Poetry 180 RED CLASS SENIORS
RED CLASS ONLY!Let's see. You struggled to name ten poems that you read prior to this class. We've read at least ten already this year, and I bet that you can remember every one. You see? Your knowledge of poetry has increased exponentially.
Check out this list of 180 poems, specially chosen for high school students by Billy Collins (yup, the same one), the former poet laureate of the United States of America.
Read through some of them, find one that you immediately like, then comment on why you like it here at Schoolsville. As much as you may like the poem's meaning, make sure that you comment on its performance, too.
This assignment is due before class begins tomorrow.
Speaking of assignments, I'll remind you that your second attempt to write an original poem is due on Thursday. Feel free to borrow some of the poetic "tricks" from the "performances" on the Poetry 180 site.
posted by JTF @ 7:38 AM
21 comments
21 Comments:
I liked "Slow Children at Play" because it contrasts the typical child with one that takes their time, and lets life sink in.
Thanks For Remembering Us
Dana Gioia
The flowers sent here by mistake,
signed with a name that no one knew,
are turning bad. What shall we do?
Our neighbor says they're not for her,
and no one has a birthday near.
We should thank someone for the blunder.
Is one of us having an affair?
At first we laugh, and then we wonder.
The iris was the first to die,
enshrouded in its sickly-sweet
and lingering perfume. The roses
fell one petal at a time,
and now the ferns are turning dry.
The room smells like a funeral,
but there they sit, too much at home,
accusing us of some small crime,
like love forgotten, and we can't
throw out a gift we've never owned.
I like that this poem explores the different meanings to something as simple as flowers. Why were they there, why did those particular people receive them, what could they possibly mean. There is some rhyme scheme that makes the poem flow better, and read like a story. It relates to all who have ever received flowers from someone they didn't know. Also that how nice random acts of kindness are, even if they are accidental. The word choice and sensory words make this poem great. You really feel like you can smell the roses, and see the petals falling down. The petals symbolize the time that is passing as they ponder over this. Wasted time, worrying, fretting if this was some giant mistake. They should just stop and enjoy the flowers before all of them die. Sometimes you just have to accept what life gives you, especially if its good and stop wondering why we received these gifts. It shows the questioning nature of our society today. I liked how everyday this poem was, and how it can relate to all time periods.
A poem that I liked from this list was "A Birthday Candle". I like what this poem is trying to explain to the reader. It means that time goes by really fast but there are always specific significant moments in everyone's life that stand out and slow your life down for a bit. The poem is really short and only six lines long but it really gets its point across. It was my favorite poem out of the ones I read.
'Fat Is Not a Fairy Tell' while humorous it also raises is a good point. Nobody wants to be overweight so no one wants to hear a story about an obese. People havent accepted the fact that we are getting fatter and that the world is hurling towards obesity so right now cinderella stories are still possible in their mind. something about reality scares people and they dont want to accept it. people have obscured images of the perfect body and have a fact hope that its an achieveable goal. but maybe thats good. if people start settin gtheir goals that low, or goals that are more achivieceable then we might fall into an inescapeable hole, if we strive for someone who isnt perfect then we will be from from it.
What I Would Do - Marc Petersen.
The question "what if?" is always a tough thing to ponder. But the poet has it all planned out what he would do if he found that his wife was having an affair. In the occurence of this affair the poet would destroy the whole world around him. He is getting rid of the memories of her, everything they built together.
This poem is in free verse but still has correct syntax. This format reminds me of a list, as if he knows and has a list of everything he would do in this situation. I am not quite sure what the repetition of the line, "I would see our maple budding out the window," however, it does catch the readers attention in this long list. I also wonder if the poet is hiding something from his wife as well since he has to tell everything to his cat.
My favorite poem from the list was “Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?" by Ron Koertge. I liked it becuase it speaks to people just like us, seniors, who will soon be starting college. We will take any advice we can get, and the advice in this poem is realistic. It is sarcastic, but true. It inspires the reader to never forget to be a kid; to always play like a kid and laugh like a kid. Sometimes you have to put the work aside, and look at it differently. Rather than read the books, play with them.
The most powerful line in the poem was "then start again". You can never give up in life; never stop living.
Each stanza talks about a different topic of how to live life, but not in a rule by rule way. It gives advice in a simple way that will ensure happiness, which will then ensure success.
The poem is free verse. It does not rhyme, but it does not need to in order to be good.
I read poem number 56: Fat Is Not A Fairy Tale by Jane Yolen. The thing that caught my interest first was the title. It drew my attention and sounded interesting unlike many of the poems on the website. I immediately liked this poem because of the way the poet turns fairy tales that everybody knows into something that has to do with being fat. For example, "Repoundsal" or "Snow Weight." It makes the reader do a double take and reread it. At first, I thought this poem was being mean to overweight people. However, when i read the end, I appreciated it even more. I like the meaning of the poem. I think many teenage girls need to read this poem. So many of them are obsessed with their weight and being skinny. This poem shows that that is not important. It reveals that you can do anything or be anyone no matter what size you are. I like the metaphors and similes in this poem also. For example, "fingers plump as sausage." This shows the ridicule that overweight people go through. The last stanza is my favorite. It does kind of give a negative vibe though saying "for a teller not yet born, for a listener not yet conceived." It is saying that it will be a long time until the world realizes that weight and beauty is not everything. I also like the very last line where the poet lists the best round things in the world. It is a unique way to end a poem.
Did I Miss Anything?-this is how I feel about school. Especially since our senior year is winding down. It feels exactly like when you're sick and miss a class. You missed the world that day. It'll take you a week minimum to catch up. But if you had been there, that day would've been the most pointless one that week. You just can't win at the end of the year.
Coffee in the Afternoon-I love this one. It sounds like an ideal breezy saturday afternoon for me. I love the comparison to tea. It comes off as a light, no pressured conversation like one would associate with afternoon tea, but with coffee, which is by far much better.
Hate Poem-I lied. I like this one more. It describes so many feelings I've felt so exactly. There are too many and not enough words that I have to say about it. I like how each line is a separate thought (of hatred) and it is all tied in together with the common feeling of hating (him?).
This Moment-This one was alright. Kind of boring. But I like how it is random, yet it ties in with itself, for lack of better words. I can almost picture this, but not quite in the detail that I think it was supposed to convey.
"Wan Chu's Wife In Bed"
Richard Jones
Wan Chu is presented as an honest and honorable man who respects his marriage vows. The poem flows as one of devotion and loyalty, until his unfaithful wife is presented as a betrayer. The husband holds off his feelings and always comes home to his wife, but his wife does not return the favor. Wan Chu is attempting to be faith ful as his wife is shown as a common whore.
That one was good but here is one better, "Hate Poem." The poem portrays all the rage that one can build up just by being annoyed by someone the love. It is easy to get enraged by someone about everything even if it is just one thing annoys you about that person. The imagery and personification bring every allusion and comparison to life. Every breath, every sound, every look, everything hates everyone every now and then.
Poem 093, Relearning Winter
The poem "Relearning Winter" by Mark Svenvold is an excellently written and descriptive poem using vivid imagery and wordplay to engage the reader. The first thing that pops out is the "Hello's" to different aspects of winter. This personifications adds a depth of content to the poem and really sets the tone and mood of the poem. The poet then proceeds to talk to the afternoons, night, snow, and rain but in a descriptive way. It appears that the character of the story must "relearn" all the things he seems to hate about winter. It is perceived as "complaining" about winter in a sarcastic manner, by using lines like:
"oily puddles and spinning rubber,
mist of angels on the head of a pin,
hello".
"The Hymn of a Fat Woman" by Joyce Huff.
This poem is a somewhat silly ode to the asceticism of past saints. It details their commitment to thinness, comparing it to the people more like the author, those who would rather be "lolling in the garden munching on the apples". The idea behind the poem itself is humorous, but not as much as the performance. The author makes several clever connections between Christianity's ideas and the gauntness of its saints.
The first poem I immediately liked was the poem biscuit. It talks about the absolute trust of dogs. They trust that when they are finished eating, a treat will come. It never even crosses a dog’s mind that some human might give them something harmful instead. In this respect, the poem reminds me of myself, because I tend to always trust people way too easy. I can get myself hurt at times because I am never skeptical of other’s harmful intentions. In its structure, this is a short poem, which symbolizes that not much writing is needed in order to trust the author’s purpose. Using very few words the poet is able to describe a whole concept with a deep meaning, easily letting the reader feel he knows what he is talking about. There is also religious significance in the poem, when the poet talks about putting a dog treat in the dog’s mouth, like a priest offers us the host in communion. This simile symbolizes how we need to put our full trust in God and know that he will never lead us astray. As humans we learn to watch out for ourselves in the world through our past experiences, a concept that most animals do not understand. Sometimes however as humans grow older they become too untrusting of the world and their surroundings. The innocence of animals also reminds us that sometimes we just need to trust that our instincts will lead us on the right path.
The poem “Otherwise” by Jane Kenyon is a very interesting and well written poem. In this poem, she repeats one line throughout, “It might have been otherwise.” She is talking about how every decision we make in life is important. Everything we do effects everything else that will happen there after. Simple daily activities such as waking up, eating breakfast, or having dinner affect our lives greatly, and can affect other’s, too. The author goes through the whole poem listing things she has done, only to say, “It might have been otherwise.” That if she did not do this certain thing, something else would have happened. Kenyon ends the poem by saying “one day, I know it will be otherwise.” This means that as we grow older, our lives change and we are in a way forced to change the things we do on a daily basis. Jane Kenyon’s use of repetition in this poem helps to prove her point. Also, the poem is broken down into two stanzas to show the time of day; the first dealing with morning till noon, and the second describing noon till night. This was an interesting technique that the poet used.
Line by Martha Collins
The author used an interesting symbol to represent love. Lines are stark, concrete objects while love is a beautiful abstract concept. But the author is able to use the image of a line to convey emotion. I like the line “stay in line, hold the line, a glance between the lines is fine but don’t turn corners, cross, cut in, go over or out”. One must read between the lines to understand the full meaning of another’s love. They have to look deeper than the visible surface. But this deep emotion should be a “glance” not and effortful strain. A glance shows that in love one does not need to try hard to understand the other. In a relationship, there are not short cuts or cutting corners. The placement of the word in every sentence emphasizes the importance of the line. I also liked the last sentence. Describing the line geometrically with point X and Y emphasizes the importance of staying on the line. The first line was the line that caused me to read the rest of the poem. The author starts by saying that there are different ways to construct a line, which I thought was a unique way of introducing the topic of love.
I enjoyed reading a poem called "The Bagel." This poem was an enjoyable story of a man chasing his fallen bagel down the street. Eventually, the man chasing the fallen bagel tumbles and rolls as his bagel does. I like this poem because to me, it is funny. The descriptive imagery best helps to describe the perturbed narrator chasing his fallen bagel.
I read “She Didn’t Mean to Do It” by Daisy Fried. I chose this poem because I like how the poem uses such vivid details. It’s hard to describe abstract things such as thrills, but Daisy Fried does the job and well. Though we cannot describe a thrill, she manages to do so by describing how one feels when they have a thrill: “stay tucked in your limbs...knock you flat.” She even uses figure of speeches to further describe the abstract feeling, a simile: “thrills puff off you like smoke rings.” I also like how she used repetition to not only emphasize a description, but also add a bit of horror. By repeating words “fade” and “gone,” the poem sounds like a horror poem. Fried uses description, repetition, and figure of speeches to make the poem sound like a horror poem. By making this poem a horror poem, Fried makes the reader feel like the subject, the girl, who “didn’t mean to do it.” The poem would be classified as a sonnet. The meter of the sonnet adds to the suspense to this horror poem.
I read Some Clouds by Steve Kowit poem 101. When I first clicked on this poem I was expecting a happy, cheesy poem but after reading it I was proven wrong. Some Clouds is a poem full of sadness and some cheer. I felt connected to the character in the poem when he escaped the busyness and ciaos of everything occurring around him. I want to escape as he did. The poem is about a man who has lost someone very dear to him and how he “unplugs” himself from the crazy world around him. I liked this poem also for the wise remark made: “Yes, thank you, I’ve heard.” This line reminds me of something I would say for I am a very smart-aleck person. Another part of the poem I liked was how the author put that the character should have been “warned” by the day. People sometimes determine if they will have a good day or bad by how the weather is for example if it is cloudy and gloomy one would say today is going to be a bad day. So perhaps the weather had been gloomy and for the first time in a long time it was sunny, the change in weather should have said something to the character. After he got the news that his love had passed away he feels the need to ‘stop and smell the roses’ or in his case look at the clouds. After he found out the news he realized how much his life had gotten away from him, now he wants to watch “things happen again.” I like the ending how he slips away “out of nothingness into another” escaping all his problems and responsibilities.
I liked the poem "Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale" by Jane Yolen. The poem really spoke to me because Yolen brought addresses something about fairy tales that has bothered me for a while; the fact that they are all skinny. In every fairy tale, especially the Disney ones, princesses are tiny, slender girls, something rather unrealistic on such a constant basis. She made a good point that it's not bad to be plump. The poem was written in free verse with a steady meter. The tone implies humor while still managing to be serious at the same time. There isn't a rhyme scheme, which is typical for free verse poetry.
I like the poem "Before the World Intruded" because of its commentary about how society molds people and changes us from the innocence of our youth. The speaker wants to return to the time “before I woke from sleep,” which I find interesting because sleeping and dreaming are negatively looked at today as being a waste of time and for the lazy. Also, light being referred to as “unkind” is intriguing, because often in literature light is seen as a symbol of hope or good times. I believe the negative connotation in this work comes from the author’s belief that sometimes knowledge and logic can destroy dreams. The exposing light can make us smarter, but the ability to dream is what makes someone wise. The speaker wishes to see what kind of person he would be if the world did not intrude onto the “blank shores” of his pure mind.
The poem does not rhythm and does not appear to follow a rhyming pattern. The poem is explaining a dog that is watching the speaker with bright begging eyes and trusting her to give him a treat. However, with such trust that he is giving her; she could just as easily trick him and give him a stone. It is trying to say to not be so naive and to show how easily one may be tricked or coerced into something. The poems’ lines do not rhyme making it an even more interesting poem. Poems now seem to rely on rhythm however, this poem without rhythm makes you think and truly look into what the poem means or is trying to say or tell the reader. With rhythm, readers tend to miss the overall point of the poem. The writer tries to explain his thoughts with an object as simple as a dog to get his point across. It is somewhat of a neutral and familiar object for all to relate too.
I chose to write about the poem The Death of Santa Claus. i think the underlying theme of this poem is that children these days are being exposed to the truth at and earlier and earlier age. They are losing their innocence in a way because of the way they are losing the hope or belief in things such as Santa Claus. In regards to the performance i especially like the simile he uses saying Rudolphs nose blinks like a sad ambulance. He could be saying that Rudolph is Santa's only hope for receiving help because "doctors dont make house call to the North Pole." The line describing how a monster fist has grabbed his heart and won't stop squeezing i think symbolizes the unrelenting pressure put on by society that makes children lose belief in Santa Clause. Then finally the sad part at the end where the mom begins to cry i think show hows she doesn't want to be the one to cause her child to lose the belief in santa clause but realizes its the way of the world today.
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