Name: _________________________________________ Class Period: _______

Creative Writing Poetry Unit

Monday, November 9th: Aim: How can we capture what moves/interests/captivates us about poetry?

Warm-up: Please take out the poem you brought in, and jot down why you love/like it—what about it speaks to you? What appeals?

Ms. Palmer’s example:

Wild Geeseby Mary Oliver (b. 1935)

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body       love what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-over and over announcing your placein the family of things.

The language of the poem makes me feel like I’m a part of the world, of something larger than myself, and makes me excited to be a part of that larger experience. –Ms. Palmer

Introduction to Poetry, by Billy Collins (b.1941)

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I ask them to take a poem   

and hold it up to the light   

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem   

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room   

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski   

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope   

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose   

to find out what it really means.

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Poem, by Stanley Moss (b.1925)

Teacher of reading, of “You will not” and “You shall,”

almighty Grammarian author of Genesis,

whether language holds three forms of the future

as Hebrew does or no future tense at all

like Chinese, may it perform a public service,

offer the protection of the Great Wall*,

the hope and sorrow of the Western Wall**.

* The Great Wall runs nearly the full length of China, and was built to provide border protection

** The Western Wall, located in Jerusalem, Israel, is a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple’s courtyard and is arguably the most sacred site recognized by the Jewish faith; it’s been a site of Jewish prayer and pilgrimage for centuries.

Homework: Write a poem with the title “Poetry.” You will be required to share at least one line.

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Tuesday, November 10th: Aim: How can we learn about writer’s craft and improve own writing through emulation?

Poetry Emulation

This is just to say

by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) Student emulation:

This is just to say This is just to say

I have eaten I have ignored

the plums the link

that were in that was in

the icebox your post

and which and which

you were probably you were probably

saving hoping

for breakfast I’d praise

Forgive me Forgive me

they were delicious it was lengthy

so sweet so huge

and so cold and so long

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Morning Afterby Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

I was so sick last night I   

Didn’t hardly know my mind.

So sick last night I

Didn’t know my mind.

I drunk some bad licker that   

Almost made me blind.

Had a dream last night I   

Thought I was in hell.   

I drempt last night I   

Thought I was in hell.

Woke up and looked around me—

Babe, your mouth was open like a well.

I said, Baby! Baby!

Please don’t snore so loud.   

Baby! Please!

Please don’t snore so loud.

You jest a little bit o’ woman but you   

Sound like a great big crowd.

Choose a particular way to emulate the poem and use the space below or to the right of the poem to write down your emulation. Think about your decisions as a writer.

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Poetry Emulation

So you want to be a writer?

by Charles Bukowski (1920 – 1994)

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you

in spite of everything,

don’t do it.

unless it comes unasked out of your

heart and your mind and your mouth

and your gut,

don’t do it.

if you have to sit for hours

staring at your computer screen

or hunched over your

typewriter

searching for words,

don’t do it.

if you’re doing it for money or

fame,

don’t do it.

if you’re doing it because you want

women in your bed,

don’t do it.

if you have to sit there and

rewrite it again and again,

don’t do it.

if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,

don’t do it.

if you’re trying to write like somebody

else,

forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of

you,

then wait patiently.

if it never does roar out of you,

do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife

or your girlfriend or your boyfriend

or your parents or to anybody at all,

you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,

don’t be like so many thousands of

people who call themselves writers,

don’t be dull and boring and

pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-

love.

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the libraries of the world have

yawned themselves to

sleep

over your kind.

don’t add to that.

don’t do it.

unless it comes out of

your soul like a rocket,

unless being still would

drive you to madness or

suicide or murder,

don’t do it.

unless the sun inside you is

burning your gut,

don’t do it.

when it is truly time,

and if you have been chosen,

it will do it by

itself and it will keep on doing it

until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

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There are so many tictoc

by e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

there are so many tictoc

clocks everywhere telling people

what toctic time it is for

tictic instance five toc minutes toc

past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does

not get out of order nor do

its hands a little jerking move

over numbers slowly

we do not

wind it up it has no weights

springs wheels inside of

its slender self no indeed dear

nothing of the kind.

(So, when kiss Spring comes

we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss

lips because tic clocks toc don't make

a toctic difference

to kisskiss you and to

kiss me)

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Thursday, November 12th: Aim: How can we practice share our poetry emulations and explore the form of a definition poem?

Definition poems

Tragedy: n., When my sister considers a broken nail or a paper cut; when my brother loses his ratty stuffed bald eagle named Bissy Boo when we’re about to leave on a road trip; my brother when he announces that he has to use the bathroom when we’re in the middle of Indiana; when the power goes out and I’m mid-email; when I lose my dairy at my nosy cousin Daria’s house. —Jessica, student

Homework: Write down a word and pass it to your right. Write another definition poem based on the word you were passed. You will be required to share out your poem with a small group. Also, bring in an object with a lot of text on it—a newspaper, a menu, a shampoo bottle.

Friday, November 13th: Aim: How can we experiment with a new kind of poetry writing through found language?

Found Poetry

Two Poems from The Day, by Kenneth Goldsmith (b.1961)

Metropolitan Forecast          D8 L THE NEW YORK TIMES TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

          Metropolitan Forecast

          today Less humid, sunshine

          High 79. Noticeably less humid air will filter into the metropolitan region on. Brisk winds from the northwest. High pressure building east from the Great Lakes will promote mainly sunny skies. Daytime readings will peak in the lower 80’s.

          tonight Clear, lighter winds

          Low 62. Skies will be clear overnight as high pressure crests near the Middle Atlantic Coast. Humidity will remain low, and temperatures will fall to around 60 degrees in many spots.

          tomorrow Mainly sunny

          High 76. Sunshine and just a few clouds will fill the sky. Breezes will turn and blow from the south ahead of a cold front approaching from Canada.

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Islam

          e2 the new york times, tuesday, september 11, 2001

          ARTS ABROAD

          Continued From First Arts Page

          On Islam, Mr. Houellebecq went still further, deriding his estranged mother for converting to Islam and proclaiming that, while all monotheistic religions were “cretinous,” “the most stupid religion is Islam.” And he added: “When you read the Koran, you give up. At least the Bible is

          Sexual tourism

          and inflammatory

          remarks about

          Palestinians.

          very beautiful because Jews have an extraordinary literary talent.” And later, noting that “Islam is a dangerous religion,” he said it was condemned to disappear, not only because God does not exist but also because it was being undermined by capitalism.

Last WordsJason Fotso (b. 1996 )

I – I – I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t be.You see me.You see thug.You see sin.I see the letters of “hate” alive in your “heart”.Can’t I breathe? Can’t I breathe? Can’t I be?EnslavedEmmett* ‘till Eric.Tombstone same. Just new names.I-I-I can’t breathe. I can’t be.I, too, am a human being, yet you can’t let me be.These empty deaths, live, on top of his Dream.mpmttmpnff…*reference to Emmett Till, a an African-American teenager who was murdered in 1955 in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman

Jason Fotso, 17, of Maple Grove, MN, composed his poem by rearranging the letters of the final words uttered by Eric Garner, who was wrestled to the ground by police in New York and died following a chokehold administered by one officer.

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Homework: You have a choice: Either write another found poem based on another pre-existing piece of writing (bring in that piece of writing), or write a poetry emulation of a poem you like (bring in the poem you’re emulating). You will be required to share this poem with a small group.

Optional: Read article about Kenneth Goldsmith in The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/05/something-borrowed-wilkinson.

Monday, November 16th: How can we share our poetry, and focus on sensory imagery to strengthen our poetry?

Living in SinAdrienne Rich (1929-2012)

She had thought the studio would keep itself;no dust upon the furniture of love. Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal, the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears, a piano with a Persian shawl, a catstalking the picturesque amusing mousehad risen at his urging.Not that at five each separate stair would writheunder the milkman’s tramp; that morning lightso coldly would delineate the scrapsof last night’s cheese and three sepulchral bottles;that on the kitchen shelf among the saucersa pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own–envoy from some village in the moldings…Meanwhile, he, with a yawn, sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard, declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror, rubbed at his beard, went out for a cigarettes;while she, jeered by the mirror demons, pulled back the sheets and made the bed and founda towel to dust the table-top, and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove. By evening she was back in love again, though not so wholly but throughout the nightshe woke sometimes to feel the daylight cominglike a relentless milkman up the stairs.

Annotate the poem for imagery, along with the types of senses evoked (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile).

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The Youngest DaughterCathy Song (b. 1955)

The sky has been darkfor many years.My skin has become as dampand pale as rice paperand feels the waymother’s used to before the drying sun   parched it out there in the fields.Lately, when I touch my eyelids,my hands react as ifI had just touched somethinghot enough to burn.My skin, aspirin colored,   tingles with migraine. Motherhas been massaging the left side of my face especially in the evenings   when the pain flares up.This morningher breathing was graveled,her voice gruff with affection   when I wheeled her into the bath.   She was in a good humor,making jokes about her great breasts,   floating in the milky waterlike two walruses,flaccid and whiskered around the nipples.   I scrubbed them with a sour taste   in my mouth, thinking:six children and an old manhave sucked from these brown nipples.I was almost tender

when I came to the blue bruisesthat freckle her body,places where she has been injecting insulin   for thirty years. I soaped her slowly,she sighed deeply, her eyes closed.It seems it has alwaysbeen like this: the two of usin this sunless room,the splashing of the bathwater.In the afternoonswhen she has rested,she prepares our ritual of tea and rice,   garnished with a shred of gingered fish,a slice of pickled turnip,a token for my white body.   We eat in the familiar silence.She knows I am not to be trusted,   even now planning my escape.   As I toast to her healthwith the tea she has poured,a thousand cranes curtain the window,fly up in a sudden breeze.

Annotate the poem for imagery, along with the types of senses evoked (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile).

Homework: Write 2 poems that include sensory imagery. Feel free to adapt/ expand upon/ revise the poems you began in class today. You will be required to share out at least 2 lines, and you will turn in these poems.

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Tuesday, November 17th: Aim: How can we focus on the importance of sensory imagery and sound in poetry?

Cinderella

by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,

Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan

Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels

Begin on tilted violins to span

The whole revolving tall glass palace hall

Where guests slide gliding into light like wine;

Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall

Reflecting in a million flagons' shine,

And glided couples all in whirling trance

Follow holiday revel begun long since,

Until near twelve the strange girl all at once

Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince

As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk

She hears the caustic ticking of the clock.

Homework: Write another poem in which sound plays a role. You will be asked to read at least 3 lines aloud to the class.Wednesday, November 18th: Aim: How can we strengthen our writing with figurative language?

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Harlem

by Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sages

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Annotate “Harlem” for similes. What do the similes add to the poem?

Metaphors

by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

I'm a riddle in nine syllables,

An elephant, a ponderous house,

A melon strolling on two tendrils.

O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!

This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.

Money's new-minted in this fat purse.

I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.

I've eaten a bag of green apples,

Boarded the train there's no getting off.

What’s a metaphor? How do metaphors work in this poem? What is Plath describing?

Simile & Metaphor Worksheet: Fill in each line with a simile or metaphor about yourself.

I am (like) (a type of weather) Example: I am like the eye of a hurricane/ I am the eye of a hurricane.

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I am (like)(a type of bird) Example: I am like a sandpiper that scurries along the beach, dipping its webbed feet into the waves./ I am a sandpiper that scurries along the beach.

________________________________________________________________________

I am (like) (an animal)

________________________________________________________________________

I am (like) (a type of food)

________________________________________________________________________

I am (like) (a place)

________________________________________________________________________

I am (like) (a color)

________________________________________________________________________

I am (like) (a type of musical instrument)

________________________________________________________________________

I am (like) (a season of the year)

Homework: Complete the simile and metaphor worksheet, and write a poem using at least one of the similes/metaphors you came up with on the sheet. You will be required to share out at

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least the simile or metaphor with the class. Also, bring in an object (or a picture of an object) that’s important or special to you.

Thursday, November 19th, Aim: How can we explore the poetic form of the ode?

Ode to my socks

by Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Maru Mori brought mea pairof socksthat she knit with hershepherd's hands.

Two socks as softas rabbit fur.

I thrust my feetinside themas if they weretwolittle boxesknitfrom threadsof sunsetand sheepskin.

My feet weretwo woolenfishin those outrageous socks,two gangly,navy-blue sharksimpaledon a golden thread,two giant blackbirds,two cannons:

thuswere my feethonoredbythoseheavenlysocks.

They wereso beautifulI found my feetunlovablefor the very first time,like two crusty oldfiremen, firemenunworthyof that embroideredfire,those incandescentsocks.

NeverthelessI foughtthe sharp temptationto put them awaythe way schoolboysputfireflies in a bottle,the way scholarshoardholy writ.

I foughtthe mad urgeto lock themin a goldencageand feed them birdseedand morsels of pink melonevery day.

Like jungleexplorerswho deliver a young deerof the rarest speciesto the roasting spitthen wolf it downin shame,I stretchedmy feet forwardand pulled onthosegorgeoussocks,and over themmy shoes.

So this isthe moral of my ode:beauty is beautytwice overand good things are doubly goodwhen it is a matter of two socksmade of wool in winter. 

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