What Makes GREAT Poetry?

A Study In Emotional Technique

Poem 1: Funeral Blues by W.H. AudenStop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Poem 1: Funeral Blues by W.H. AudenStop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling on the sky [the message 'He is Dead'.]*Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. (He was my North, my South, my East and West,)**(My working week and my Sunday rest,)**(My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;)**I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Poem 2: Stillborn by Sylvia Plath

These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis. They grew their toes and fingers well enough, Their little foreheads bulged with concentration. If they missed out on walking about like people It wasn't for any lack of mother-love. O I cannot explain what happened to them! They are proper in shape and number and every part. They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid! They smile and smile and smile at me. And still the lungs won't fill and the heart won't start. They are not pigs, they are not even fish, Though they have a piggy and a fishy air -- It would be better if they were alive, and that's what they were. But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction, And they stupidly stare and do not speak of her.

Poem 2: Stillborn by Sylvia PlathThese poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis. They grew their toes and fingers well enough, Their little foreheads bulged with concentration. [If they missed out on walking about like people It wasn't for any lack of mother-love. ]* O I cannot explain what happened to them! They are proper in shape and number and every part. They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid! They smile and smile and smile at me. And still the lungs won't fill and the heart won't start. They are not pigs, they are not even fish, Though they have a piggy and a fishy air -- [It would be better if they were alive, and that's what they were. But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction, And they stupidly stare and do not speak of her.]

Figurative Language Is Key• Alliteration – repetition of the first sound in multiple words• Hyperbole – extreme exaggeration to emphasize a point

• Imagery – taps into one or all of the senses• Simile – comparison of two things using like/as• Metaphor – comparison of two seemingly unlike things

that share a trait that brings them together• Onomatopoeia – words that sound like their meaning• Personification – gives human characteristics to inanimate

objects, animals, or ideas

Why Learn All This?

• Tonight – move on with marking and analyzing the other two poems you’ve been provided and answering the requisite questions in your notebook

• On Fridays that we read – select one of the passionate poems included at the end of your book to react to before writing an emotional piece of your own