Pam Webb

a writer's journey as a reader

Archive for the tag “National Poetry Month”

12 Apr 2013
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The Epicness of Poetry part three


Cover of "Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics...

Cover of Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics)

Paradise.  Lots of connotations. For some it is the place of perfection (Hawaii, for many), and for others it is the Garden of Eden, which is how Milton deemed the meaning in his epic poem Paradise Lost.

What makes this an epic poem?

For one thing it is like the other poems: BIG.  Milton transcribed a twelve book poem to his amanuensis, (he was blind at the time he “wrote” it), which came to over 10,000 lines.  He takes on the big topic of God’s way of doing things.  And there are the other  big characters of Adam, Eve, and Satan,. The theme of good and evil is a pretty big concept as well.

To understand the poem, let’s look at the poet.

File:Temple of British Worthies John Milton.jpg

image: wikipedia.org

During the 1600s in England, the government was undergoing change, which is definitely an understatement. John Milton got himself in trouble, and eventually into prison, due to his political beliefs.  As a writer, he considered himself among the upper echelon, but thought he could improve his game and be considered one of the truly big league guys (like Homer and Virgil) if he, too, wrote an epic poem.  Although he’d been planning to write Paradise Lost for some time, it’s thought his disenchantment with England’s government might have also been a catalyst for writing about a paradise (his country’s government) being lost.

The Poem
(thanks, Shmoop, you always say it so much better)

The other thing about epic poetry that you should know is that it always begins in medias res, or in the middle of things. This means that the poem begins, and then usually gives you a back-story before returning you to where you began, and then moving forward. For example,Paradise Lost begins with Satan already in Hell, but all the events leading up to it are narrated in Books 5 and 6. Similarly, the creation of the world, of Adam, and of Eve takes place sometime between Satan’s fall and the solidification of his plans for revenge (Books 1-2), but the creation is described in Books 7 and 8. In other words, the poem begins somewhere in the middle of the story, but then goes back and fills in the details. In medias res, baby.

Now, Milton’s poem doesn’t deal with war or the foundation of one of history’s greatest empires, and in this respect his epic poem is different from most of his major generic forebears (Homer, Virgil, and Spenser chief among them). While we do have a huge battle sequence in Book 6, something about it just seems funny. For example, it’s hard to take the battle seriously because we already know the outcome (Satan loses, which we learn in the very first book of the poem); if we’ve somehow forgotten the outcome, however, we always get the sense that God is going to win. The weirdness of Book 6 is explained at the beginning of Book 9, where Milton says flat out that he’s not interested in the type of martial heroism typical of epic poetry. He’s more interested in a type of internal, spiritual, Christian heroism, what he calls the “better fortitude/ Of patience and heroic martyrdom/ Unsung [i.e., not sung about in previous epics]” (9.31-33).

And he sticks to his guns: one could very well characterize Paradise Lost as an epic poem about “patience,” if only because it is Adam and Eve’s impatience that is the cause of their downfall. Now you might be asking yourself, what’s epic about patience, Adam, Eve, etc.? Well, for the Christian world, Adam and Eve’s story is of comparable significance as the founding of Rome or the Trojan War. According to the Judeo-Christian tradition, by eating the Forbidden Fruit, Adam and Eve introduced sin and death into the world, two very serious consequences. Seriously, who likes death?

Post-Thoughts

Paradise Lost is not light reading. Furthermore, it can be overwhelming to read, plus it addresses (for some) an uncomfortable topic. Nonetheless, Milton tackles the subject of choice (free will) in an eloquent manner, and his epic poem set a standard for tone and diction for English poets (probably all poets).  I have to admire a writer who dedicated so much time to one particular work. The results prove that tenacity and perseverance are part of a writer’s toolbox.

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11 Apr 2013

The Epicness of Poetry part two


Today we look at Homer.

This one:

Not this one:

Homer wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey, but you knew that.

These are both considered epic poems and boy, oh boy are they epic in the sense of BIG.  They are big in size (The Iliad is nearly 16,000 lines and The Odyssey is about 12,000), big on adventure, and have big heroes as well.  These two poems have also made a big impact on literature, culture, and on Hollywood.

Quick rundown:
The Iliad is mainly about Achilles and his fighting in the Trojan War (yes, think Brad Pitt in Troy), while The Odyssey is mainly about Odysseus and his adventures trying to get home from the Trojan War.

Cover of "Troy - The Director's Cut [Blu-...

Cover of Troy – The Director’s Cut [Blu-ray]

Why should you care about these really, really old poems (besides them being so incredibly epic)?  I’ll let the PhD expert analysis people at Shmoop explain all that:

The Iliad
You want large scale clashing armies? You’ve come to the right place. Even matched duels or obviously unmatched duels? Check out the long one-on-one combat descriptions, or that crazy nonsense between Paris and Menelaus. Spy thriller? Odysseus’s nighttime raid totally fits the bill. Nail-biting special ops missions? The Trojan Horse ruse has your name written all over it. Swords-and-sorcerers magic adventure? Try anything with the gods busting in on the action, like, say, that whole Laocoon fiasco. Snakes—yikes. In short, anything exciting you’ve ever seen or heard or read started right here.But that’s not all. Not only does the Iliad put the act into action, but it puts the philosophy in there, too. This isn’t just a reductive Good Guys versus Bad Guys bit of disposable nothing. Instead, what’s behind all that fighting is a whole lot of thinking about what the fighting means.
The Odyssey
Do you like stories full of adventure, danger, and suspense? How about stories set in fantastic worlds full of strange creatures like Cyclopses, witches, sirens, and gods? If so, then you’re in luck, because Homer’s Odyssey is Western literature’s original adventure story, and its first foray into the fantasy genre. If you need any proof of how much Homer’s poem defined this genre, just consider the fact that we now use the word “odyssey” simply to mean adventure.

Beowulf, The Iliad, and The Odyssey are old, or classic, epic poems.  We now move on to contemporary, or considerably younger epic poems.

Next Post: Lost in Paradise is not the same thing as Paradise Lost

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10 Apr 2013

The Epicness of Poetry


Beowulf, The Iliad, and The Odyssey.  How could you get through public education and not have to study at least one of these? (Actually, I did–but that’s a different post). In our hurry-up world t’s not often we sit down and commit to reading 3,000 plus lines.  Welcome to Epic Poetry 101.

We tend to think of these triads of classic adventures as stories or myths.  Actually they are all poems.  Really long poems.  This is what makes them epic.

A brief pause…

Understanding Epic.

Today’s meaning:

image: suilynn.wordpress.com

Actual Meaning: (thanks Dictionary.com)

ep·ic

/ˈepik/

Noun
A long poem, typically derived from oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of…
Adjective
Of, relating to, or characteristic of an epic or epics.
Synonyms
noun. epos – epopee
adjective. heroic – epical

Back to our blog post…

Now that epic real definition versus epic contemporary understanding is out of the way, moving on to epic poetry will make much more sense. Epic poetry is epic because it is BIG. It’s big in scope, deed, theme, length–it’s just, well, epic (dude). Plus, it’s so big that it is italicized (or underlined or bolded) instead of the usually “quotes around poems” bit of mechanics.  Yup, this poetry is so big that it gets to change the punctuation rules.

Although technically I should address Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey first, I’m going with Beowulf, not so much because it’s considered the foundation of English literature and it introduces the dragon slayer archetype as well as mix pagan and Christian thematic elements–I choose it first because of Gerard Butler made Beowulf come to life for me.

image: tumblr.com

If you’ve never studied Beowulf, you should–don’t believe the Angelina Jolie version is Beowulf.  Nope. T’snt at all. Gerard Butler’s version isn’t either. So heads up Hollywood, we need a REAL version of this monumentally important epic poem.  Here’s to get you started…

Beowulf Key Facts ala Sparknotes:

full title  ·  Beowulf

author  · Unknown

type of work  · Poem

genre  · Alliterative verse; elegy; resembles heroic epic, though smaller in scope than most classical epics

language  · Anglo-Saxon (also called Old English)

time and place written  · Estimates of the date of composition range between 700 and 1000 a.d.; written in England

date of first publication  · The only manuscript in which Beowulf is preserved is thought to have been written around 1000 a.d.

publisher  · The original poem exists only in manuscript form.

narrator  · A Christian narrator telling a story of pagan times

point of view  · The narrator recounts the story in the third person, from a generally objective standpoint—detailing the action that occurs. The narrator does, however, have access to every character’s depths. We see into the minds of most of the characters (even Grendel) at one point or another, and the narrative also moves forward and backward in time with considerable freedom.

tone  · The poet is generally enthusiastic about Beowulf’s feats, but he often surrounds the events he narrates with a sense of doom.

tense  · Past, but with digressions into the distant past and predictions of the future

setting (time)  · The main action of the story is set around 500 a.d.; the narrative also recounts historical events that happened much earlier.

setting (place)  · Denmark and Geatland (a region in what is now southern Sweden)

protagonist  · Beowulf

major conflict  · The poem essentially consists of three parts. There are three central conflicts: Grendel’s domination of Heorot Hall; the vengeance of Grendel’s mother after Grendel is slain; and the rage of the dragon after a thief steals a treasure that it has been guarding. The poem’s overarching conflict is between close-knit warrior societies and the various menaces that threaten their boundaries.

rising action  · Grendel’s attack on Heorot, Beowulf’s defeat of Grendel, and Grendel’s mother’s vengeful killing of Aeschere lead to the climactic encounter between Beowulf and Grendel’s mother.

climax  · Beowulf’s encounter with Grendel’s mother constitutes the moment at which good and evil are in greatest tension.

falling action  · Beowulf’s glorious victory over Grendel’s mother leads King Hrothgar to praise him as a worthy hero and to advise him about becoming king. It also helps Beowulf to transform from a brazen warrior into a reliable king.

themes  · The importance of establishing identity; tensions between the heroic code and other value systems; the difference between a good warrior and a good king

motifs  · Monsters; the oral tradition; the mead-hall

symbols  · The golden torque; the banquet

foreshadowing  · The funeral of Shield Sheafson, with which the poem opens, foreshadows Beowulf’s funeral at the poem’s end; the story of Sigemund told by the scop, or bard, foreshadows Beowulf’s fight with the dragon; the story of King Heremod foreshadows Beowulf’s eventual ascendancy to kingship.

If you are up for reading the poem:

Gutenberg Project

If you want an entertaining analysis:

Shmoop

If you want to skip Beowulf and go to The Iliad and The Odyssey

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09 Apr 2013
2 Comments

NPM FAQ


We are going into our second week of poetry celebration and some of you might not be aware of the why, hows, and whats of National Poetry Month.  And because I didn’t know much about its background I looked it up and thought y’all might like some elucidation on the matter. For even more information I suggest the site (from whence I borrowed these).

National Poetry Month Frequently Asked Questions or NPM FAQ:

  • What is National Poetry Month? National Poetry Month is a month-long, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets. The concept is to widen the attention of individuals and the media—to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern. We hope to increase the visibility and availability of poetry in popular culture while acknowledging and celebrating poetry’s ability to sustain itself in the many places where it is practiced and appreciated.
  • Who started it? The Academy of American Poets has led this initiative from its inception in 1996 and along the way has enlisted a variety of government agencies and officials, educational leaders, publishers, sponsors, poets, and arts organizations to help.
  • When is National Poetry Month? April. Every year since 1996.
  • Why was April chosen for National Poetry Month? In coordination with poets, booksellers, librarians, and teachers, the Academy chose a month when poetry could be celebrated with the highest level of participation. Inspired by the successful celebrations of Black History Month (February) and Women’s History Month (March), and on the advice of teachers and librarians, April seemed the best time within the year to turn attention toward the art of poetry—in an ultimate effort to encourage poetry readership year-round. <!—-T. S. Eliot wrote, “April is the cruelest month.” It is our hope that National Poetry Month lessens that effect.On a lighter note, Chaucer wrote:

    Whan that April with his showres soote The droughte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veine in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flowr

    Finally, Edna St. Vincent Millay asked, “To what purpose, April, do you return again?” For National Poetry Month, of course!—>

  • What are the goals of National Poetry Month? The goals of National Poetry Month are to:
    • Highlight the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets
    • Introduce more Americans to the pleasures of reading poetry
    • Bring poets and poetry to the public in immediate and innovative ways
    • Make poetry a more important part of the school curriculum
    • Increase the attention paid to poetry by national and local media
    • Encourage increased publication, distribution, and sales of poetry books
    • Increase public and private philanthropic support for poets and poetry
  • Shouldn’t we celebrate poetry all year round, not just in April? By all means, yes! We encourage the year-round, life-long reading of poetry. National Poetry Month is just one of the many programs of the Academy of American Poets. To keep the celebration going, consider becoming a member of the Academy and receive special benefits and privileges year round. You can also subscribe to receive daily poems by email for free, all year long.
  • How does the Academy celebrate National Poetry Month?
    • Posters: Each year the Academy creates and distributes nearly 200,000 official NPM posters, which are mailed for free to teachers, librarians, and booksellers nationwide.
    • Events: The Academy presents several special events and readings in April, including our star-studded annual Poetry & The Creative Mind.
    • Publicity: To ensure that poetry gains national attention in the media each April, the Academy sends press releases to editors and journalists across the country. As a result, thousands of articles about poetry appear in newspapers, magazines, and online media outlets. The Academy also acts as the official clearing house for news and information about National Poetry Month.
    • Inspiration & Guidance: The Academy offers a plethora of practical resources for celebrating NPM, including tips for teaching poetry during April, creating a poetry book display in your bookstore or library, presenting a poetry reading or contest, and much more.

I feel much more informed having read through all of these.  Frankly, I though April was chosen to offset the sting of taxes and because April is when spring begins to do its thing more clearly. Goes to show, how much I didn’t know. Can’t stop rhymanizing my sentences–must have to do with all the poetrizing I’m doing these last few days.

Happy National Poetry Month!

(not)

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08 Apr 2013
3 Comments

Oh, the Magnetism of Poetry


Sometimes I lament that our library moved from its dilapidated and inadequate former bank building because it contained some quirky and cool things. For instance, part of the children’s section was located in the old vault–no kidding. Another interesting aspect to the building were the support beams and posts placed hither and thither, which made for shelving dilemmas. The posts placed so right there in the middle of everything begged for decoration.  One clever use of post availability were cookie sheets of word magnets.  Great fun in creating poems and stories by sliding and arranging these words about.

I created my own set of word magnets by cutting out words from magazine ads and gluing them on to strip magnets found in craft stores.  The progeny and their friends reveled in creating messages.  I’m tempted to do something along the lines with my students, yet I harbor concerns of inappropriate arrangements no matter how urbane the word selection might be.

For fun I found a site that provides the pleasure of refrigerator verse arrangements:

Refrigerator Poetry Play

Here is some inspiration in the mean time:

Image: tumblr.com

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07 Apr 2013
17 Comments

Coming to Terms with Poetry


education

education (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

They say the best education we receive is that learned while teaching.  I found this to be especially true for poetry fundamentals.

I don’t recall studying poetry in jr. high English, unless studying Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” counts.  As for high school, I remember short stories, yet nothing on the poetry radar comes up for remembrance. College yes, ohmagoodness, poetry aplenty. I do recall a cacophony of emotions as I partook in the banquet of poets found in my Norton Reader. I transversed from embarrassment to  gratitude as I feasted on William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Plath and others I had not known existed.  Why, oh why, did I feel the compunction to resell my Norton at the campus bookstore?  College students out there?  Think twice before reselling your textbooks.  All those annotations and well-visited markings really do become appreciated some day.

norton reader

norton reader (Photo credit: cdrummbks)

These days I’m teaching to Common Core Standards and have come to terms with poetry.  They are an absolute on the schedule of attained knowledge.  I also have my AP crowd to cater.  Although I have over 200 literary terms we learn over the course of  the year in AP, I start out my ninth graders with double dozen or so.  How many do you know or remember?

  1. accent: emphasis or stress given a syllable or a particular word.
  2. alliteration: the reiterated initial consonants in prose or poetry.
  3. anaphora: repetition of an opening word or phrase in a series of lines.
  4. assonance:  the repetition of two or more vowel sounds in successive words, creating a type of rhyme.
  5. ballad: a song which tells a story; also be a poem with songlike qualities which tells a story.
  6. blank verse: the most common meter of unrhymed poetry in English; it lacks stanza form and rhyme.
  7. caesura: a pause within the line of verse.
  8. conceit: a fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or an analogy that usually displays intellectual cleverness due to the unusual comparison being made.
  9. consonance: a close similarity between consonants or groups of consonants, especially at the ends of words, e.g. between “strong” and “ring.”
  10. couplet: two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme, and often have the same meter
  11. diction: the selection of words in a particular literary work, or the language appropriate for a particular (usually poetic) work.
  12. doggerel: crude verse that contains clichés, predictable rhyme, and inept meter and rhythm.
  13. elegy: a poem which mourns the death of someone.
  14. enjambment: when one verse runs into another verse
  15. epic: a long narrative poem on a serious subject, usually centered on a heroic or supernatural person.
  16. epigram: a short poem, which can be comical.
  17. figurative language: language which goes beyond what is denoted (see denotation), and has a suggestive effect on the reader; a figure of speech is part of figurative language.
  18. free verse: poetry which lacks a regular stress pattern and regular line lengths (and which may also be lacking in rhyme). Free verse should not be confused with blank verse
  19. haiku: Japanese form of poetry of seventeen syllables with three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables
  20. heroic couplet: a couplet with iambic pentameter
  21. iamb: a metrical foot of one short or unstressed syllable followed by one long or stressed syllable.
  22. imagery: often taken as a synonym for figurative language, but the term may also refer to the ‘mental pictures’ which the reader experiences in his/her response to literary works or other texts.
  23. kitsch: sentimentality, tastelessness, or ostentation in any of the arts.
  24. limerick: a five line humorous poem involving a fixed aabba rhyme scheme
  25. lyric: a short non-narrative poem that has a solitary speaker, and that usually expresses a particular feeling, mood, or thought.
  26. metaphor: a direct comparison–it does not use “like,” “as,” or “than.” In literature it is a figurative statement asserting one thing is something that it is not.
  27. meter: the recurrence of a similar stress pattern in some or all lines of a poem.
  28. ode: a relatively lengthy lyric poem, usually expressing exalted emotion in a complex scheme of rhyme and meter.
  29. onomatopoeia: a word or expression which resembles the sound which it represents, like the meow of a cat or the quack of a duck.
  30. pastoral: usually written by an urban poet who idealizes the shepherds’ lives. The term has now been extended to include any literary work which views and idealizes the simple life from the perspective of a more complex life.
  31. prosody: the rhythm of spoken language, including stress and intonation, or the study of these patterns
  32. repetition: the duplication of any element of language such as a sound, word, phrase, sentence, or grammatical pattern.
  33. rhyme: the identity of the sounds of the final syllables (usually stressed) of certain proximate lines of a poem.
  34. scan: to assign stress patterns to a poem.
  35. simile: a figure of speech that draws a comparison between two different things, especially a phrase containing the word “like” or “as,” e.g. “as white as a sheet.”
  36. symbol: a person, place, thing, or event that stands both for itself and for something beyond itself.
  37. syntax: how an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences; similar to diction which is focused on individual words, yet syntax is concerned with groups of words.
  38. theme:  the central idea or insight about human life revealed within the work.
  39. tone: the attitude, as it is revealed in the language of a literary work, of a personage, narrator or author, towards the other personages in the work or towards the reader.
  40. voice: the writer’s distinctive use of language, which is created through the use of a writer’s tone and diction.

 Okay, there is about a triple dozen and a dose for good measure here. Some terms crossover into prose which is why we start off with poetry before short stories. We’ve found our students grasp analyzing smaller chunks of literary concepts and then retain those terms and skills for the longer works.

So, how did you do?  I didn’t include the various types of poems in this set.  Stay tuned…

Happy Poetry Month

Poetry

Poetry (Photo credit: Kimli)

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05 Apr 2013
7 Comments

American Rhyme and Reason


Walt Whitman's use of free verse became apprec...

Walt Whitman’s use of free verse became appreciated by composers seeking a more fluid approach to setting text. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In researching  material for upcoming National Poetry Month posts I came across an article which got me thinking on a couple of different levels.

First of all, how is it possible to narrow the immense possibilities to ten?

Secondly, the article is written from a British standpoint–is that observation, compliment, or review?

After perusing the list I find myself nodding to a couple of the choices, being perplexed at a one or two, and adding the others to my “must read.”

What are your votes and opinions?  Would you name these as “The 10 best American poems”? (click on “article” and read the reason and rhyme of each mentioned)

1.  “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

2.  “The Idea of Order at Key West” by Wallace Stevens

3.  “Because I could not stop for death” by Emily Dickinson

4. “Directive” by Robert Frost

5. “Middle Passage” by Robert Hayden

6. “The Dry Salvages” by T.S. Eliot

7. “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop

8. “To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Ann Bradstreet

9. “Memories of West Street and Lepke” by Robert Lowell

10.  “And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name” by John Ashberry

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03 Apr 2013
2 Comments

Poem Delivery Service


http://www.poets.org/poemADay.php

Wading through countless updates, newsletters, and ads can be annoying, if not time consuing.  Yet I signed up for one more inbox filler, and I am finding it not a nuisance, rather it’s a shot of morning freshness: I signed up for Poets.org Poem-A-Day. Granted it’s only my third day; however, it makes me stop and reflect on the power of verse, plus I get to discover new poets. 

During the week it’s contemporary and the weekends it’s classics. Definitely a perfect blend. So click on the opening link and wake up to the fragrance of verse delivered fresh daily.

Happy Poetry Month!

 

 

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03 Apr 2013
4 Comments

Take Your Next Poem to Lunch


poetry

Silently mulling over the words, she reflected in her repose as she drank deeply of the healing verse before her….

Stop–cut–

Really, poetry doesn’t have to be all artsy, angsty to be enjoyed. The reflective part is okay, but honestly, poetry can be much more rewarding as an outward expression through sharing. During Poetry Month try some of these verse interactivities:

1.  Randomly leave a poem around the office or break room.

2.  Pack poems in your lunch for at least a week–you know, a read ’em and eat kind of thing

3. Sign off your signature with a line from a favorite poem

4. Use a poem for a bookmark

5. Memorize a poem–one you don’t know (Robert Frost won’t mind this time)

6. Read up about a poet–most have led amazing lives

7.Watch a movie with poems–I suggest Dead Poets Society

8. Chalk poems on the sidewalk

9. Attach a poem to a balloon and release it

10. Revisit a poem–has it changed in meaning for you?

Posted in celebrations, creativity, Poetry, Reading, Uncategorized, writers and tagged , , ,
02 Apr 2013
6 Comments

Frost Covered Spring


Robert Frost. My first meaningful encounter with poetry occurred in fifth grade when Mr. C (still my favorite teacher) had us memorize “Stopping By Woods” and then we chalked our impressions of the poem onto dark blue construction paper. These were then pinned all around the classroom as the border above the chalkboard. As I teach this poem to my students I learn more and more from it. Frost does that with his poetry. It appears so deceptively simple at first and then there is a realization of its depth. It can be almost embarrassing at times once the analytical epiphany hits.

But I can’t imagine Frost laughing at my denseness–no, he would probably only chuckle. I imagine he might even be amused at the fuss we make analyzing his commentaries on birches, walls, and the snowy woods.

Frost is one of my faves and thought it very appropriate to feature him first among the many poets I hope to spotlight this month.

Here are a smattering of favorite poems:
“Mending Walls”
“Acquainted With The Night”
“The Road Not Taken”
“Fire and Ice”
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

What are your favorite Frost verses? For some reason whenever spring arrives I tend to think of Robert Frost. Maybe this is fitting–a bit of Frost helps us appreciate the warmth of spring. I think he realized that as well.

Happy Poetry Month!

20130401-215741.jpg

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