Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Poem A Day PDF
Poem A Day PDF
a-Day:
Using National
Poetry Month and
Online Resources
for Poetry
Immersion
Using a carefully selected daily poem to foster deep reading and prompt
focused writing, students can review major poetic techniques and forms in
preparation for the AP Literature and Composition exam. Materials include a
calendar of readings, specific writing prompts, generic journal topics and
links for independent further study.
Sandra Effinger
1105 S. W. 130th Street
Oklahoma City OK 73170
(405) 378-6832
[email protected]
Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing. – EDMUND BURKE
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. -- LEONARD COHEN
Poetry is boned with ideas,
nerved and blooded with emotions,
all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.
-- PAUL ENGLE
Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words.
– VLADIMIR NABOKOV
All poetry is putting the infinite within the finite. – ROBERT BROWNING
I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty. -- EDGAR ALLAN POE
Poetry is what gets lost in translation. – ROBERT FROST
If…it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that it is poetry. – EMILY DICKINSON
The poet is liar who always speaks the truth. – JEAN COCTEAU
A poem should not mean, but be. – ARCHIBALD MACLEISH
You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you. – JOSEPH JOUBERT
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds.
-- PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Poetry is a sequence of dots and dashes, spelling depths, crypts, cross-lights, and moon wisps.
-- CARL SANDBURG
Talk with a little luck in it, that’s what poetry is. -- WILLIAM STAFFORD
POETRY IS A MARRIAGE OF CRAFT AND IMAGINATION. -- CHRISTINE E. HEMP
Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. -- CARL SANDBURG
Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric;
out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. --W.B. YEATS
Poetry is man’s rebellion against being what he is. -- JAMES BRANCH CABELL
A poem begins with a lump in the throat. -- ROBERT FROST
Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess
about what is seen during a moment. – CARL SANDBURG
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. --KAHLIL GIBRAN
Imaginary gardens with real toads in them. --MARIANNE MOORE
A poem is never finished, only abandoned. --PAUL VALÉRY
The poem is the point at which our strength gave out. --RICHARD ROSEN
Poetry is to philosophy what the Sabbath is to the rest of the week. --AUGUSTUS AND JULIUS HARE
It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things.
--STEPHEN MALLARME
National Poetry Month is April and we can thank Poets.org for wonderful materials to
help us celebrate. Visit their extraordinary website as a place to begin. Listen to a
favorite poet, download lesson plans, find out whether there are any special events
scheduled locally, and examine the National Poetry Map.
Day Focus Poem Poet
1 Definition of Poetry "Introduction to Poetry" Billy Collins
2 Metapoetry "I Am Offering This Poem" Jimmy Santiago
Baca
3 AP Prompts "Blackberry Picking" Seamus Heaney
4 Ekphrastic Poetry "Musée des Beaux Arts" W. H. Auden
5 Regular Verse "Sympathy" Paul Laurence
Dunbar
6 Specificity "Where I'm From" George Ella Lyons
7 Modern Verse "We Real Cool" Gwendolyn Brooks
8 Theme "We grow accustomed to the night--" Emily Dickinson
"Acquainted with the Night" Robert Frost
9 Extended Metaphor "Cliché" Billy Collins
10 Concrete Poetry "Easter Wings" and Others George Herbert and
(Calligrams) Others
11 Dramatic Monologue "My Last Duchess" Robert Browning
12 Imagery "Those Winter Sundays" Robert Hayden
13 Sonnet "Sonnet" Billy Collins
14 Allusion "Barbie Doll" Marge Piercy
15 Metonymy and "Part and Whole" Rachel Hadas
Synecdoche
16 Shakespearean (or "Love Is Not All" Edna St. Vincent
English) Sonnet Millay
17 Petrarchan (or Italian) "The Illiterate" William Meredith
Sonnet
18 Villanelle "One Art" Elizabeth Bishop
19 Flash Poetry "Miss Charlotte Brown, Librarian, Goes Felix Jung
Mad"
20 In Memoriam "Facing It" Yusef Komunyakaa
21 Undressing a Poet "Undressing Emily Dickinson" Billy Collins
22 Heritage "You Bring Out the Mexican in Me" Sandra Cisneros
23 Personification "Talking Myself to Sleep at One More John Ciardi
Hilton"
24 Connotation "Traveling Through the Dark" William Stafford
25 Symbolism "Persimmons" Li-Young Lee
26 Juxtaposition "Advice to My Son" Peter Meinke
Dr. L. Kip Wheeler's Website The best online resource for literary terms.
You may want to download the following handouts about poetry in general.
Quotes about Poetry -- Two pages of quotes about poetry to promote
6 Sandra Effinger http://www.mseffie.com [email protected]
discussion
Poetry Terminology -- Seven pages covering poetry terms and forms
TP-CASTT for AP Analysis -- Usual format to guide poem analysis
TSP-FASTT and Terms -- Slightly adapted format with shortened term list
AP Poetry Prompts -- Literature and Composition Poetry Prompts from 1970 to
2009. Also AP Poetry Prompts with the Poems (large file).
Quoting from a Poem -- Guidelines for quoting from a poem, with exercises
Poetry Scanning Worksheet -- Directions and exercises to help teach poetry
scansion
Poetry Response Journals -- Fourteen literary response journal topics focused
on poetry
Poetry Baker's Dozen Assignments -- thirteen assignments for thirteen
student-selected poems
Poetry Is Contagious by Betsey Coleman -- Ideas for Student Poetry,
Teacher Tips, and Bibliography
Poetry Essay Rubric -- Generic rubric for grading AP Style essays.
Poetry Explication -- Explication assignment and sample explication.
Poetry Is Dead -- My Turn essay from Newweek on poetry in everyday life.
After you’ve included the five MUSTs above, you may choose any of these MAYBEs to guide
your response. You may even choose the same one every time. Consider the possibilities of
this “baker’s dozen” --
RULE 1: Whenever you mention the title of a poem, put quotation marks around it.
RULE 2: Whenever you quote a word or phrase that appears in the poem, put quotation marks around
it and INTEGRATE the quoted material within your own sentence.
The boy describes the motorcycle as if it were alive, calling it his “companion, ready and
friendly.”
RULE 3: Whenever you quote a phrase that begins on one line but ends on the next, indicate where the
first line stops by using A SLASH MARK.
The speaker “indulged/a forward feeling, a tremble” as he is torn between mounting the
motorcycle and riding away, or dutifully looking for its owner.
RULE 4: Whenever you quote four or more lines, indent the passage from both margins, but do not use
quotation marks. Cite such a long passage only if it is especially significant. Introduce the quotation,
copy the lines EXACTLY as they are in the poem, and then explain the relevance of the citation afterwards.
The speaker briefly indulges the childish fantasy of stealing the motorcycle and
riding away. This moment, however, is truly a “bridge” between childhood and
adulthood. Rather than daydream of freedom, he thinks about the situation and crosses
over to responsibility. The speaker chooses to look for
the owner, just coming to, where he had flipped
over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was pale --
I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand
over it, called me good man, roared away.
This experience implies that being a grownup is dangerous, and perhaps even joyless. An
adult, free to fulfill the speaker’s fantasy, risks real dangers. Stunned and wounded, the
owner acknowledges the speaker’s maturity by calling him “good man.” Something
magical has been lost, however, in the transformation. The motorcycle itself has changed
from a “companion” to a lifeless “machine.”
ACTIVITIES: Use the poem by Sylvia Plath on the back of this page. Answer on a separate page.
1. Write a sentence that explains what this poem is about. Use the title of the poem and the writer’s
name in your sentence.
2. In another sentence, point out a striking image or comparison in the poem. Quote a phrase, not a
complete sentence. Integrate with your own words. NO QUOTE LUMPS!
3. In another sentence, cite an example of personification and explain what it reveals about the speaker.
Quote a phrase that begins on one line and continues on the next.
4. In a sentence that contains at least three lines of the poem, comment on how those lines help reveal
the poem’s meaning. Introduce the lines, quote exactly, and explain them afterwards.
[email protected] Sandra Effinger http://www.mseffie.com 9
Fifteen by William Stafford
South of the bridge on Seventeenth
I found back of the willows one summer
day a motorcycle with engine running
as it lay on its side, ticking over
5 slowly in the high grass. I was fifteen.
************************************************************************
1975 NO POEM
1977 Poem: “Piano” [2 poems with the same name] (D. H. Lawrence)
Prompt: Read both poems carefully and then write an essay in which you explain what
characteristics of the second poem make it better than the first. Refer specifically to details of both
poems.
1979 Poems: “Spring And All” (William Carlos Williams) and “For Jane Meyers” (Louise Gluck)
Prompt: Read the two poems carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you show
how the attitudes towards the coming of spring implied in these two poems differ from each other.
Support your statements with specific references to the texts.
1984 NO POEM
1985 Poems: “There Was A Boy” (William Wordsworth) and “The Most of It” (Robert Frost)
Prompt: These two poems present encounters with nature, but the two poets handle those
encounters very differently. In a well-organized essay, distinguish between the attitudes (toward
nature, toward the solitary individual, etc.) expressed in the poems and discuss the techniques that
the poets use to present these attitudes. Be sure to support your statements with specific references.
1988 Poems: “Bright Star” (John Keats) and “Choose Something Like a Star” (Robert Frost)
Prompt: Read the following two poems very carefully, noting that the second includes an allusion
to the first. Then write a well-organized essay in which you discuss their similarities and
differences. In your essay, be sure to consider both theme and style.
1991 Poem: “The Last Night that She lived...” (Emily Dickinson)
Prompt: Write an essay in which you describe the speaker's attitude toward the woman's death.
Using specific references from the text, show how the use of language reveals the speaker's
attitude.
1994 Poems: “To Helen” (Edgar Allan Poe) and “Helen” (H.D.)
Prompt: The following two poems are about Helen of Troy. Renowned in the ancient world for
her beauty, Helen was the wife of Menelaus, a Greek King. She was carried off to Troy by the
Trojan prince Paris, and her abduction was the immediate cause of the Trojan War. Read the two
poems carefully. Considering such elements as speaker, diction, imagery, form, and tone, write a
well-organized essay in which you contrast the speakers’ views of Helen.
2001 Poems: “Douglass” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “London, 1802” by William Wordsworth
Prompt: In each of the following poems, the speaker responds to the conditions of a particular
place and time – England in 1802 in the first poem, the United States about 100 years later in the
second. Read each poem carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast the two
poems and analyze the relationship between them.
2004 Poems: “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” (Emily Dickinson) and “Acquainted with the
Night” (Robert Frost)
Prompt: The poems below are concerned with darkness and night. Read each poem carefully.
Then, in a well-written essay, compare and contrast the poems, analyzing the significance of dark
or night in each. In your essay, consider elements such as point of view, imagery, and structure.
2005 Poem: “The Chimney Sweeper” [1789 and 1794 versions] (William Blake)
Prompt: The poems below, published in 1789 and 1794, were written by William Blake in
response to the condition of chimney sweeps. Usually small children were forced inside chimneys
to clean their interiors. Read the two poems carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, compare and
contrast the two poems, taking into consideration the poetic techniques Blake uses in each.
2005B Poems: “Five A.M.” (William Stafford) and “Five Flights Up” (Elizabeth Bishop)
Prompt: Carefully read the two poems below. Then in a well-organized essay compare the
speakers’ reflections on their early morning surroundings and analyze the techniques the poets use
to communicate the speakers’ different states of mind.
2007 Poems: “A Barred Owl” (Richard Wilbur) and “The History Teacher” (Billy Collins)
Prompt: In the following two poems, adults provide explanations for children. Read the poems
carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast the two poems, analyzing how
each poet uses literary devices to make his point.
2008 Poems “When I Have Fears” (John Keats) and “Mezzo Cammin” (Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow)
Prompt: In the two poems below, Keats and Longfellow reflect on similar concerns. Read the
poems carefully. Then write and essay in which you compare and contrast the two poems,
analyzing he poetic techniques each writer uses to explore his particular situation.
2008B Poems: “Hawk Roosting” (Ted Hughes) and “Golden Retrievals” (Mark Doty)
Prompt: The following two poems present animal-eye views of the world. Read each poem
carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the techniques used in the poems to
characterize the speakers and convey differing views of the world.
2010B Poems: “To Sir John Lade, on His Coming of Age” (Samuel Johnson) and “When I Was
One-and-Twenty” (A. E. Housman)
Prompt: Each of the two poems below is concerned with a young man at the age of twenty-one,
traditionally the age of adulthood. Read the two poems carefully. Then write a well-organized
essay in which you compare and contrast the poems, analyzing the poetic techniques, such as point
of view and tone, that each writer uses to make his point about coming of age.
7-6 These essays also demonstrate an understanding of _________’s poem; but, compared to the
best essays, they are less thorough or less precise in their analysis of how the speaker / author
uses ________ to convey ________. In addition to minor flaws in interpretation, their
analysis is likely to be less well-supported and less incisive. While these essays demonstrate
the writer’s ability to express ideas clearly, they do so with less mastery and control over the
hallmarks of mature composition than do papers in the 9-8 range.
5 While these essays deal with the assigned task without important errors, they have little to
say beyond what is easiest to grasp. Their analysis of how ________ conveys ________ may
be vague. As a critical explanation, they deal with the poem in a cursory way. Though the
writing is sufficient to convey the writer’s thoughts, these essays are typically pedestrian, not
as well conceived, organized, or developed as upper-half papers. They may reveal simplistic
thinking or immature writing.
4-3 These lower-half essays often reflect an incomplete or over-simplified understanding of the
poem. Typically, they fail to respond adequately to part of the question. Their analysis may
be weak, meager or irrelevant, inaccurate or unclear. The writing demonstrates uncertain
control over the elements of effective composition. These essays usually contain recurrent
stylistic flaws and/or misreadings, and they often lack persuasive evidence from the text.
Essays scored 3 exhibit more than one of the above infelicities; they are marred by a
significant misinterpretation, insufficient development, or serious omissions.
2-1 These essays compound the weaknesses of the papers in the 4-3 range. Writers may seriously
misread the poem. Frequently, these essays are unacceptably brief. They are poorly written
on several counts and may contain many distracting errors in grammar and mechanics. While
some attempt may have been made to answer the question, the writer’s observations are
presented with little clarity, organization, or supporting evidence. Essays that are especially
inexact, vacuous, and/or mechanically unsound should be scored 1.
0 This is a response with no more than a reference to the task or no response at all.
T
Title What do the words of the title suggest to you? What denotations are presented
in the title? What connotations or associations do the words posses?
P
Paraphrase Translate the poem in your own words. What is the poem about?
C
Connotation What meaning does the poem have beyond the literal meaning? Fill in the chart
below.
A
Attitude What is the speaker’s attitude? How does the speaker feel about himself, about
others, and about the subject? What is the author’s attitude? How does the
author feel about the speaker, about other characters, about the subject, and the
reader?
S
Shifts Where do the shifts in tone, setting, voice, etc. occur? Look for time and place,
keywords, punctuation, stanza divisions, changes in length or rhyme, and
sentence structure. What is the purpose of each shift? How do they contribute
to effect and meaning?
T
Title Reanalyze the title on an interpretive level. What part does the title play in the
overall interpretation of the poem?
T
Theme List the subjects and the abstract ideas in the poem. Then determine the overall
theme. The theme must be written in a complete sentence.
I wonder, too
that he lets me touch
such expensive garments.
"Come, Doctor.
May I call you Bill?"
His smile widens at this,
and he nods at me.
I drag him by his wrinkled elbow,
past dozens of baby photos,
patients delivered,
clustered around
a Duchamp print,
nearly covering the ugly wallpaper,
past the bookshelves
filled with Pound, Stevens, and Moore.
Richard McAlister
Palo Duro High School
Amarillo, TX
But, son,
always serve wine.