Choose a favourite stanza and share it here. Explain why you like it and point out any poetic devices like simile or metaphor or rhyme. Bring a copy to class on Friday.
If you have no personal favourites, try to find one at the links below. Remember to choose something that reflects good practice (as in our top ten list from today).
Canadian Poetry Online (list of poets by name with links to poems)
Poetry Daily (a new poem every day)
13 comments:
And anyway they didn't count the years.
They counted nets, pods, sheds, and axes.
Time, so generous toward any petty star in the sky,
offered them a nearly empty hand
and quickly took it back, as if the effort were too much.
One step more, two steps more
along the glittering river
that sprang from darkness and vanished into darkness.
Wislawa Szymborska from "Our Ancestors Short Lives"
Here Symborska uses imagery, personification and metaphor. Her words are mostly concrete and sensory. I particularly love the image of time offering "a nearly empty hand," especially as compared to that offered to "any petty star."
Stay here!... The sun of strangers‘s
Won’t warm you like this one does
Bitter are the bites of bread over there
Where there’s no one close and no brother.
Aleksa Santic “Stay Here”
I like Santic’s description of life in a foreign country that is always hard. With very simple and ordinary words “bitter are the bites of bread over there” he creates a fantastic image that express very strong emotions.
But oh you caught me sleeping in the power sockets,
you caught me mildews in the tiles of the bathroom.
And oh you shot a glance like I was doing okay,
oh I am never on my way
Freelance Whales "Ghosting"
The songwriter uses personification, metaphor and images. The words are as abstract as a photographers' picture. I love the image of a ghost and a human finding each other, epspecially where the ghost was caught "sleeping in the power sockets" in a room with "mildews in the tiles of the bathroom."
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
Robert Frost “Desert Places”
On this stanza, I like how the words are rhyming and simple to understand. While expressing the experience in beautiful way, Robert Frost also used meter, imagery and metaphor. And I also love the use of language that been chosen.
Listen!
I know –if you come-
there will be a wise
who will tell you then:
“The best instant in life
is the night you look into your eyes
and they are wet.
They are wet
from the incidence of love.”
“A fine lonely night,” is one of my favourite poems from “Sohrab Sepehry.” In this stanza I like the way that he sees the love in his wet eyes. Also, assonance, personification, and hyperbole are used neatly. The word, “listen,” that he used in the first line plays with your emotion, so when you are reading it, you feel connected to the poet.
Hayelom
When she comes slip-footing through the door,
she kindles us
like lump coal lighted
and we wake up glowing.
She puts a spark even in Papa’s eyes
and turns out all our darkness.
When she comes sweet-talking in the room,
she warms us
like grits and gravy,
and we rise up shining.
Even at nigh-time Mama is a sunrise
that promises tomorrow and tomorrow.
Evelyn Tooley Hunt “Mama is a sunrise”
I like Evelyn's poem. She describe's it very well and each sentences have a big image and dip feeling. she use a figure speech "Mama is a sunrise". Evelyn's poem is a power full meaning for all family. In this poem it tells you how mother is the most important and main person.
The animal I really dig,
Above all others is the pig.
Pigs are noble. Pigs are clever,
Pigs are courteous. However,
Now and then, to break this rule,
One meets a pig who is a fool.
What, for example, would you say,
If strolling through the woods one day,
Right there in front of you you saw
A pig who'd built his house of STRAW?
The Wolf who saw it licked his lips,
And said, 'That pig has had his chips.'
'Little pig, little pig, let me come in!'
'No, no, by the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin!'
'Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!'
Roald Dahl from “The Three Little Pigs”
Roald Dahl uses personification, alliteration, assonance, and rhyme to retell the well-known fair-tale to adult readers. I like to read aloud to enjoy its rhythm and beats. As I read along, the scene of the story starts with a bit grotesque and black humour. I am then more eager to discover the irony that comes after. I don’t just feel funny but also be alerted by the means of the way he compares pigs to ordinary, innocent people. I also like his other poems “The Pig” and “Cinderella”.
Once I saw the ghost of a deer flowing
across the road in the dry gaze of headlights.
It was glowing with something strong
and it left a trail of itself.
By: Brian Henderson
Light in Dark Objects
Henderson uses abstract imagery in this stanza. I've always liked it when an author gives just enough description to give a vague image in your head which requires you to use your imagination to fill in the details.
In the garden I imagined a tug at my sleeve,
and I thought of the undertow my parents
always warned me about at the beach.
They never told me that the only hope
is to give in to it, let it carry you out
to some point where you can swim to shore.
It is never the shore you started from.
Bert Almon “the undertow”
In this stanza I like the way that he has a marvelous imagination and very good comprehension.
Pointless any happiness that happens by plan:
To live in nature is to suffer luck.
Thus blessed, thus cursed, I am myself again,
Empty-tipsy, drinking to the lees my lack
Christian Wiman "Casino"
I like opening line "pointless any happiness that happens by plan"its simple but very powerfull.He describes that happy or sad always be yourself.
"My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have His"
My true love hath my heart and I have his
……By just exchange one for another given;
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
……There never was a better bargain driven.
……….My true love has my heart and I have his
“My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have His by
By Philip Sidney
In this stanza I like the way he felt the love and expressed it. The way he composed it is just beautifully understandable. I believe Love always exists. I think he was in love once that’s why he wrote such a nice and emotional poem. He expressed love wonderfully by using simple words. You can simply imagine the picture in your mind and feel his
feelings. If you ever have been in love, you know what I am saying.
And do you think that unto such as you;
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew:
God gave the secret, and denied it me?
Well, well, what matters it! Believe that, too.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Richard Le Gallienne translation)
There’ve been many translations of this poem, all being fashioned in the form of a series of quatrains, but the Gallienne translation is, by far, my favourite version. He uses strong and explicit metaphors and imagery to drive home his view on religion and of its pious members. I find his mocking, jeering tone coupled with flow of the rhyme to be absolutely beautiful.
I prefer movies.
I perfer cats.
I prefer Vancouver.
I Tom cruise to Brad Pit.
I prefer myself doing work.
I perfer keeping a pen and post- it just in case.
I prefer the color red.
I prefer not traver when I dont have money.
I prefer doctors.
I prefer sleep late.
I prefer talking to my friends about my problems.
I prefer the rain wether.
I prefer my old dress.
I prefer the absurdiy of important thing to the absurdiy of noting.
I prefer my coworkers.
I prefer love to the like.
I prefer the earth for ever.
I prefer Canada.
I prefer not to know things that are not changable.
I prefer the Vancouver Sun to the 24 Housrs.
I prefer home made food to the outside food.
I prefer rose.
I prefer fish when they simmining.
I prefer to hear with both my ears.
I prefer the time of my grandmother to the time of myself.
I prefer not to ask.
I prefer keeping in mind the secret.
I prefer not to have a test.
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