EWRT 30 CLASS 5

AGENDA

•Discussion: Sestina/Villanelle •Terms 24- 30 •Lecture: Free Verse •Guided Writing: Free Verse

THE REVIEW

18.English Sonnet

19.Italian Sonnet

20.Stanza

21.Couplet

22.Quatrain

23.Octave

24.Sestet

THE VILLANELLETHE SESTINA

DISCUSSION SUBJECT: 10 MINUTES

Share your work. Identify both form and general conventions.

TERMS

24 SestinaA poem of thirty-nine lines and written in iambic pentameter. Its six-line stanzas repeat in an intricate and prescribed order the final word in each of the first six lines. After the sixth stanza, there is a three-line envoi, which uses the six repeating words, two per line.25 VillanelleA nineteen-line lyric poem that relies heavily on repetition. The first and third lines alternate throughout the poem, which is structured in six stanzas --five tercets and a concluding quatrain. Examples include Bishop's "One Art," Roethke's "The Waking," and Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."

26. TercetA three-line stanza, as the stanzas in Frost's "Acquainted With the Night" and Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind." The three-line stanzas or sections that together constitute the sestet of a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet.

27. ElisionThe omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry. Alexander uses elision in "Sound and Sense": "Flies o'er th' unbending corn...." 28. PersonificationThe endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities. An example: "The yellow leaves flaunted their color gaily in the breeze." Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud" includes personification.

29. Free verse (Open form)Poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme. The verse is "free" in not being bound by earlier poetic conventions requiring poems to adhere to an explicit and identifiable meter and rhyme scheme in a form such as the sonnet or ballad. Modern and contemporary poets of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries often employ free verse. Williams's "This Is Just to Say" is one of many examples.

30. ImageA concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea. Imagery refers to the pattern of related details in a work. In some works one image predominates either by recurring throughout the work or by appearing at a critical point in the plot. Often writers use multiple images throughout a work to suggest states of feeling and to convey implications of thought and action. Some modern poets, such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, write poems that lack discursive explanation entirely and include only images. Among the most famous examples is Pound's poem "In a Station of the Metro":The apparition of these faces in the crowd;Petals on a wet, black bough.

• FREE VERSE

Writing Free Verse

LECTURE SUBJECT

In A Station Of The Metroby Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:Petals on a wet, black bough.

Title is really a line in the poem

No extra words

Imagery/ metaphor

List of the "don'ts" that Pound laid down in his 1913 essay on imagism:

"Use no superfluous word," "Go in fear of abstractions," "Don't be 'viewy.'"

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winterTo regard the frost and the boughsOf the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long timeTo behold the junipers shagged with ice,The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to thinkOf any misery in the sound of the wind,In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the landFull of the same windThat is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,And, nothing himself, beholdsNothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

What conventions make this a poem rather than prose?

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winterTo regard the frost and the boughsOf the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long timeTo behold the junipers shagged with ice,The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to thinkOf any misery in the sound of the wind,In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the landFull of the same windThat is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,And, nothing himself, beholdsNothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Metaphor: A snow man for a man in the snow

Assonance: one must: metaphor/ mind of winterImagery

imageryAssonance: distant glitter

Any misery inSound/windSound

Sound/landSame WindSame place

Listener/listensNothing x3

La Figlia Che Piange (The Weeping Girl) by T. S. Eliot

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair —Lean on a garden urn —Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair —Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise —Fling them to the ground and turnWith a fugitive resentment in your eyes:But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,So I would have had her stand and grieve,So he would have leftAs the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,As the mind deserts the body it has used.I should findSome way incomparably light and deft,Some way we both should understand,Simple and faithless as a smile and a shake of the hand.

What conventions make this a poem rather than prose?

La Figlia Che Piange (The Weeping Girl) by T. S. Eliot

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair —Lean on a garden urn —Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair —Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise —Fling them to the ground and turnWith a fugitive resentment in your eyes:But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,So I would have had her stand and grieve,So he would have leftAs the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,As the mind deserts the body it has used.I should findSome way incomparably light and deft,Some way we both should understand,Simple and faithless as a smile and a shake of the hand.

ABACBDA repetition of line threeA repetition of So I would have hadABC Repetition of AsDEB Rep of Some wayF coupletF simile

Free verse, despite the seeming lack of restrictions, should be as carefully fashioned as any formal poem. It is as difficult to write a good free verse poem as one in a traditional form because you must not only invent your own conventions but fulfill them as well.

There is no standard, of course, for how long a free verse poem line should be. Usually a line will have at least three beats to it if it's to have any substance to it. A single word as an entire line is to be used sparingly as it gives one word inordinate emphasis.

Even though the lines of a free verse poem don't have to have a fixed meter, they should still have cadences and patterns and repetitions of sounds, which give the words their music. These rhythms help carry the reader along or slow the reader down. Natural stresses of the language will call attention to certain words. In a free verse poem, you have the freedom to place these words so they draw extra attention to create tension. Likewise, while lines of rhymed poetry are more regularly end stopped, the syntax of free verse allows for enjambment. These pauses are part of the meter and rhythm of the line.

A big challenge is avoiding the abstract and focusing on the concrete to create images.

An abstraction is anything that is not tangible, a noun that does not bring a picture to mind. Love, hate, grief, justice, and time are all abstractions. Images are nouns that are universally seen similarly in our minds. Tables, canyons and trees are all images. People imagine them in similar ways. Concrete images give us the ability to understand another viewpoint.

Abstractions are often unavoidable, and that’s where metaphor, simile, and personification come in handy. You can use this figurative language to help connect an abstraction with an image: My love is a rose

Formatting a poem can make an essential difference in rhythm and meaning. Short lines, emphasis, and indentations create pauses in the reader’s mind. Try indenting to break up ideas or isolate lines you see as important. Experiment with formatting; use it to change rhythm and speed.

Formatting also includes italicization, bolding, quotation marks, and parentheses. These devices can be used to identify different voices. Use italics to suggest a whisper and bold as a shout or clear-ringing voice. Parentheses will likely be read as an aside. Quotation marks emphasize words. Use these techniques to make the voices more exciting and dynamic.

Grammatical Errors: Do not disregard common grammatical rules unless there is substantial need for it. Use punctuation that fits the purpose: capitalize and use correct spelling.

Clichés: Don’t write something you’ve heard. Analyze images and ideas for originality. Abstractions are far more overused than images, so think of something fresh and new to describe.

Alliteration: Forms of alliteration can make a poem taste good. Just don’t overdo it. Assonance is less noticeable but often more effective than consonance or alliteration.

Repetition: Repetition works sometimes, but it is often overused. Don’t repeat the same exact lines just to take up space. Repetition in formatting and theme is often necessary and very effective.

Know what you are writing about. If you can’t completely dissect your poem and tell a reader what every single word’s purpose is, then you can improve your verse. Be aware of how every symbol and metaphor complements your poem as you write it. Later you can edit it, but if there isn’t a strong base there will not be a strong finished piece.

The more you read and write poetry, the better you’ll read and write poetry.

GUIDED WRITING

This Is Just To Sayby William Carlos Williams

I have eatenthe plumsthat were inthe icebox

and whichyou were probablysavingfor breakfast

Forgive methey were deliciousso sweetand so cold

Think about something that you did or said to someone that you regret.

Write a poem of apology, comprising three to five four-line stanzas, with the same number of stressed syllables in each line.

Avoid sentimentality. Rely on images, rhythm, and structure to convey your regret.

Ratatouille A spicy French stew.

Susquehanna A river in Pennsylvania.

Umbrella Protection from sun or rain.

Penumbra A half-shadow.

Opulent Lush, luxuriant.

Mellifluous Sweet sounding.

Lithe Slender and flexible.

Languor Listlessness, inactivity.

Ingénue A naïve young woman.

Gossamer The finest piece of thread, a spider's silk

Furtive Shifty, sneaky.

Flowers, panther, cinnamon, sunset, rain, cookies

Ephemeral Short-lived.

Dalliance A brief love affair.

Bungalow A small, cozy cottage.

Fetching Pretty isolate

justify

deependefine

Epiphany A sudden revelation.

Harbinger Messenger with news of the future

Bucolic In a lovely rural setting

resistresonate Propinquity An

inclination. Brood To think alone..

envision evaluate

willowy

drab

mundane

tarnished

desolate

Make a list of ten words. Incorporate these words into a poem made up of three stanzas composed of five lines each.

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."(Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night)

"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die tomorrow." - James Dean "When you have nothing to say, say nothing." - Charles Caleb Colto

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmunde Burke

"What are the eyes? Two

holes in the mask of life."

- Ada

"If you don't control your

mind, someone else will."

-John Allston

"The first rule of Fight Club is--you do not talk about Fight Club."(Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, Fight Club)The three grand

essentials of happiness are: something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. -- Alexander Chalmers

Choose an aphorism and write a poem that incorporates the words or meaning into it.

"Millions long for immortality but do not

know what to do with themselves on a

rainy Sunday afternoon."

- Susan Ertz

Make a list of things you're grateful for. Beneath each item, free-associate a list of objects. Pick ten from your lists of objects and use them to write a poem.

Write a poem that addresses a past or future version of yourself. Write in the second-person singular. Reassure a younger self, send warnings to a future self, or ask questions to which you don’t know the answers.

HOMEWORK

•Post # 5: Free Verse •Choose two or three different-style poems to revise for project 1. •Bring four copies of your proposed project to our next class meeting. •Study Terms: 1-30