Open and closed form poetry

Journal Set Two

Be sure to read the main journal handout. Choose any three prompts, but please pick only one from any group.

Make sure you include line numbers, and use MLA citation. Write a works cited entry at the end of each entry.

For all of the poetry questions, be sure to discuss the technical aspects of the work.

Pick only ONE from this group

· Why does Bishop let “The Fish” go? Explore how the poem builds to this moment.

· The introduction about Roethke suggests that the speaker’s attitude in “My Papa’s Waltz” is hard to nail down. What do you think is the attitude toward the father? How do you know?

· How does the second stanza of Margaret Atwood’s “You Fit into Me” subvert the reader’s expectations established in the first two lines of the poem?

· Discuss how alliteration and line breaks add to the meaning in “We Real Cool.” What does the poem indicate that the pool players value? How is this problematic?

· How does rhyme (including internal rhyme) help build rhythm in “The Raven,” and what effect does it create? Try reading a section aloud – or find a recording and listen carefully.

Pick only ONE from this group

· Find an example of a sestina or a villanelle in the textbook -- other than the ones mentioned in the closed form handout. Mark the poem up and indicate the features that led you to identify it as a villanelle or sestina. Discuss how the form affects and effects the meaning.

· Go to this page: http://cheezburger.com/3535877/all-your-favorite-pop-songs-re-imagined-as-sonnets and select one pop song sonnet. Discuss how effective the changes are, and whether the sonnet form is truly followed. Remember there are several forms of sonnet!

· Why does understanding poetic form matter?

· Robert Frost argued that free verse (open form poetry) is like “playing tennis without a net.” Discuss.

· Go to this article. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70144/learning-the-poetic-line Read it carefully, and then select either exercise 1 or 2 and complete the exercise.

· Find examples of the following figures of speech in a poem. Start with our poetry text, but if you get stuck you may use Google or the search feature at The Poetry Foundation site. Type or paste the examples in under each label. Include the title of the poem and the poet and quote enough of the poem to show the example in context. For each one, discuss briefly what it adds to the overall meaning of the poem.

· Simile or Metaphor -- be sure to specify which you found!

· Synecdoche or Metonymy -- be sure to specify which you found!

· Hyperbole or Litotes -- be sure to specify which you found!

· Oxymoron or Paradox -- be sure to specify which you found!

· Pathetic Fallacy or personification -- be sure to specify which you found!

Pick only ONE from this group

· Compare and contrast the three performances of sonnet 130 (Radcliffe, Rickman, and Hiddleston), and consider how their performance choices tie to the meaning.

· Select any closed form poem in the book and record yourself reading it aloud. Mark it up to help you. Discuss why you chose that poem and the choices you made about how to read it. Include your notes and discussion.

· Select any free verse poem in the book, and record yourself reading it aloud. Mark it up to help you. Discuss why you chose that poem and the choices you made about how to read it. Include your notes and discussion.

· We listened to Bishop and Frost read their own poems. Find a reading of any of the poems in the book being read by the author. Include a link. Discuss how hearing it read by the author influences your understanding / interpretation of the poem.

Pick only ONE from this group

Select any of the Frost poems, and answer the related question.

· Why does the speaker in “Mending Wall” find it important to know “What I was walling in or walling out, / And to whom I was like to give offense” (33–34)?

· Line 16 in “The Road Not Taken” states, “I shall be telling this with a sigh.” What kind of sigh is this? Pensive, regretful, nostalgic? How do you know?

· What do the birches represent in “Birches” Why does the speaker note, “I don’t know where it’s likely to go better” (53)?

· Paraphrase the narrative in “Stopping by the Woods.” Why does the speaker stop?

· How does this Frost’s poem “Design” follow the sonnet convention of having a twist in the final two lines? What is Frost saying in this ending couplet?

· What are the thematic implications of these lines: “For I have had too much / Of apple- picking: I am overtired / Of the great harvest I myself desired” (27–29)?

Pick only ONE from this group

· Compare and contrast Barrett-Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?” with the Shakespeare sonnet of your choice.

· Compare and contrast Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty” with either Campion’s “There is A Garden in Her Face” OR Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130.

· Compare the catalog / description of body parts in “There is a Garden” with that of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130

· Write a literal paraphrase of “There is a Garden.” For example, “orient pear a double row” (line 8) becomes “teeth.” What is the cumulative effect of the extended metaphor, and how does the poem change when the metaphors are removed?

Pick only ONE from this group

· Compare and contrast Trifles and A Doll House. I suggest you use the interaction between men and women, but even within that you will need to narrow down your focus.

· How does Act I establish the motif of Nora as a doll? Consider, for example, the pet names, but also her relationship to Mrs. Linde.

· What does the tarantella come to symbolize about Nora? About her and Helmer’s relationship? Do some research into the tarantella; what kind of dance is it, and what it traditionally represents.

· Nora’s last line is that she wishes “our living together could be a true marriage” (244). Cite examples from throughout the play that suggest what Nora’s definition of a “true marriage” would look like.

· What does each of the main characters in A Doll House believe is the definition of “responsibilities” and “appearances”? How much of the play hinges on the definition of these terms in Ibsen’s day, and how much can be seen in more universal terms?

· What does the cold symbolize in Trifles? Why is it significant, then, that Mrs. Peters’s first line is “I’m not— cold” (247)?

· How does Glaspell clearly separate the men from the women, both in physical blocking and in interpretation of the crime scene and its events? Why are these gender distinctions thematically important?

· Why is it significant to meaning in Trifles that certain key symbols— the fruit preserves, the quilt, and the bird-cage— are interpreted quite differently by each of the two genders?

· What is the climax of Trifles? Is it the discovery of the bird-cage or the bird, the women’s decision to cover up the evidence, or someplace else?