HOW TO READ A POEM

READ IT MORE THAN ONCE

• First read it through without stopping just to experience it.• Second read it at a literal level.• Annotate the important words and what they literally

mean.• Note the connotations of the words. Note any shifts

• Third read it at the figurative and symbolic levels• Depending on the length and complexity you may have

to do these separately • Look for comparisons, the bigger meaning, any shifts

KEEP A DICTIONARY BY YOU (SAREEN )

• If you do not know the denotation of a word, then you can not know the connotation of a word, and the figurative and symbolic meaning will be lost.

READ THE POEM ALOUD

• You need to hear the sounds of poetry• Meter• Rhyme• Sound imagery• Cacophonous words

PAY ATTENTION TO THE WORDS

• Sounds are important for the “beauty” of the poem, but you still need to get the “message” or theme the poet is establishing• Look at the grammatical structure of the poem.

Grammar is still important in poetry.• Subjects of sentences will help hone in on the subject of

the poem.• Adjectives help establish the tone of poem.• Punctuation helps to establish the message of the poet

and alleviate any confusion in your interpretation.

PRACTICE READING ALOUD

• Read it with feeling.• Read at an appropriate pace to let the message

develop.• Read to feel the rhythm. The meter is there to

reinforce the theme. • Read “The Man he Killed” out loud in partners

PARAPHRASE

• Restate it in your own words.• This helps you to understand the main idea of the poem

and form a connection with it.• Read “A Study of Reading Habits”• What does each stanza say?• What is the difference between a paraphrase and an actual

reading of the poem?• Remember this is the barest meaning of a poem.

ANNOTATE AND ASK QUESTIONS

• Who is the speaker?• Poet? Version of themselves? • What can you tell about a speaker? • The more you know the more you can interpret

everything else about the poem.

• What is the occasion?• What is the central purpose of the poem?• Tell a story? Reveal human character? Impart a vivid

impression of a scene? An attitude?• Look at “Is my team plowing” and lets discuss the

questions

CENTRAL PURPOSE

• Once you figure out the bare information you can look at how the poem achieves its purpose. We know what it is, but how is it achieved• Think about a building, you see it, but how did the

builder actually create it? What is it made up of? How is it put together?• Look at the building blocks of the poem.• Figurative language, connotative words, figures of

speech.

REVIEW AND APPLY

• Discuss the review questions• Discuss one of the poems from your reading last

night.• Choose One of the suggestions for writing and

complete it tonight in your poetry journal that I will check but not grade until the end of the unit.

MEANING?

Stupid IgnorantAbrupt Rude

Agreeable Enjoyable

DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

• Practical vs Literary

• Three components of a word• Denotation: basic meaning• There may be multiple, do they mean both (pun)? Do they

mean one? Which one?

• Connotation: suggestions of the word (emotions)• Allows poets to communicate more in less words.

• Sound: harsh(cacophonous), pleasant (euphonious) • Read “There is no Frigate like a Book” and discuss.

READ WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET“WHEN MY LOVE SWEARS THAT SHE IS MADE OF TRUTH”

• Speaker?• Occasion?• Paraphrase?• Diction?• Denotation• Connotation• Sounds• Tone• Theme?

REVIEW CHAPTER THREE

• Questions• Discuss a poem and the questions• Choose a suggestions for writing and add to your

poetry journal.

POEMS FOR ANALYSIS

• Get into pairs and discuss one of each of your poems.• Choose a suggestion for writing for your first

entry in your poetry journal.

IMAGERY

• Experiences come through our senses. To truly experience a poem you must identify and analyze the images in the poem• The selection of sense impressions reveals a lot.• Tone• Meaning• Theme

Language is more sensual with imagery

Poetry is a sensory experience

• Directly : through its music and rhythms• Indirectly: through sense description, imagery,

the representation to the imagination of sense experience.• Image does not just refer to a visual experience,

but also auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile.

SENSORY DETAILS

• When you want to "bring something to life" in your writing, or get concretely detailed (to show something with description rather than just generally tell about that something), you usually have to be a good observer of sensory detail which has a lot to do with adjectives (modifies/enhances nouns) and adverbs (modifies/enhances verbs), though one must always beware of clichés.

• sight--his brown hair hangs down to the middle of his sloping back• sound--the train he sits on clanks metallically beneath him• taste--his hair tastes like bad chemicals, sour and tinny• touch--his skin must feel like sandpaper• smell--there is something musty and moldy about him• psychic/intuition (ha ha)--he seems sad like a dog laying on a

dusty sidewalk in Mexico--I sense his pain in the tired squint of his eyes

WHAT EXPERIENCE?

• Sight: darkness, bright light• Sound: creaking chairs, people softly talking• Smell: buttery popcorn, musty seats• Touch: cool air from the vents, the rough material

of the chairs• Taste: sweet soda, buttery popcorn

“MEETING AT NIGHT”

• Sight?• Sound? • Taste?• Touch?• Smell? • Message, tone, theme?

• Now consider “Parting at Morning”

REVIEW

• Discuss the review questions for Chapter 4• Journal entry from suggestions for writing page 71

any of your choice.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: SIMILE, METAPHOR, PERSONIFICATION, APOSTROPHE, AND METONYMY

Your brother has just come in out of a rainstorm and you say to him:• Well, you’re a pretty sight! Got slightly wet, didn’t

you?

He replies:• Wet? I’m drowned! It’s raining cats and dogs, and

my raincoat is like a sieve!

FIGURE OF SPEECH

• We can say things more vividly and forcefully by figures of speech.• Any way of saying something other than the

ordinary way, and rhetoricians classify 250 separate figures• More narrowly it means: saying one thing and

meaning another.• Figurative language is using figures of speech• Cannot be taken literally

COMPARISONS

• Simile: the comparison is expressed by the use of some word or phrase such as: like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems.• Metaphor: the comparison is not expressed but

created when a figurative term is substituted for or identified with the literal term.

“HARLEM”LANGSTON HUGHES

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry upLike 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 sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

METAPHORS

• Named: both literal and figurative things being compared are explicitly named• “Sorrow is my own yard”

• Implied: when only the literal term is named and the figurative is implied.• “dream” is named and the figurative “bomb” is implied.

METAPHORS

• Literal is implied and the figurative is named.• What is it?• Goodbye England’s Rose…. Who is the rose?

• Both the literal and the figurative terms are implied.• It sifts from leaden sieves…. • it=snow sifts=flour

PERSONIFICATION

• Gives attributes of a human being to an animal, object, or a concept.• Implied metaphor where the figurative portion of

the comparison is always a human being.• When Keats describes autumn as a harvester “sitting

careless on a granary floor” it is personification.• Look at “The Author to Her Book” and answer the

questions.

APOSTROPHE

• Addressing someone absent or dead or something nonhuman as if that person or thing were present and alive and could reply to what is being said.• “To an Athlete Dying Young”• The time you won our town the race

• Who is “you”? an absent person.

O grim-looked night! O night with hue so black!

METONYMY AND SYNECDOCHE

• Synecdoche: part represents the whole• Malt does more than Milton can—malt means beer

• Metonymy: something closely related to represent what is meant• Those guns will fire-- the police will fire their guns.

DEAD METAPHORS

• Redhead• Hands• Tongues

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

• Imaginative pleasure• Additional Imagery• Means of concentration • Life is like a candle in that it begins and ends in

darkness…

• Adds emotional intensity and attitudes to informative statements.• Books are a load of crap.

• Makes the abstract concrete• Eagle falls like a thunderbolt• Poetry compared to prancing coursers

EXERCISE AND REVIEW

• When analyzing poetry we must decide what it is that the figures accomplish, not just identify them.

• On page 92, choose a poem from #3 in suggestions for writing and discuss it in your poetry journal

SYMBOL AND ALLEGORY

• Symbol is something that means more than what it is. • Two Roads=choices in life• Two roads in a wood are relatively unimportant, but the

significance he places on the decision claiming that he will remember “with a sigh…..ages and ages hence” suggests he is speaking about something important.

• When poets put much emphasis on anything, chances are it is functioning as a symbol.

IMAGE, METAPHOR AND SYMBOL

• All seem to shade into each other and are sometimes difficult to distinguish

• Image means only what it is: A shaggy brown dog was rubbing its back on a white picket fence.

• The figurative term in metaphor means something other than what it is: Some dirty dog stole my wallet at the party

• A symbol means what it is and something more too; functioning literally and figuratively at the same time: You can’t teach an old dog new tricks

SYMBOL AND ITS IMPRECISION

• Symbol is the riches and the most difficult of the poetic figures which result from its imprecision.• A poet may pin down the meaning of a symbol to

something fairly definite and precise, more often the symbol is so general in its meaning that it can express a variety of meanings.• Symbols vary in the degree of identification and

definition: sometimes they are specific and sometimes they do not identify them at all.

A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER

• Stanza One: Literal, How?

• Stanza Two: Symbolic, How?

WHAT MAKES ONE A METAPHOR AND ONE A SYMBOL?

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry upLike 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 sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

THE SICK ROSE

O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm: 

Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

RE-READ “TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME”

• Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, • Old Time is still a-flying; • And this same flower that smiles today • Tomorrow will be dying.

• The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, • The higher he’s a-getting, • The sooner will his race be run, • And nearer he’s to setting.

• That age is best which is the first, • When youth and blood are warmer; • But being spent, the worse, and worst• Times still succeed the former. • Then be not coy, but use your time, • And while ye may, go marry; • For having lost but once your prime, • You may forever tarry.

ALLEGORY

• Narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface.

• The surface may have its own interest, the major interest is the ulterior meaning.

• Defined sometimes as an extended metaphor.• It has a system of related comparisons rather than one

drawn out one

• Defined sometimes as a series of related symbols.• It puts less emphasis on the images for their own sake

and more on their ulterior meanings which are more fixed with usually a one-to-one correspondence between the details and a single set of ulterior meanings

• Peace: Read and discuss the questions with a partner• Exercise 1 a-d• Review• Poetry journal entry from suggestions for writing;

choose any

PARADOX AND ITS “SHOCK VALUE”

• An apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true. • The contradiction usually stems from one of the words

being used figuratively or with more than one denotation.

• Situation or statement• Paradoxical situation • What first seemed impossible is actually entirely plausible

and not strange at all.

• Verbal paradox• Difference?

MUCH MADNESS IS DIVINEST SENSE

Much Madness is divinest Sense -To a discerning Eye -Much Sense - the starkest Madness - ’Tis the Majority In this, as all, prevail -Assent - and you are sane -Demur - you’re straightway dangerous - And handled with a Chain -

OVERSTATEMENT (HYPERBOLE)

• Exaggeration, but exaggeration in the service of truth.• I’m starved• You could have knocked me over with a feather• I’ll die if I don’t pass this course• Are these overstatements or hyperbole?

EFFECTS OF OVERSTATEMENT

• Humorous or grave• Fanciful or restrained• Convincing or unconvincing• Strained and ridiculous

UNDERSTATEMENT

• Saying less than one means; existing in what one says or how one says it.• It is paradoxical that this also is used for emphasis of the

truth.• Sitting down to a loaded dinner plate “This looks like a

nice snack”• Less than the truth

• Hand in a fire will experience “a sensation of excessive and disagreeable warmth”• Literally true but with a good deal less force

PRACTICE

• “The Sun Rising”• Discuss the questions with a partner• Thoughts?

IRONY

• Has meaning that extend beyond its use merely as a figure of speech.

• Verbal: saying the opposite of what one means (not the same as sarcasm, or satire)

• Sarcasm: bitter or cutting speech intended to wound the feelings.

• Satire: written literature rather than speech, implies a higher motive to bring about reform or keep people from falling into similar vice or folly• Think of the surgeon analogy• The scalpel is the device (irony)• The Surgeon is cruel and kind (Satire) it says mean to make good.• The pain is cruel (sarcasm) it always intends to be cruel.

BARBIE DOLL

• This girlchild was born as usual and presented dolls that did pee-pee and miniature GE stoves and irons and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy. Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent, possessed strong arms and back, abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity. She went to and fro apologizing. Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy, exhorted to come on hearty, exercise, diet, smile and wheedle. Her good nature wore out like a fan belt. So she cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on, a turned-up putty nose, dressed in a pink and white nightie. Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said. Consummation at last. To every woman a happy ending.

• Marge Piercy :

DRAMATIC IRONY

• Always implies some discrepancy• Discrepancy between what is said and what the poem

means as opposed to verbal irony which is what is said and what is meant.

• The speaker may be straightforward but the author , by putting words into the speaker’s mouth, may be attempting to make an opposite point.

• The Chimney Sweep• questions

SITUATIONAL IRONY

• Discrepancy between the actual circumstances and the seemingly appropriate circumstances.• A man and a woman on their honeymoon find

themselves in close proximity to his first wife.• Alanis Morriset “Isn’t it Ironic”• O’Henry “The Gift of the Magi”• Situational and Dramatic allow the poet to suggest

meanings without stating them.• “Ozymandias” and questions• Review the chapter• Journal Entry: suggestions for writng #2

ALLUSION

• A reference to something in history or previous literature.

• A richly connotative word or symbol.• Economical: it says so much in so little• Forces the reader to make a connection on his or her

own.• Risks the whole meaning on the reader’s recognition

of the meaning of the Allusion.• It is a means of reinforcing the emotions of one work

with the strong emotions of another work• She is the Mother Theresa of our group.• He is her Prince Charming.

OUT,OUT--

• The title calls to mind the Macbeth excerpt from act 5 scene 5 on page 140.• Theme of premature death?• Vanity and meaninglessness of life?

• Review chapter 8• Analyze poems • Journal entry: Suggestions for writing: choose one of the

poems and analyze the allusion and its evocation of emotions.

MEANING AND IDEA

• Poetry is meant to be an emotional experience. When people try to understand it with their minds it gets difficult

• Total meaning: the experience it communicates • Prose meaning: the ingredient that can be

separated out in the form of a prose paraphrase.• NOT THE SAME• Prose may not even be an idea. It can be a story, a

description, a statement of emotion, a presentation of human character…

• The Eagle-is a primary expression of emotion; the idea is different from the Eagle entirely, and unconcerned with ideas.

POEMS WITH IDEAS

• Message hunting is dangerous• Little Jack Horner- reach in pick out a plum and

say what a good boy am I! As if the pie existed only for the plum.• Idea in a poem is only part of the experience.• Value is the entire experience, not by the truth of the

idea.• Poetic Faith: You need a willing suspension of disbelief.• Readers must be willing to suspend ideas that they believe to

be fundamentally untrue in order to experience the poem fully.

• God-Atheistic poem• Optimist-Pessimistic poem

CONSIDER

• Loveliest of Trees• Ideas? • Explicit or implicit?

• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening• Ideas?• Explicit or implicit?

• Review Questions• Suggestions for Writing pg 165: choose one pair of poems

and write a journal entry.

TONE COMPARISON (PAGE 170)

• You can focus on the story or allusion to understand tone. (Adam and Eve allusion is one of evil, disgrace)

• You can solely focus on the language (actual words used through out the text)

• You can focus on the culmination of the “story” in the poem and evaluate that as well (one poem is a sense of loss, one poem is a sense of terror)

• Review Questions• Two poems Chapters 2-10 due Monday• Journal entry #1 pg 185• ( you should have

MUSICAL DEVICES

• Poets use words for sound as much as meaning• Poe describes it as “Music…combined with a

pleasurable idea”• It is often adjunct to the meaning of the poem.• Two ways to accomplish this:• Choice and arrangement of sounds • Choice and arrangement of accents (think metric feet)

REPETITION AND VARIETY

• Two aspects to consider:• Repetition • It will please the ear, emphasize words, and give

structure to the poem.• Refrain: repetition of whole words, phases, lines or

groups of lines• Variety• All things we enjoy have them both, combined• Baseball• Music• Art• The beach

THE TURTLE (187)

• Paradox?• What does it say?• In what manner is it said?

• Read the two variations and discuss

TOOLS OF SOUND

• Alliteration• Rhyme or reason

• Assonance• Mad as a hatter

• Consonance• Struts and frets

• Rhyme• Masculine

• One syllable: support and retort

• Feminine• Two or more syllables: turtle and fertile

• Internal• Rhyme within the line of poetry: I wake to sleep, and take my waking glow

• End• Rhyme at the end of consecutive or alternating lines: you know it!

• Approximate • Almost but not quite a rhyme: began and gun, seen and own, you and go

• Review Questions• Exercises• Journal entry suggestions for writing #2 pg 201

RHYTHM AND METER

• Rhythm: recurrence of rhythm or sound• Accented or stressed: syllables given more prominence• Rhetorical stresses: in speech to make our ideas clear• End stopped line: corresponds to natural speech pause• Caesuras: pauses with in lines, grammatical or rhetorical• Free verse: rhythm matches prose but arrangement is poetry• Prose poem: uses poetic devices but not meter (blank verse)• Meter: identify the characteristics of rhythmic language• Foot: stressed and unstressed syllables (206)

MANIPULATIONS IN METER

• Metrical variations: • Calls attention to some part when departs from what is

regular

• Substitution• Replacing a foot with another foot• Extrametrical syllables: added at the beginning or end of a

line• Truncation: omission of an accented syllable at either end

• Scansion: defines metrical form

• Read Virtue on page 207• Review questions

SOUND AND MEANING

• Poetry differs from music • Sound and sense not just musical quality• Meaning through sound• Support the meaning, but doesn’t steal the scene• Reinforces meaning through sound in numerous

ways

TOOLS

• Onomatopoeia: often expresses movement or action• Harness jingles, creak across, ring, clatter,• Phonetic intensives: sound to some degree connects

with their meaning• Fl: idea of moving light, flame, flare, flash• Gl: accomplishes the idea of light, glare, gleam, glint• Sl: suggests smooth or wet, slippery, slick, slime• St: suggests strength, steady, stocky, stern• Medial att: suggests movement, spatter, scatter, chatter• Final er or le: indicate repetition, glitter, flutter, shimmer,

rumble, jingle, rattle

• Eight O’Clock pg 229

TOOLS

• Word selection: grouping of words• Euphonious• Line with high percentage of vowel sounds in proportion to

consonant sounds tend to be more melodious • Long vowels, such as fate, are more resonant than short

vowels, such as fat• Some consonants are melodious: liquids, ring, some, new

• Cacophonous• Consonants such as plosives b, d, g, k, p and t are harsher

• Usually matches the meaning Read sound and sense pg 230

• Ulyses pg 115• I heard a fly buzz- when I died pg 234

REVIEW

• Questions• Complete two poems• Journal: suggestions for writing pg 245, choose

any poem.• Read chapters 15-16