Poetry Lesson Plan

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Harlem Renaissance

Day 1

"the Internet's hunger for content in the form of first-person narrative--highly condensed, written in an oblique yet evocative style, anchored in feeling, and built on a fiction of intimacy between authors and their audiences--has surely affected how we evaluate poems.

It is, after all, these same qualities--condensation, obliquity, an emphasis on affect, a posture of confiding--that define the poetry generally called "lyric." Lyric poetry is what most people think of when they think of poetry, if they think about it at all. It's poetry that allows the reader into the private consciousness of another person, often the poet herself. When it's not being put to pragmatic uses like political organizing or information sharing, social media is an intensely lyrical genre."

Nersessian, Anahid. "Transmissions from Another World." Review of Vexations by Annelyse Gelman and Grand Tour by Elisa Gonzalez, New York Review of Books, 18 January 2024, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/01/18/transmissions-from-another-world-annelyse-gelman-elisa-gonzalez/, 3 January 2024.

"Another feature of the language of books involves a beginning understanding of what might be called 'literacy devices,' such as figurative language, particularly metaphor and simile. Consider these similes from the example above: "cheeks like rose petals, and hair like golden silk." Such phrases are both linguistically lovely and cognitively demanding. Children are being asked to compare "cheeks" to "rose petals" and "hair" to "silk." In the process, they are gaining not only vocabulary skills, but also practice in the cognitively complex use of analogy.  Analogical skills represent an extremely important, largely invisible aspect of intellectual development at every age" (Wolf 89) 


Jennette Winterson: "When people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn't be read at school because it is irrelevant," she says, "I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language" and that is what poetry is."

The other thing a working-class kid learns about the life of the mind, she says, is this: "Whatever is on the outside can be taken away at any time. Only what is inside you is safe."

Focus: situation of the poem, metaphor (the power of suggesting instead of saying);, words (connotation)

Focus on three thing today:

1. The situation of the poem

Instead of diving in and trying to figure out hidden meanings, look at the poem as a whole. Who's speaking? Who are they speaking to? What's happening (literally) in the poem? Look, especially, at pronouns: who or what is the he/she/it? Just as in fiction, pay attention to the date to gain an understanding of what might be been occurring at the time and to understand the values and attitudes of the period.

2 Metaphor

As in short stories, poets often say instead of suggest. Why? probably because it's fun to figure out what the writer is getting at. That's why poets play with both the literal and figurative meaning of words -- words as play doh that can be stretched and pulled into different shapes.

3 Words

In particular, pay attention to connotative meanings of words -- what do you associated with, for example, a knife? A fork? A table? These associations often create meaning.

Back to #1 though: keep in mind that you shouldn't jump to "reading between the lines." Instead, actually read the lines and figure out -- literally -- what the speaker is saying before jumping to figurative meanings.

"Head, Heart"

"Divorce"

"Those Winter Sundays"

"Richard Cory"

Emily Dickinson

It dropped so low -- in my Regard --
I heard it hit the Ground --
And go to pieces on the Stones
At bottom of my Mind --

Yet blamed the Fate that flung it -- less
Than I reviled Myself,
For entertaining Plated Wares
Upon my Silver Shelf --

 About 1863

 

Day 2

"For every thinking person each verse of each poet will show a new and different face every few years, will awaken a different resonance in him. . . . The great and mysterious thing about this sensitively, and the more sensitively, and the more associatively we learn to read, the more clearly we see every thought and every poem in its uniqueness, its individuality, in its precise limitations"  Hermann Hesse

"The Lamb"

"The Tyger"

Given these two poems, which seems to rule? The Lamb or the Tyger?

 

Day 3

"Turning something as common as language into a puzzle makes the familiar feel strange; it makes the language we take for granted feel fresh and exciting again, like an old friend who just revealed a long-held secret." Adam Bradely in a review of Jay-Z's Decoded

"Poetry is often regarded as a mystery, and in some respects it is one. No one is quite sure where poetry comes from, no one is quite sure exactly what it is, and no one knows, really, how anyone is able to write it."
Kenneth Koch from "The Language of Poetry"

"Four Word Lines"

"Once In a While, a Protest Poem"

 

! paraphrase to see what's lost (585-586)

 

"Castoff Skin" (685);

Blake

 

"My Last Duchess"

"Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" 654

ceinture: sash

 

"The vividness of the imagination in the dullness of a pallid reality Ronald Sukenick

"Only the drunkard, the irrational [Stevens once wrote that "Poetry must be irrational] man, who is in touch with the unconscious -- represented here, and often elsewhere, by the sea -- can awake his own passionate nature until his blood is mirrored by the very weather." Edward Kessler.

According to the information presented in these poems, what are some of the ways society typically views masculinity?

Are the poets agreeing with, or criticizing the prevailing views of masculinity? How can you tell?

"Facts" (765)

1.What's the father's world view?
2.Is the speaker being ironic? Does he seem to agree with his father's view of life?
3.Does he cry at his father's funeral?
4.Theme of this poem?

"First Practice" (785)

1.Why does the poet open with an image of a doctor feeling the scrotum of each of the players? How is this symbolic of manhood? Of the military?
2.What military language/imagery is included in this poem? Why?
3.What was the speaker's attitude toward this event when it occurred? What is his attitude now? How can you tell?

"Rites of Passage" (612)

"The Fish"

"A Mongoloid Child Handling Shells on the Beach" (655)

Theme: There is a quiet beauty to a Down's Syndrome child, similar to those of sea shells, and of the sea itself. This beauty speaks of the depths of emotion and insight that go unseen and unheard, like the leveling effect of the sea itself.

"Peeling an Orange"

Harlem Renaissance

Focus today: Historical context; Maps (!!!) as guide to a poem; looking up words

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"

https://www.americanrivers.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/map-mississippi-river.png

http://www.lagenweb.org/stjohn/Maps/1858SJBlandowners.jpg

"I, Too"

The power of a small word: look up "am." 

Maggie Jones "North Bound Blues"

Got my trunk and grip all packed
Goodbye, I ain't coming back
Going to leave this Jim Crow town
Lord, sweet pape, New York bound

Got my ticket in my hand
And I'm leaving dixieland

Going north child, where I can be free
Going north child, where I can be free
Where there's no hardships, like in Tennessee

Going where they don't have Jim Crow laws
Going where they don't have Jim Crow laws
Don't have to work there, like in Arkansas

When I cross the Mason Dixon Line
When I cross the Mason Dixon Line
Goodbye old gal, yon mama's gonna fly

Going to daddy, got no time to lose
Going to daddy, got no time to lose
I'll be alone, can't hear my northbound blues