10th Grade English/AdcockPoetry
Name: _________________________________________________________ Period: ________
10th Grade Poetry Unit Packet
POETRY TERMS
Directions: Copy the example given for each poetry term below.
Figurative Language – Language that departs from literal meaning in order to achieve a special effect
Example: most of the following terms are commonly used examples of figurative language.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Allusion – A reference to a historical figure, place, or event
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Simile – A direct comparison between two basically different things that is introduced by the words “like” or “as”
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Metaphor – An implied comparison between two basically different things that is not introduced with the words “like” or “as”
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Hyperbole – A great exaggeration to emphasize strong feeling
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Personification – Human characteristics are given to non-human animals, objects, or ideas
Example:
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Imagery – The use of concrete details that appeal to the five senses
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Free Verse – Poetry without a regular pattern of meter (beat) or rhyme
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Mood – The overall atmosphere or prevailing emotional feeling of a work
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………End Rhyme – The repetition of identical sounds at the ends of lines of poetry
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Internal Rhyme – The repetition of identical sounds within a line of poetry
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Slant Rhyme – A slant rhyme or half rhyme occurs when the vowel sounds are not quite identical
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Narrative Poem – A poem that tells a story
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Repetition – The repeating of a sound, word, phrase, or more in a given literary work
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Alliteration – The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words
Example:
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Assonance – The repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Consonance – The repetition of consonant sounds that are preceded by different vowel sounds
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Onomatopoeia – The use of words whose sounds suggest the sounds made by objects or activities
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Symbol – Something concrete (such as an object) that stands for something abstract (such as a concept or an idea)
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Theme - The main idea or underlying meaning of a literary work
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Sonnet - A fourteen-line poem that is divided into three quatrains (rhyming four-line stanzas) and a concluding couplet (pair of rhyming lines). Each quatrain makes a point or gives an example, and the couplet sums it all up.
Example:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Ode – A long lyric poem about a serious subject, written in a dignified style
Example:
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***IMPORTANT: Remember a poem’s “speaker” is different from its “poet.”A poet can give his character any ideas or beliefs that are necessary to carry out the poem’s purpose. Therefore, we should always remember that the speaker of the poem, the individual doing the talking, realizing or pondering, is NOT always the poet. When analyzing a poem, always refer to this individual as the “speaker” of the poem.
ANALYZING POETRY
Steps to Analyzing a Poem
Read once. Read again and decide what you already know. Divide the poem in to parts you are comfortable with (stanzas, lines, etc.). Look for
natural breaks in subject or shifts in form or tone. Look up all words you do not understand. Circle/underline all the examples of sound techniques and figurative language you can
find, paying special attention to patterns between them. Deconstruct any imagery, similes, metaphors or confusing language. Start to draw conclusions. Inject your own perspective!
After you’re finished, your poem should look something like this:
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POEM #1
“Eating Together” by Li-Young Lee
In the steamer is the troutseasoned with slivers of ginger,two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
5 brothers, sister, my mother who willtaste the sweetest meat of the head,holding it between her fingersdeftly, the way my father didweeks ago. Then he lay down
10 to sleep like a snow-covered roadwinding through pines older than him,without any travelers, and lonely for no one.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Analysis Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions THOROUGHLY and in complete sentences.
1. Cite THREE examples of imagery in the poem.
2. What simile tells you what has happened to the father?
3. What is the tone of this poem – the feeling or attitude the speaker takes toward the events he describes?
4. What details especially suggest that tone to you?
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POEM #2
Pre-reading QuestionIf you were asked to name one food you associate with your family or with your childhood, what would it be? Jot down some notes.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
“Grape Sherbet” by Rita Dove
The day? Memorial.After the grillDad appears with his masterpiece -swirled snow, gelled light.
5 We cheer. The recipe'sa secret and he fightsa smile, his cap turned upso the bib resembles a duck.
That morning we galloped10 through the grassed-over mounds
and named each stonefor a lost milk tooth. Each dollopof sherbet, later,is a miracle,
15 like salt on a melon that makes it sweeter.
Everyone agrees - it's wonderful!It's just how we imagined lavender would taste. The diabetic grandmotherstares from the porch,
20 a torch of pure refusal.
We thought no one was lyingthere under our feet,we thought it
25 was a joke. I've been tryingto remember the taste,but it doesn't exist.Now I see why you bothered,
30 father.
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Analysis Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions THOROUGHLY and in complete sentences.
1. What metaphor describes the grandmother, in lines 18-21? What is she refusing? Why?
2. Why does the taste of sherbet no longer exist (lines 25-27)?
3. What does the speaker mean when she says, “Now I see why you bothered, father”?
4. What tone do you hear in this poem – what feeling does the speaker reveal toward this family memory?
POEM #3
“Simile” by N. Scott Momaday
What did we say to each otherthat now we are as the deerwho walk in single filewith heads high
5 with ears forwardwith eyes watchfulwith hooves always placed on firm groundin whose limbs there is latent flight
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Analysis Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions THOROUGHLY and in complete sentences.
1. Whom is the speaker addressing? Before the poem begins, what has happened?
2. An extended simile continues a comparison for several lines or even through an entire poem. What is this poem’s extended simile?
3. What is the significance of the phrase “latent flight”?
4. How would you characterize the mood of the poem?
POEM #4
Pre-reading QuestionIn this poem, Dickinson tells about the conflict between will and emotion, between the thinking mind and the feeling heart. Which do you think is more powerful – the mind or the heart? Does one control the other, or are they completely separate systems?
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“Heart! We will forget him!” by Emily Dickinson
Heart, we will forget him!You and I – tonight!You may forget the warmth he gave – I will forget the light.
5 When you have done, pray tell meThat I may straight begin!Haste! lest while you're laggingI remember him!
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Analysis Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions THOROUGHLY and in complete sentences.
1. How is personification being used in the poem? What is being personified and for what purpose? Explain.
2. What is the speaker’s tone? How do you know?
3. What purpose does punctuation serve in the speaker’s message?
4. What is the rhyme scheme?
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POEM #5
Pre-reading QuestionBefore you read this poem, consider this: why would someone want to compare the person he or she loves to a summer’s day?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Directions: Mark up the following poem as you read through it.
“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
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Analysis Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions THOROUGHLY and in complete sentences.
1. What makes this poem a sonnet?
2. In lines 3-8, the speaker continues to think about his comparison. What imagery does he use to show that summer weather is unpredictable?
3. Explain the metaphor and personification in lines 5-8? Why is the “eye of heaven” neither constant nor trustworthy?
4. In the third quatrain (lines 9-12), the speaker makes a daring statement to his beloved. What does he claim will never happen?
5. What does the speaker mean by “eternal lines to time” (line 12)? What is the connection between those eternal lines and the prediction he makes in lines 9-11?
6. Would you say that this sonnet is a love poem, or is it really about something else? Explain your interpretation.
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POEM #6
Pre-reading QuestionDo animals have feelings? Can they, for example, feel love or fear? Do they have thoughts and memories? Jot down some opinions.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………Note: Like many contemporary poems, Nye writes in free verse. Free verse attempts to imitate the natural rhythms of speech. Read the poem aloud to hear its conversational rhythm.
“The Flying Cat” by Naomi Shihab Nye
Never, in all your career of worrying, did you imaginewhat worries could occur concerning the flying cat.You are traveling to a distant city.The cat must travel in a small box with holes.
5 Will the baggage compartment be pressurized?Will a soldier’s footlocker fall on the cat during take-off?Will the cat freeze?
You ask these questions one by one, in different voicesover the phone. Sometimes you get an answer,
10 sometimes a click.Now it’s affecting everything you do.At dinner you feel nauseous, like you’re swallowingat twenty thousand feet.In dreams you wave fish-heads, but the cat has grown propellers,
15 the cat is spinning out of sight!
Will he faint when the plane lands?Is the baggage compartment soundproofed?Will the cat go deaf?
“Ma’am, if the cabin weren’t pressurized, your cat would explode.”20 And spoken in a droll impersonal tone, as if
the explosion of cats were another statistic!
Hugging the cat before departure, you realize againthe private language of pain. He purrs. He trusts you.He knows little of planets or satellites,
25 black holes in space of the weightless rise of fear.12
Analysis Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions THOROUGHLY and in complete sentences.
1. What anxiety is the speaker sharing with you?
2. What does the speaker ask you to realize about the cat at the end of the poem?
3. Explain what you think the speaker means by “the private language of pain” (line 23).
4. Is this poem about more than the cat? How does the last stanza extend the meaning of the poem?
POEM #7
Pre-reading QuestionHow important are school athletics to you? Do you think they prepare young people for life? Explain.
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“Ex-Basketball Player” by John Updike
Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut offBefore it has a chance to go two blocks,At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth’s Garage
5 Is on the corner facing west, and there,Most days, you'll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.
Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps—Five on a side, the old bubble-head style,Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.
10 One’s nostrils are two S’s, and his eyesAn E and O. And one is squat, withoutA head at all—more of a football type.
Once Flick played for the high-school team, the Wizards.He was good: in fact, the best. In ’46
15 He bucketed three hundred ninety points,A county record still. The ball loved Flick.I saw him rack up thirty-eight or fortyIn one home game. His hands were like wild birds.
He never learned a trade, he just sells gas,20 Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while,
As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,But most of us remember anyway.His hands are fine and nervous on the lug wrench.It makes no difference to the lug wrench, though.
25 Off work, he hangs around Mae’s Luncheonette.Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball,Smokes those thin cigars, nurses lemon phosphates.Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nodsBeyond her face toward bright applauding tiers
30 Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Analysis Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions THOROUGHLY and in complete sentences.
1. What are some examples of internal rhyme in the poem?
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2. What are some examples of alliteration in the poem?
3. What is an example of personification in the poem?
4. Look back at the opening description of Pearl Avenue. How can this street be seen as a metaphor for Flick’s life?
POEM #8
“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks
The Pool Players.Seven at The Golden Shovel.
We real cool. WeLeft school. We
Lurk late. WeStrike straight. We
Sing sin. WeThin gin. We
Jazz June, WeDie soon.
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Analysis Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions THOROUGHLY and in complete sentences.
1. What purpose do the two lines immediately below the title serve?
2. Where does the poet use alliteration?
3. Describe the poem’s unusual use of rhymes.
4. List any examples of assonance/consonance in the poem.
5. How would you describe the poem’s tone, the poet’s attitude toward the characters and subject? What words would you use to describe the speaker’s tone?
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POEM #9
Pre-reading QuestionChoose a kind of music that you know and like. What sounds do you associate with that music?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Note: A fantasia is an unrehearsed, spontaneous musical composition with a structure determined by the composer’s fancy.
“Jazz Fantasia” by Carl Sandburg
Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,sob on the long cool winding saxophones.Go to it, O jazzmen.
Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy5 tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go husha-
husha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.
Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops, moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang! you jazzmen, bang altogether drums, traps,
10 banjoes, horns, tin cans — make two people fight on the top of a stairwayand scratch each other's eyes in a clinch tumbling down the stairs.
Can the rough stuff . . . now a Mississippi steamboat pushes up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo . . . and the green lanterns calling to the high soft stars . . . a red moon rides on the humps of the low river hills . . .
15 go to it, O jazzmen.
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Analysis Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions THOROUGHLY and in complete sentences.
1. What are some examples of onomatopoeia in the poem?
2. What other sound effects can you identify?
3. Why is the poem’s irregular rhythm appropriate, given the poem’s subject?
4. Which examples of imagery convey the roughness and power of jazz?
5. Where does the poet use similes, metaphors, and personification to describe the jazzmen and their music?
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