Aim: How can we define the literary value of poetry?
Do Now:
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?
The class proceeded to discuss all the challenges they experienced while reading poetry such as how poets use deep figurative language and old words that we don't use modern day. Furthermore the meaning is often hard to decipher and might even have multiple meanings. In my opinion, I always struggle reading between the lines and inferring what the poet meant when he or she said this.
Additionally, the class also discussed what poetry meant to them by including figurative language and literary definitions in their responses. I recall a response where someone described poetry as an inexplicable language that expresses meaningful emotions. If you ask me, I’d say poetry is your feelings that are hard to express and must be conveyed through literary devices such as figurative language and narrator's voice.
We then watched “What makes a poem … a poem? - Melissa Kovacs” which discusses the three common characteristics of poems:
Poems emphasize language’s musical qualities through the use of rhyme, rhythm, and meter
Poems use condensed language(usage of less words and using words in a different way)
Poems often feature intense feelings of emotion
Not to mention, “the line between poetry, prose, song, and visual art has blurred” meaning poetry can be considered anything from visual art to song lyrics.
People often falsely believe that poems HAVE to rhyme. This is not the case! The poems we are working with today are considered to be free verse. The term “free verse” describes poetry without a fixed pattern of meter and rhyme.
Poetry without a fixed pattern of meter and rhyme.
No rules around rhyming, syllable count, or number of lines.
Allows the poet to express their ideas and emotions, and to shape a poem however they would like
The poet may still use: alliteration, personification, rhyme, and the rhythm of language to create a feeling in the poem
Can be short or long, and on any topic due to the fact that there are no rules
Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself, ” (Section 2) Leaves of Grass
Stop this day and night with me, and you
shall possess the origin of all poems;
You shall possess the good of the earth and
sun... (there are millions of sun left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or
third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books;
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself.
“Poetry” by Pablo Neruda
And it was at that age … poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don’t know how or when,
5 no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
10 among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
15 had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
20 and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
25 nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
30 unfastened and open,
planets
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
35 with arrows, fire, and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
40 likeness, image of mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
We got together in groups after spirit reading the poems to discuss how our class defined poetry and how the poems defined poetry.
How can we define poetry? 10 MINUTE TEAMWORK
With your Teams, create a final definition of poetry. Using the table below, summarize how Whitman and Neruda define poetry along with how our class defines “poetry” according to today’s “Do Now.” Be sure to use textual examples in your summary!
After completing the table with our groupmates, we went over the table in class for points. Our class defined poetry as words strung together using figurative language, literary devices, and imagery to describe something so abstract that it can’t be put into words. In Song of Myself, Whitman says that you should interpret poetry based on the way you look at it and not how someone else looks at it. For example, it states that “You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead” which shows how you should define poetry from your standpoint. In Poetry, Neruda says that you should define poetry using your heart and soul and not about the literary meaning of poetry.
Reflection
I learned what poetry meant in literary terms and figurative terms. To recap, the literary definition of poetry is a literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature. I learned that poetry doesn't have to rhyme or have any rules or conditions which is a term called Free Verse Poetry. I learned that poetry can be defined in many different ways figuratively using metaphors and other literary devices. For example, in Song of Myself by Walt Whitman, he says that poetry should be defined in your own interpretation and in Poetry by Pablo Neruda, he says that poetry should be defined using the heart and soul.
I learned what poetry meant literally and figuratively to keep an open mind when reading poetry. This is due to the fact that poetry can be difficult to understand at first but can be deciphered when inspected carefully. I will use this knowledge to continue to analyze poetry and to write poetry myself using the many different literary devices.
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