DEFINITION

Poetry

DEFINITION po'em, n. [Fr. poeme; L. poema; Gr. poiema, anything made, a poem, from poiein, to make 1. an arrangement of words in verse, especially a rhythmical composition, sometimes rhymed, expressing fact, ideas, or emotions in a style more concentrated, imaginative, and powerful than that of ordinary speech: some poems are in meter, some in free verse. 2. a composition, whether in verse or prose, having beauty of thought or language.

POETIC LICENSE	TERMS
1. archaism - use of archaic words	Metaphor - comparison of two unlike things
2. neologism - coined word ( onomatopoeia, sound resembling what it is describing)	Simile - comparison of two unlike things using like or as.
3. word order - other than normal speech	Rhyme scheme - order in which rimed words occur ( a,b,a,b)
4. poetic diction - typical of poetry ( e'er, o'er, ...)	Sonnet - 14 line poem

POETRY READING PROCESS

1. Read poem once straight through ... don’t dwell on difficult passages.

2. Read for exact sense of all the words ... use dictionary. Journal definitions and paraphrasing. For long or epic poetry, journal at increments of about one page.

3. Read the poem aloud or hear someone else read it.

4. Paraphrase the poem. Remember ... journal definitions and paraphrasing. For long or epic poetry, journal at increments of about one page.

5. Determine the theme and subject of the poem.

6. Identify the metaphor and simile in the poem.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE - 1892

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

PARAPHRASE

I’m going to get up now, go to Innisfree, build a cabin, plant beans, keep bees, and live peacefully by myself amid nature and beautiful light. I want to, because I can't forget the sound of that lake water. When I'm in the city, a gray and dingy place, I seem to hear it deep inside me.

D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)	*William Shakespeare* ( 1564-1616), From The Sonnets
PIANO - 1918	SONNET 18
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;	Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see	Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings	Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.	And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song	Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong	And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside	And every fair from fair sometime declines,
And hymns in the cozy parlor, the tinkling piano our guide.	By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed:
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor	But thy eternal summer shall not fade
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamor	Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast	Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.	When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.
	So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
	So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

*John Lennon* (1940-1980) *Paul McCartney* (b. 1942)	*Langston Hughes* (1902-1967)
ELEANOR RIGBY	THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS
Ah, look at all the lonely people! Ah, look at all the lonely people!	I've known rivers:
Eleanor Rigby ... Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,	I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
Lives in a dream, ... Waits at the window	My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door. Who is it for?	I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
All the lonely people, Where do they all come from?	I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
All the lonely people, Where do they all belong?	I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
Father McKenzie, ...Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear, ... No one comes near.	I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New
Look at him working, ... Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there. What does he care?	Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
All the lonely people, Where do they all come from?	I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers.
All the lonely people, Where do they all belong?	My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Eleanor Rigby ... Died in the church and was buried along with her name. Nobody came.
Father McKenzie, Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave, No one was saved.
All the lonely people, Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, Where do they all belong?
Ah, look at all the1onely people! Ah, look at all the lonely people!

*Alfred Lord Tennyson* (1809-1892)	*Edgar Allen Poe* (1809 - 1849)
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (First three verses)	THE BELLS - 1849 (First verse only)
Half a league half a league, Half a league onward,	Hear the sledges with the bells - Silver bells!
All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred:	What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
'Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns' he said:	How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night!
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.	While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight;
	Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme,
'Forward, the Light Brigade!' ... Was there a man dismay'd ?	To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells -
Not tho' the soldier knew Some one had blunder'd:	From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them ... Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell ... Rode the six hundred.

Robert Frost (1874-1963)	*George Gordon, Lord Byron* (1788-1824)
STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING	SO WE'LL GO NO MORE A-ROVING
Whose woods these are I think I know, His house is in the village though;	So we'll go no more a-roving So late into the night,
He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.	Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.
My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near	For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast,
Between the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.	And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest.
He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake.	Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon,
The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.	Yet we'll go no more a-roving By the light of the moon.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

*W. H. Auden* (1907-1973)	*Larry Sunderland* (1942-still kicking)
EPITAPH ON A TYRANT	MOORINGS
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,	I look for love and seem to be
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;	Free to choose like a ship at sea
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,	Would find its port lest both we failed
nd was greatly interested in armies and fleets;	To free our moorings and never really sailed.
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

*Dylan Thomas* (1914-1953)	*Robert Burns* ( 1759-1796)
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT	A RED, RED ROSE
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day;	0 my luve's like a red, red rose,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right,	That's newly sprung in June;
Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.	0 my luve's like the melodie
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,	That's sweetly played in tune.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,	As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.	So deep in luve am I;
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,	And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height,	Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray, Do not go gentle into that good night.	Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.	And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
	I will love thee still, my dear,
	While the sands o' life shall run.
	And fare thee weel, my only luve,
	And fare thee weel awhile !
	And I will come again, my luve,
	Though it were ten thousand mile.