

 

Week 3 Day 2: Lucille Cliffton (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/t_txtpoet.html)

 

Objectives:  The standard of this lesson will work towards students describing the elements and structure in a piece of literature; the artistic intent; and the historical, cultural, and social background.

 

Methods:

               

1.        Start the class off with a student reading of “won’t you celebrate with me” and discuss (7 min)

2.        Begin the lesson with reading “adam thinking” and then discuss (7 min)

3.        Read “eve thinking” and then discuss. (7 min)

4.        read “oh absalom my son my son” and discuss (7 min)

 

5.        Write a  page response that further compares and contrasts  “eve thinking” and “ “adam thinking” (22 min)

 

·   Lucille Clifton uses biblical titles in three of these poems -- "adam thinking," "eve thinking," and "oh absalom my son my son." Create alternative titles for these poems. What would you gain or lose by eliminating the biblical allusions?

 

·  Listen to the words Lucille Clifton emphasizes when she reads "adam thinking" and "eve thinking." How does your listening experience differ from your reading experience?

 

Homework:

 

  1. Choose something about yourself that you would like others to celebrate with you. Create an invitation in words or pictures that expresses what it is you're celebrating and why.
  2. Ask students to come back with paragraph responses to include in journal.

 

  1. Begin reading Adrienne Rich *Driving into the Wreck                *Power

 

Week 4 Day 1: Lorna Dee Cervantez (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/t_txtpoet.html)

 

Objective:  The standard of this lesson will work towards students using skills of conciliation, mediation, or negotiation to present their findings concerning elements and structure of a piece of literature.  Students will also describe the historical, cultural, and social background in a piece of literature.

 

Methods:

 

1.        Begin with reading “Poet’s Progress” and discuss (7 min)

2.        Read “Poem for the Young White Man . . .” and discuss (7 min)

3.        Get into groups of 4 and cover the stanza’s from “Bananas” **note groups will over lap stanzas in some cases**              

4.        Give discussion questions to each group then present findings

Ask groups members to assign a presenter, a mediator, an encourager, and a note taker (25 min)

5.        Discuss all the stanzas and the poem as a whole. (10 min)

 

Homework:

 

1.        Journal Ideas:

·   Journal about your encounters with animals and plants, of all sorts. Note how these encounters stimulate or reflect your feelings and ideas.

·   Write your own "Poet's Progress" about yourself or a poet you admire.

  1. Start researching for paper and begin picking your favorite poetry pieces to put in the class publication!  **First Drafts Due on Friday**

 

Supporting Material for Teachers

 

Web sources:

Fooling with Words- http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/index.html

        Glossary of terms and links- http://shoga.wwa.com/~rgs/gl-lnks.html

        More links- http://www.onlinepoetryclassroom.org/how/index.cfm?prmPageID=39

 

Book sources:

 

Gere, Anne Ruggles Ruggles , Colleen Fairbanks, Alan Howes.  Language and Reflection

Hall PTR  November 1991 17, 93, 141

 

Berg, Stephan & Bonnano, David & Vogelsang, Arthur.  The Electric Body: America’s best poetry from The American Poetry Review. New York, NY: World Poetry, Inc. 2000

 

Bizzaro, Patrick. Responding to students poems: application of critical theory. NCTE 1993

 

Bly, Robert. American Poetry. New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. 1990

 

Moyers, Bill.  Fooling with Words.  New York, NY:

William Morrow and Company, 1999

 

Heath Anthology of American Literature 4th Edition

Harper Anthology of American Literature Second Compact Edition

 

Grades:

 

16 total Daily journals                                                                                                         15%

        Journals will receive full points:

·         16 total

·         Turned in everyday at the beginning of class

·         4 each week

 

8 total Bi-Weekly poems                                                                                                     20%

·         8 total poems

·         Turned in every Monday and Wednesday

·         Reflective of the elements, structures,

        meanings or expressions of poetry of

        contemporary America.

 

1 Research Paper                                                                                                                45%

·         A first draft is due at the end of the fourth week.                                          15%

·         A peer review is due back on the second day of the fifth week.                   10%

·         A final draft is due on the third day of the fifth week.                                  20%

·         Follows all criteria

 

6 Contribution to Publication                                                                                             20%

·         Final revisions with drafts of unit

        tuned in to me by the last week of unit.

 

                                                                                                                                                100%

Possible early unit questions:

1.  What intrigues, worries, angers you?

2.  Is this the same for contemporary poets?

3.  What is present American society?  What do poets believe it is?

4.  What are the images that control/pervade/persuade/invade our society?

5.  Who produces these images?

6.  How can it be changed?

7.  What kind of society should America be?

8.  What solutions have do you have to remedy issues that angers, worries, or intrigues you?

9.  America is a diverse nation, yes; how do contemporary poets view the juxtaposition of America in relation to other nations?

10.           How has post-modernist poetry developed to create a voice distinctively “American culture”?

11.           How is this a break away from imitations of European forms and manners in poetry?

12.           Why does this independence even exist?

13.           How has American poetry participated in the central cultural movements of the 20th century, modernism and postmodernism?

14.           How has American poetry helped to provide a voice for alternative views and opinions?

15.           How has modern and postmodern poetry related to other art forms of the 20th-century?

General discussion questions:

http://uwc.tamu.edu/handouts/poetry.html

http://mail.tcitys.org/~stowersl/poetry.html

1.  Who is the speaker? Is it possible to determine the speaker’s age, sex, sensibilities, level of awareness, and values?

2.  Is there an identifiable audience for the speaker? What can you know about this audience?

3.  How do you respond to the speaker? favorably? negatively? What is the situation/occasion? Are there any special circumstances that inform what the speaker says?

4.  What is the setting in time (hour, season, century, etc.)?

5.  What is the setting in place (indoors or out, city or country, land or sea, region, country, etc.)?

6.  Does reading the poem aloud help you to understand it?

7.  Does a paraphrase reveal the basic purpose of the poem?

8.  What is the poem about? State the central idea or theme of the poem in a single sentence.  Is the theme presented directly or indirectly?

9.  What does the title emphasize?

10.           What is the tone of the poem? How is it achieved?

11.           Outline the poem so as to show its structure and development. What kind of poem is it (ode, sonnet, dramatic monologue, lyric poem, etc.)? Why is this type of poem an appropriate means to communicate the author's theme?

12.           Summarize the events of the poem.

13.           Discuss the diction (the word choice) of the poem. Point out words that are particularly well chosen and explain why.

14.           Discuss the imagery of the poem. What kinds of imagery are used? Is there any structure to the imagery?

15.           Point out and explain any symbols. If the poem is allegorical, explain the allegory.

16.           Point out examples of metaphor, simile, conceit, personification, metonymy, or any other literary device and explain their significance and/or appropriateness.

17.           Point out and explain any examples of paradox, overstatement, understatement, and/or irony. What is their function? Why are they used?

18.           Point out and explain any allusions. What is their function? Why are they used?

19.           Point out significant examples of sound repetition (onomatopoeia, assonance, consonance, or alliteration) and explain their function.

20.           How is the poem constructed? What are its units of organization (quatrains, paragraphs, couplets, etc.)? How are these units linked together (continued metaphor, pro and con, linked sound patterns, logical syllogism, train of thought, etc.)?

21.           What is the meter of the poem? Copy the poem and mark each syllable as accented (stressed) or unaccented (unstressed), divide the lines into feet (two syllable units). Then, identify the pattern of accented and unaccented syllables and the pattern of the rhymes, and note any significant variations from those patterns.

22.           Read the poem aloud. Determine if any sounds in the poem relate to topics discussed within the poem (for example, short, choppy syllables with repeated "ee" sounds could relate to a chirping bird discussed in the poem).

23.           State the form or pattern of the poem (line length, stanza length, number of stanzas, etc.)

24.           Evaluate the poem. How well did it achieve its purpose? How well did it communicate its central idea or theme?

25.           Is there a particular critical approach that seems especially appropriate for this poem?

26.           How might biographical information about the author help to determine the central concerns of the poem?

27.           How might historical information about the poem provide a useful context for interpretation?

28.           To what extent do your own experiences, values, beliefs, and assumptions inform your interpretation?

29.           What kinds of evidence from the poem are you focusing on to support your interpretation? Does your interpretation leave out any important elements that might undercut or qualify your interpretation?

30.           How do all of the poem's parts (structure, organization, language use, meter, literary devices, etc.) contribute to the effect of the piece of a whole? What does the poem do (convert the reader, create shock, nostalgia, or fear, evoke a mood, etc.)?

31.           If you taught this poem in class, what might you use to introduce and to illustrate it?

 

1. Robert Lowell (1917-1977):

General discussion questions:

 

1. Using some examples from his poetry, how is Lowell a confessionalist poet?

 

Skunk Hour  (excellent analyses- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lowell/skunk.htm)

1.  In the first four stanzas of “Skunk Hour” we get a description of Nautilus Island. What kind of place is it?  1.http://www.dartnet.peachnet.edu/~ukirch/amerlit/studyquestions.htm

2. What morbid imagery supports the speaker's state of mind?  1.http://www.dartnet.peachnet.edu/~ukirch/amerlit/studyquestions.htm

3. How does the skunk work in the poem?                                      1. http://www.dartnet.peachnet.edu/~ukirch/amerlit/studyquestions.htm

 

Memories of West Street and Lepke (excellent analysis- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lowell/lepke.htm)

1.  Comment on the sense of humor.

2.  What examples from the poem reveal that the poet has used autobiographical material in his writing?  1.http://www.dartnet.peachnet.edu/~ukirch/amerlit/studyquestions.htm

3.  What is the central question of the poem?  What does seedtime mean?

4.  What images from the piece seem to persist in American values? 1.http://www.dartnet.peachnet.edu/~ukirch/amerlit/studyquestions.htm

 

For the Union Dead (excellent analysis- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lowell/uniondead.htm

1.  Why is Colonel Shaw memorialized?

2.  What does a monument represent to you?

3.  Should a monument be raised over the wreckage to remember the people of September 11th, 2001, should another building be that monument, what do you think?

4.  What images of animals are illustrated in the piece?

5.  Describe the details of the monument.

6.  How does the poem reveal a lost battle?

 

Near the Ocean

1.  What imagery through the poem gives the sense of drowning?

2.  What other images do you equate with drown?

3.  Is there a sense of growth from the beginning to the end?

 

2. Adrienne Rich

General discussion questions:

 

1.     In coming up with a kind of unifying theory about Rich's poetry, how does the line, "I am she I am he" fit?  1.http://www.dartnet.peachnet.edu/~ukirch/amerlit/studyquestions.htm

 

Diving into the Wreck (excellent analysis- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/wreck.htm)

1.  Why is the diver alone, without a team?                                                   1. http://www.dartnet.peachnet.edu/~ukirch/amerlit/studyquestions.htm

2.  A first few readings reveal the meaning to be an experience of diving, is there a bigger meaning?

3.  Taking a feminist perspective, interpret the second-to-the-last stanza of the poem.

4.  Write your own question and answer it.

From a Survivor

1.  What’s your story of survival?

2.  How are the narrator’s feelings toward the person gone?

3.  How does the poem teach a lesson about learning from one’s past and building, and yet not forgetting?

4.  Think of a question yourself and answer it.

 

Power (excellent analysis- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/power.htm)

1.  What is the effect of spacing between words?

2.  How is denying a release from any and all constraints, both real and figurative?

3.  By denying constraints does the narrator reclaim a part of the self?

4.  Why is it that an element, with radiation qualities, gives her her power?

 

Coast to Coast

1.  Is your room clean or messy?  How is this a reflection of your life?

2.  Why does the narrator ask for an understanding at the end of the poem?

3.  What images appear in the last half of the poem?  What does it mean that there are so many?

 

3. Lorna Dee Cervantez

General discussion question:

 

What do you risk in praying for "anything but / a stupid life"?

 

Poet’s Progress

1. Describe the course of her life as a poet. Where has she been? Where is she going?  2.http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/t_txtpoet.html

2. What do the animals and plants in "Poet's Progress" tell us about the poet at the center of the poem?

3. According to "Poet's Progress," what is poetry? What is "a stupid life"?  2.http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/t_txtpoet.html

4. What effects does the poet achieve by describing a Bee Hummingbird as "a wetback, stowaway, refugee"?

 

Bananas stanza by stanza I, II, III, IV, V

1.  How is the cyclic nature of the seasons revealed in this first stanza?

2.  Is there hope in the poem?

3.  Like the yearning of delectable fruits in the summer, what do you look forward to in each season?

 

1.  Why are bananas personified in the second stanza?

2.  What is the slug in the poem?

3.  What is being destroyed in the poem?

4.  So far bananas mean what? 

    Seasonal banana crops affect life and death, and non-ecological banana harvesting affects life and death.

 

1.  Why is the narrator looking for only non-pesticide-sprayed bananas?

2.  Why are the bananas made into banana bread at the end?

3.  Where can we see a melding of two cultures?

4.  Where is she shipping the transformed bananas? And why?

 

1.  What other poet dealt with images of uranium?

2.  How does the wind whipping around make you feel?

3.  How does a mountain symbolize isolation? and referring back to isolation, how did these women lose their power?

4.  How do you feel about globalization vs. substance farming?

 

1.  What images from previous stanzas are illustrated in this last stanza?

2.  Is a crop of bananas worth all the struggles?

3.  How has poetry helped the narrator cope with the struggles of her homeland she has never been?

4.  Is the narrator asking for redemption or is the narrator asking for a resolution/compromise, what would you ask of the oppressor if your people had gone through these struggles?

 

Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me

How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person

Could Believe in the War Between the Races

1.  Does her “land” seam real?  Why does she blatantly exaggerate?

2.  If this were a conversation, and suppose you are the young white man, what would you say back to her in defense?

3.  What does she mean by, “racism is not intellectual”?

4.  The narrator says that she is “not a revolutionary”, yet she believes “in revolution”, however she refers to herself as a poet who “yearns to . . .whisper . . .blessings of human understanding”, what images do you see in our world that hold the poet back from being the revolution?

 

4. Lucille Clifton

won't you celebrate with me

1.  Lucille Clifton says she had "no model" when she was growing up. How, then, did she become who she is? 2.http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/t_txtpoet.html

adam thinking

1.  Adam, as God’s creation, what is the meaning to be created vs. born?

2.  What ways do you males feel Adam is justified feeling this way?

3.  Why would Clifton write such a perspective?

For so many years men dominated the work force, when women appeared it created androgyny; where men’s lives and purpose were defined by the sole domination of the work force, they no longer had this sole identity.

Eve took his identity, and now men are struggling to define themselves in a world becoming ever increasingly androgynized. 

 

eve thinking

1.  Why is Eve so eager to experience a shared joy and achievement?

2.  Who are the fighting brothers and sisters?

3.  Referencing “adam thinking” how is this perspective reflective of women overcoming some oppression?

 

oh absalom my son my son

1.  How does the effect of absalom staying away affect the poem?

2.  How is it that God “created” Adam, Adam gives “birth” to Eve, and Eve gives birth to everyone else?  Should Adam be able to give birth to everyone else if God gave him the ability first to give birth?

 

1.  Lucille Clifton uses biblical titles in three of these poems -- "adam thinking," "eve thinking," and "oh absalom my son my son." Create alternative titles for these poems. What would you gain or lose by eliminating the biblical allusions?

2.  Listen to the words Lucille Clifton emphasizes when she reads "adam thinking" and "eve thinking." How does your listening experience differ from your reading experience?

5. James Wright

 

Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio (excellent analyses- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/j_wright/autumn.htm)
1.  Break up the poem into stanzaic structures, what does the separation mean; what does the pounding against each other mean?
2.  How is this reflective of industrial capitalism?
3.  Why are the seasons essential to the poem?
4.  Martins Ferry, Ohio, what kind of place is this?
 
A Blessing (excellent analyses- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/j_wright/blessing.htm)

1.  These horses, do they act like real horses?

2.  How do the real world images and the metaphors play off each other?

3.  If not horses, what animals or images bring you to an epiphany?

Milk Weed
1.  Are the animals dead or alive?

2.  Is this “other world” a world we can experience?

3.  Where does the poem illustrate the narrator’s confusion, then thoughtful and careful reminiscing, finally an escape?

4.  Both figuratively and literally, who is killing the animals?

 
Spring Images

1.  Listen to the “ee” how do they “effect” your emotions.  Think of other words with “ee”.

2.  Athletes, butterflies, antelopes?  Dancing, landing, sleeping?  Wind, voice, moon? What do these images mean?

 

To the Evening Star: Central Minnesota

1.  Write your own questions?

In Fear of Harvest

1.  Write your own questions?

 

6. Etheridge Knight

 

1.  How does being in prison affect Knight’s poetry?

Freckled Faced Gerald                    

1.  Who is raping whom? Why?

 

The Idea of Ancestry

1.  In what place is the narrator?

2.  How is the narrator both together and separate from his ancestry?

3.  Why does the poet continue to suffer?  Are we not in the 21 century, how else are African American’s oppressed?

4.  Write another poem from the narrator’s point of view from in the confines of another oppressive image or place. 

 

Former Sergeant Crothers               

1.  Analyze each juxtaposition of English and French, what does their figurative meanings mean?

2.  What is the effect of singing in the poem?

 

The Bones of My Father                                                                   a black poet leaps to his death

    1.     Write your own questions?                                                               1.     Write your own questions?

 

A poem for myself

1.  Is the narrator singing or is he having a conversation with someone, either way how each effect the meaning of the poem?

2.  What does the mud mean, does he have to walk in mud, and is he destined to walk through mud?

3.  Why did the narrator leave, and then come back to Mississippi?

4.  How is each repetition different than its predecessor?

 

Instructor: good resource when referring to the Heath Anthology http://college.hmco.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/

Student    : good resource when referring to the Heath Anthology http://college.hmco.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/toc/index.html

 

 

 

 

Assessment Tasks:

 

Name of Item:

Contribute one or two poems to an anthology reflecting of the elements, structures, meanings and/or expressions of poetry of contemporary America.

Learning Area:

Literature and the Arts

Content Standard:

Literature and arts analysis and interpretation – literature

Educational Level:

High School

Submission Type:

Assessment Task

 

Standard Specification: Those parts of the standard that are assessed in this task are bolded.

A student shall demonstrate the ability to interpret and evaluate complex works of literature by:

A)     describing the elements and structure of literature; the artistic intent; and the historical, cultural and social background of the selected literature;

B)      applying specific critical criteria to interpret and analyze the selected literature;

C)      describing how particular effects are produced by the artist's use of the elements of literature; and

D)      communicating an informed interpretation using the vocabulary of literature.

 

Large Processes and Concepts: The items from the Large Processes and Concepts for this learning area that are addressed in this assessment task are bolded in the right hand column.

The following bolded large processes and concepts are covered in this assessment task.

 

select/describe

analyze

interpret/translate

evaluate

 

Evidence of Learning: The following product(s) supply evidence of student learning.

Six individually created poems with to put together in a publication.

 

Task Summary: The following is a brief summary of this assessment task.

The student will journal and write poetry throughout the unit.  Then s/he will select six pieces between the poems or journals.  Finally, the student will revise these six pieces to turn in as an assessment of understanding the unit.  The six pieces will then be put in a publication for the whole class to have.  If s/he chooses, then the teacher and student’s peers will help critique and add suggestions to his/her poems.

 

 

Feedback Checklist: Items in the checklist are aligned with the standard and describe the quality criteria for each piece of evidence. Items indicate what is being assessed and how well it needs to be demonstrated.

 

Task Checklist

Y = Yes

N = No Evidence Shown

Student

Type of Evidence

Teacher

 

Analysis of three poems

 

 

Each poem relates either by the elements, structure, meaning or expression illustrated in the authors.

 

 

Poems are thoughtfully written towards the class audience

 

 

The poems a free of spelling mistakes and punctuation mistakes

 

 

 

Task Description: Includes clear, step-by-step, instructions.

  1. Each day, except for Friday, a journal is due.  Write around a page response in any genre about the images, reactions, likes, dislikes, you feel about the poems read in class.  Try to make your journal entry reflect on the elements, structure, meaning or expression illustrated in each poem. 

 

  1. Each week on Wednesday and Friday a poem is due.  If by chance you have written a poem in your daily journal, you may either use this or write a new poem reflective of the elements, structure, meaning or expression illustrated in each poem.

 

  1. Finally take one or two pieces of your best poetry or journal and revise them.  These then will be turned in to contribute to a class publication.

 

  1. Edit all final poems so they are free of unintentional spelling mistakes and punctuation mistakes in order to receive full credit.

 

  1. There will no excuse, except for death, that your journals and poems are late.

 

  1. I will not read your journals, but I will occasionally flip through them to see if you are completing the journaling.

 

  1. Poems will be turn back two days after they are turned in for you to revise.

 

 

Authors and Poems:

 

James Wright

    *Spring Images                                *To the Evening Star: Central Minnesota

    *A Blessing                                      *In Fear of Harvests

    *Milk Weed                                    *Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio

 

Robert Lowell

   *Skunk Hour                                     *Memories of West Street and Lepke                              

   *Near the Ocean                              *Four the Union Dead      

 

Etheridge Knight

*Freckled Faced Gerald                   *The Idea of Ancestry

                                                                *A Poem for Myself            

*The Bones of My Father                   *Former Sergeant Crothers

 

Lucile Cliffton

    *adam thinking                               *eve thinking      

    *oh absalom my son my son          *won’t you celebrate me   

 

Adrienne Rich

    *Driving into the Wreck                *Coast to Coast  

    *Power                                              *From a Survivor

 

Lorna Dee Cervantez

*Poet’s Progress                                 *Poem for the Young White Man . . .

*Bananas

 

 

Author Information: Aron Spiess

Name: State Model

E-mail: mecr.help@state.mn.us

Organization: Children, Families & Learning

 

 

Assessment # 2

 

Name of Item:

Research and Analyze six pieces of poetry from a Poet

Learning Area:

Literature and the Arts

Content Standard:

Literature and arts analysis and interpretation – literature

Educational Level:

High School

Submission Type:

Assessment Task

 

Standard Specification: Those parts of the standard that are assessed in this task are bolded.

A student shall demonstrate the ability to interpret and evaluate complex works of literature by:

A)     describing the elements and structure of literature; the artistic intent; and the historical, cultural and social background of the selected literature;

B)      applying specific critical criteria to interpret and analyze the selected literature;

C)      describing how particular effects are produced by the artist's use of the elements of literature; and

D)      communicating an informed interpretation using the vocabulary of literature.

 

Large Processes and Concepts: The items from the Large Processes and Concepts for this learning area that are addressed in this assessment task are bolded in the right hand column.

The following bolded large processes and concepts are covered in this assessment task.

 

select/describe

analyze

interpret/translate

evaluate

 

Evidence of Learning: The following product(s) supply evidence of student learning.

Individually created research paper about a contemporary poet.

 

Task Summary: The following is a brief summary of this assessment task.

                The student will select a poet covered in this unit and explore his/her poetry beyond the scope of this class, total of six poems.  The teacher will help provide students with additional poems from each author, but they should try to find them on their own using teacher resources. 

  • Heath Anthology of American Literature Fourth Editon
  • Moyers, Bill Fooling with words & website http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords

 

If the student would like to explore the poetry of another that was not covered see the teacher for permission.

 

Include biographical information of the poet, personal reviews of poems, and critical review of poems.

 

Feedback Checklist: Items in the checklist are aligned with the standard and describe the quality criteria for each piece of evidence. Items indicate what is being assessed and how well it needs to be demonstrated.

 

Task Checklist

Y = Yes

N = No Evidence Shown

Student

Type of Evidence

Teacher

 

Analysis of six poems

 

 

Each poem should relate to one another by the elements, structure, meaning or expression illustrated in each.

 

 

Each analysis of a poem will explain a poems literal/figurative meaning.

 

 

The introduction describes the author’s life, and element characteristic of the author found in each piece.

 

 

Each analysis should have one outside source to support your interpretation.

 

 

Task Description: Includes clear, step-by-step, instructions.

In this research paper, the student will pick a poet covered in this unit and explore his/her poetry beyond the scope of this class, total of six poems.  Use the following resources to find additional poems.

  • Heath Anthology of American Literature Fourth Editon
  • Moyers, Bill Fooling with words & website http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords

 

If a student would like to explore the poetry of a poet that was not covered, see the teacher for permission.

 

Include biographical information about the poet, personal critiques of poems, and critical analyses of poems to support each analysis of a particular poem.

 

1)       This research paper must be typed, double-spaced.  Single-spaced essays will be returned, and you will lose ten percent automatically and will have to re-type it.  Use 12 font and standard margins.

 

2)       Write your paper in present tense. 

 

3)       All papers will have an explanatory introduction and contain bibliographic information about the author and analytic summaries of each poem.

 

4)       The following steps describe the work that each student must complete.

 

5)       Select an author and six of his/her poetry pieces.  Consider pieces that use the same elements of writing in different ways or push the definition of an element by using it in an unexpected ways.  Essays may also provide vivid portrayals of people, settings, conflicts and offer observations about the human experience—and thus be especially worthy. Consider news articles, journals, and Internet sources for reference material.

 

6)       Your essay must be 3-4 pages, but more are fine, if necessary:

 

7)       Your first page is your introduction and must include an interesting fact about the poet a “hook”—something to catch the reader’s interest.  It must also include the name of the author and the titles of poetry pieces.  Poem titles are either quoted or italicized. 

 

8)       Then, your thesis paragraph.  Remember, the thesis consists of two parts: the topic of your paper, and what is trying to be proved?  It must also include a sentence that tells the reader about the way the paper will be organized.

 

9)       Your paper must each discuss the six pieces (1 page minimum for each piece). 

 

10)   Your conclusion page must re-name the poet and the six poetry pieces that support your thesis.  Conclude with a stellar, memorable sentence that wraps things up and leaves the reader with a favorable, lasting impression.

 

11)   Do a spell check, and then read your essay aloud to yourself.  Read it aloud to a parent, older sibling, or friend whose judgment you can trust.  Make sure he/she understands the requirements of the essay.  Finally, have someone proofread it for spelling, punctuation, usage, etc. 

 

12)   As you make your selections of six poems. 

a)       Who is the poet you have chosen? 

b)       What has influenced him/her’s poetry?

c)       What is his/her background? 

d)       What poems do you like from the poet?

e)       What poems evoke similar emotions?

 

13)   A first draft is due at the end of the fourth week.

14)   A Pier Review of a paper is due back on the second day of the week.

15)   The final draft is due on the third day of the fifth week.

16) Authors and Poems:

 

James Wright

    *Spring Images                                *To the Evening Star: Central Minnesota

    *A Blessing                                      *In Fear of Harvests

    *Milk Weed                                    *Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio

 

Robert Lowell

  *Skunk Hour                                      *Memories of West Street and Lepke                              

  *Near the Ocean                               *Four the Union Dead      

 

Etheridge Knight

*Freckled Faced Gerald                   *The Idea of Ancestry

                                                                *A Poem for Myself            

*The Bones of My Father                   *Former Sergeant Crothers

Lucile Cliffton

    *adam thinking                               *eve thinking      

    *oh absalom my son my son          *won’t you celebrate me   

 

Adrienne Rich

    *Driving into the Wreck                *Coast to Coast  

    *Power                                              *From a Survivor

 

Lorna Dee Cervantez

*Poet’s Progress                                 *Poem for the Young White Man . . .

*Bananas

 

 

Author Information: Aron Spiess

Name: State Model

E-mail: mecr.help@state.mn.us

Organization: Children, Families & Learning

 

30 areas to cover in contemporary poetry unit: The Harper American Literature Second Compact Edition (1996)

 

1. Flourishing Poets

·   Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Theodore Roethke, Frank O’ Hara, John Berryman, John Ashbery, Allen Ginsberg, A.R. Ammons, Adrienne Rich, James Wright

·   Defined themselves against the achievements of their great modernist predecessors

 

·   American Poetics & American Aesthetics

·   T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound made American poetry international and had established free verse as the modernist mode par excellence

·   Educated men, readers of history and foreign languages, raiders of culture; their poems demanded a readership that did not flinch as phrases quoted in Sanskrit or Chinese, historical references, and cultivated allusion.           

·   Robert Frost established the right of American poetry to be sturdily American in syntax and local accent

·   William Carlos Williams founded a laconic urban poetry of hard-edged realism

·   Langston Hughes and other writers of the Harlem Renaissance claimed poetic value for the African American vernacular and for the representation of ghetto life.

·   Wallace Stevens, the most elusive of modernists, brought philosophic skepticism into American poetry and had found a meditative style adequate to the complexity of his subject: ironic and syntactically elaborate

·   Pursing to correct or reject, the work of their predecessors

 

2. World War II has just ended and America has won

3. Here we have poets that are a reflection of America more than their forebears

4. The rise of American World Power, fewer writers believed in American inferiority to Europe

5. Sigmund Freud, the Viennese inventor of a new psychology

·   Man’s inner life (replaced the Christian Model of “faculties” such as the intellect, will, and imagination)

the superego, which urged  the standards of behavior and conscience absorbed from parents and social norms;

the id, which represented the instincts and drives often disapproved of by society and therefore repressed;

the ego, which integrated self that mediates the conflicting demands of the superego and the id

 

·   dark and unruly drives, driven underground only to erupt disastrously in violence or madness: appealed to a generation that had just experienced WWII

·   Second part of Freudian Theory—the inference that the behavior of one’s parents contributes greatly to one’s sense of self and one’s later life—that appears most conspicuously as an influence in American Poetry

·   A recalling of incidents of childhood youth—psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic therapy

 

6. Confessional Poetry

7. Poetry of the Family

·   Lowell: Life Studies (1959) 1st full anatomy of the family

·   Sexton: The Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960) a suggestion of a therapist after a mental breakdown

·   Berryman: 77 Dream Songs (1964) show the id (renamed as Henry) in full wave

·   Plath: Daddy (1966) exposed the underside of family romance

 

        Darkest impulses, led to “confessions” on the printed page

        The aim to record “what happens”

 

8. Foreign Influence

*  Bishop spent years in Brazil                       *  Snyder in Japan                                    *  Lowell in England (his 50’s)

*  Ashbery in France                                       *  Plath in England (where she died)

*  Traveling funded through Fulbright fellowships and international poetry festivals

 

9. Imported influence

·   Arthur Rimbaud—through O’Hara and Ashbery

·   Rainer Maria Rilke and Herman Hesse—through Jarrell and Wright

·   Cesar Vallejo, Pablo Neruda, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and South American poets—

        through Bly and Bishop

·   Ted Hughes—through his wife Plath

·   Buddhist poetry—through Ginsberg and Snyder

·   Constantine Cavafy—through James Merrill

·   Auden’s (British) residence in America chiefly influence on the young

·   Art of translation through Lowell’s Imitations (1961)

        borrowed subject matter and structure of the parent poem

        while giving the syntax and diction an unmistakably Lowellesque ring

·   No adoptions of European modes of speech (Pound’s archaisms and Eliot anglicisms)

        absorption: new structures in the lyric, and new kinds of imagery that we can recognize the presence of

        European, South American or Asian poetry

10. American History Influence

·   Ginsberg voiced the American immigrant for the 1st time in a powerful way

·   “Kaddish” presents the life of his mother, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, as typical of the unbearable strain put on the psyche by such violent break in experience

·   His rich social documentation marked a new era for the American Lyric

·   Howl (1956) and the volumes that followed after it in quick succession,

·   Jews, beatniks, Vietnam protesters, and urban homosexuals all appeared in believable form

 

11. 1949 Gwendolyn Brooks receives the Pulitzer Prize

Her and many other African American poets were responding to the late 1960’s African American consciousness movement: African American writing African American Audiences

 

12. Gary Snyder: Ethnicity was voiced through both the subject matter and language of American Poetry,

    marking a new diversity in American poetry and a reaction against the modernists impersonality of voice

    rather not as a descendant of English poetry—but rather feelings of belonging to its physical location and that the proper predecessor of American Poetry belongs to the first inhabitants of this country, the Native Americans

 

13. Regional Diversity:

    “Beat” writers (notably Ginsberg and Kerouac) were easterners

    (Snyder and Duncan) were natives to the West Coast

 

14. Southern:  Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren: their most famous pupil, Robert Lowell (although a northerner), absorbed their principles of poetry

 

15. Ecological concerns voiced through Gary Snyder and by the Alaskan poet John Haines

    Ginsberg later ruefully added “Ecologue” (the title is a triple pun on echo, eclogue, and ecology) about his own fated attempt at living a rural life

 

16. West Coast writing schools, creative writing workshops in universities

17. The clustering of older and younger poets in these workshops changed University English Departments’ constitutions

·  University Journal and Poetry readings

·  T.S. Eliot’s occasional visits from England, gave way to huge audiences

·  Frost too in the 1950’s and was John F. Kennedy’s inaugural poet

18. Ginsberg and Levertov protested America’s involvement in the Vietnam War

19. Adrienne Rich protested the oppression of women

 

20. (Schools of Poetry) New York School—Ashbery, O’ Hara, and Kenneth Koch: spontaneous recording of imaginative moments and wished amusing, intimate, secular, and colloquial—their attraction was painting, sculpture, theater and ballet

 

21. The Beats “the downtrodden, the jazzy, the beatified”

·  word usage of the “obscene” nature, admissions of drug use, of homosexual experience, and promiscuity,

·  and disillusionment with American government and politics

·  Robert Lowell changed his Allen Tate influenced to a Beat influence after a Beat reading

 

 

22. Black Mountain Poets:

·  Charles Olson (the rector of Black Mountain, an avant-grand college in North Carolina)

·  Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov

·  these poets derive from Pound—the followers of Pound have tended to emphasize a montage of phrases and a collection of images over syntactic complexity and intellectual or logical connections: descendants of  the American Imagist poets

 

·  “Image” represents an intellectual/emotional complex in an instant of time…

·  This sudden appearance of the “complex” releases a sense of liberation—from time/space limits, a sense of sudden growth: which humanity experiences in the presence of the greatest works of art

·   It is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works1. Ezra Pound, “A few Don’ts” (1913)

 

23. Bly, Wright, and Merwin expressed “deeper” animal and preconscious motives

It appealed to the antiestablishment young, who associated the poetry of formal prosody and intellectual content with a conservative political science

 

24. Principal Women Poets:

·   Bishop, Sexton, Plath, Rich:  They seek, by common political aim, to claim literary space for women voices, who, before this generation, had not had access, to the same degree as men, to a literary education

 

·   Voices of the past, such as nature, love, God, and death; Marianne Moore, while not abandoning such subjects altogether, had staked out a precise territory of her own: strong, unapologetic, full of gusto

 

·   Bishop took “travel” as her subject—a topic thought to be more suited to men and to the narrative than to women and to the lyric.

·   Sexton mocked the infantile roles assigned to women

·   Rich voiced the prophetic and denunciatory, usually reserved by convention to men

·   Plath powerfully voiced ambivalence about herself as daughter, wife, and mother (roles scarcely challenged in earlier poetry)

 

25. Social details:

·  Usually voiced through the novel, now appeared a social history and reality reclaimed in the lyric and poetry Vietnam and political assassinations of the 1960’s

·  Polarizing and aligning themselves with the draftliable young against official government policy

·  The formal/meditative stance of the “fifties” changed to an impulse of poetry spoken.

·  March on the Pentagon of 1967, which Lowell and other writers participated, consolidated the powerful entry of authors into American political protest

 

26. America in Vietnam

    * Merwin wrote about Asians dying                * Ginsberg about the politics behind the war     * Rich of the human waste of battle

   

27. Assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther powerfully affected poets

        A double disillusionment: war abroad and assassination at home

 

28. A turning toward possibly the most powerful change in poetry, the scientific model for knowledge:

        It is a generation having neither a religious nor a political creed,

        Their conceptions of the universe no longer preside within the confines of God or a technological purpose

        They are privy to the physical and chemical descriptions of the universe unknown to earlier century poets

        The Neutrino and Double Helix, although invisible to the naked eye, are parts of the conceptual world

       

·   Few incorporate the vocabulary of science:

o  A.R. Ammons naturally voices this, only because of his scientific training

o  Merril imaginatively

o  Lowell, the most unscientific of poets, could not continue to write the poetry he wrote in his young manhood (Roman Catholic convert)

§                           “Against my own will, I left the City of God where it belongs.”  In becoming an unbeliever, Lowell had to become a different poet; his poems could no longer have the neatness of closure, the linear purpose, which they had in their religious phase. 

 

“The formal properties of a successful poem always mirror the formal properties of the universe it represents—and a universe displaying several “layers” of order (macrocosmic and micro cosmic), a complex dynamic of physical and biological evolution, and a tendency toward entropy cannot be mirrored by a single structure.”

 

“The language of the poetry of an era must also reflect its understanding of the self.  In this period, the distrust of the excessively “rational” appears in many poets’ distrust of “adult language.”

 

29. “Unconscious Language”

·  Berryman’s “Henry” and Reothke’s “lost son” speak baby talk

·  Sexton and Plath turn to fairy tales

·  Ginsberg’s defiant use of obscenities

·  O’ Hara, Ashbery, and Merrill’s self-consciously ironic “camp” talk

·  Don Lee’s street vernacular, Rich’s political protest: both portrayals of colloquialism/slang

·  Lowell’s amalgam of language used to explain his concept of self as a composite of its own past endowments

·  Emerson’s emblematic language (in which a natural object is made to reveal spiritual reality) reversed by

·  A.R. Ammon’s (in which an inner state is made real by attaching it to nature)

·  Chinese and Japanese poetry, introduced by Amy Lowell in Imagism, has taken on a new life:

·  Merwin’s and Snyder’s minimalist verse

·  Buddhist chants influenced Ginsberg

 

30. “Constant changes in American English creates more ambiguity”