Aim: How can we define the literary value of poetry?
Do Now:
Consider your prior experiences you’ve had when reading poetry (good and bad).
What are some of the challenges you and/or others can experience while reading poetry?
Consider the following question:
What does poetry mean to you?
For our Do Now, the class shared some of the challenges we’ve had while reading poetry. In my case, sometimes I find the poem boring or extremely hard to understand. Nikolas doesn’t like poetry, but he thinks you have to read between the lines a lot, which makes it a challenge to understand. Joel made a really good point, saying the syntax, diction, and writing style can greatly change the meaning of a poem, and Annie added to the discussion by saying the meaning of a poem can be very subtle and easy to miss if you’re not paying attention.
For the second part of our Do Now, Alyssa thought poetry was a way to express yourself, which I think makes a lot of sense. Sofia said poetry is a lot more emotional and connects to the writer using rhythm and rhyme. To me, poetry is something that involves putting emotion into written words. I find it extremely difficult to do that, and so I have great respect for any writers who create poetry.
After our Do Now, we watched a video named “What makes a poem… a poem?”. This video said poetry emphasizes the musical aspects of language. Poetry also uses condensed language and intense emotions to convey a message. Many debate over whether or not music is poetry, because it also uses language and emotions to tell a story or convey a message. Additionally, it was mentioned that the word poetry originated from the word “poesis”, which means “to create” in Greek.
“The line between poetry, prose, song, and visual art has blurred.” - Melissa Kovacs, “What makes a poem… a poem?”
We learned that free verse is a type of poetry without a fixed pattern of meter and rhyming. This kind of poetry has no rule, and so can be any length or topic. After reading through the poem “Song of Myself” by Paul Whitman, we saw that his poem was very free and had no rhyme whatsoever. We saw something similar in Neruda’s poem “Poetry”, although it was a much longer poem.
A portion of today’s slide presentation on poetry about free verse poetry.
After breaking into groups, we discussed the definition of poetry and what we thought poetry meant to Whitman and Neruda. Eleanor’s group came to the consensus that poetry was something complicated yet interesting, and is a way to convey emotions. We all agreed there was no singular definition that encompassed the meaning of poetry as a whole.
Katheryne’s group thought Whitman admired poetry greatly, using the third and fourth lines of the poem to support her claim.
Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself”, with the third and fourth lines emphasized.
A portion of Neruda’s poem “Poetry”, where he writes about watching the
heavens “unfasten and open” metaphorically.
Additional Resources
What Is Free Verse Poetry? - YouTube - A brief and concise overview of free verse poetry.
The pleasure of poetic pattern - David Silverstein - YouTube - A video that
goes through the basis of pattern and rhythm, and how essential it is in poetry.
Reflection:
What did I learn?
In this lesson, I learned about how poetry can be really interesting and/or emotional if you take the effort to read between the lines. When we were reading Neruda’s poem “Poetry” together as a class, I would have given up on trying to understand it if I were by myself, but reading together made me realize how interesting poetry really is and how rewarding poetry can be when you understand it.
Why did I learn it?
I didn’t learn this intentionally, but learning that poetry can be really interesting gives me an incentive to analyze poems more thoroughly for anything subtle hints to its meaning or message.
How will I use what I learned?
After this lesson, I think I’ll read more into the meaning of poems and analyze them more thoroughly. This will help me on any English tests that require me to answer questions after reading poems. Outside of class, this also gave me another example of when being patient and searching through something can be rewarding.
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