Saturday, April 29, 2017
Video of Hope is a Thing with Feathers (see if you can see Julia!)
This song is very catchy and it might help you memorize part of this poem:
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
More Emily Dickinson poems
I taste a liquor never brewed (214)
I taste a liquor never brewed – From Tankards scooped in Pearl – Not all the Frankfort Berries Yield such an Alcohol! Inebriate of air – am I – And Debauchee of Dew – Reeling – thro’ endless summer days – From inns of molten Blue – When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee Out of the Foxglove’s door – When Butterflies – renounce their “drams” – I shall but drink the more! Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats – And Saints – to windows run – To see the little Tippler Leaning against the – Sun!
I’m Nobody! Who are you? (260)
I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one’s name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog!Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263)Related Poem Content Details
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —Success in Circuit liesToo bright for our infirm DelightThe Truth's superb surpriseAs Lightning to the Children easedWith explanation kindThe Truth must dazzle graduallyOr every man be blind —A Bird, came down the Walk - (359)Related Poem Content Details
A Bird, came down the Walk -He did not know I saw -He bit an Angle Worm in halvesAnd ate the fellow, raw,And then, he drank a DewFrom a convenient Grass -And then hopped sidewise to the WallTo let a Beetle pass -He glanced with rapid eyes,That hurried all abroad -They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,He stirred his Velvet Head. -Like one in danger, Cautious,I offered him a Crumb,And he unrolled his feathers,And rowed him softer Home -Than Oars divide the Ocean,Too silver for a seam,Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,Leap, plashless as they swim.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Emily Dickinson
Here is a link to a biography of Emily Dickinson:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/emily-dickinson
You may also wish to read some of the critical analysis essays about this poet, some contained on the above website (www.poetryfoundation.org) or others that you can find on other sites.
One good link is: https://emilydickinsonmuseum.org/poetry_characteristics
ANother that might be good is: http://www.emilydickinsonpoems.org/
Many of Emily Dickinson's poems can also be found as audio files, read by others, so if you are interested in listening to them read aloud, search for the audio versions. Her poetry has often been adapted into songs as well, and they may be easier to memorize as songs, so we can find some of those versions as well.
Here are the first three poems we will look at by this poet:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/emily-dickinson
You may also wish to read some of the critical analysis essays about this poet, some contained on the above website (www.poetryfoundation.org) or others that you can find on other sites.
One good link is: https://emilydickinsonmuseum.org/poetry_characteristics
ANother that might be good is: http://www.emilydickinsonpoems.org/
Many of Emily Dickinson's poems can also be found as audio files, read by others, so if you are interested in listening to them read aloud, search for the audio versions. Her poetry has often been adapted into songs as well, and they may be easier to memorize as songs, so we can find some of those versions as well.
Here are the first three poems we will look at by this poet:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
Related Poem Content Details
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Related Poem Content Details
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides -
You may have met him? Did you not
His notice instant is -
The Grass divides as with a Comb,
A spotted Shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your Feet
And opens further on -
He likes a Boggy Acre -
A Floor too cool for Corn -
But when a Boy and Barefoot
I more than once at Noon
Have passed I thought a Whip Lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled And was gone -
Several of Nature’s People
I know, and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality
But never met this Fellow
Attended or alone
Without a tighter Breathing
And Zero at the Bone.
I dwell in Possibility –
Related Poem Content Details
I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –
Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
Friday, April 21, 2017
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Sample Questions for Poetry Analysis Blog Posts 1 and 2
Answer one question. Refer closely to the works of ONE poet .
1. Ancestors, parents, children. The connections and oppositions among these groups often provide interesting material for poets. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, examine the means by which such relationships have been explored.
2. Poets often include in their poems places that evoke strong emotion. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, show how settings in poems have been connected to the presentation of feelings.
3. There are many strategies by which poets increase the effect of their words and one of those is the repetition of words, images, sounds and the like. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, show how various kinds of repetition have allowed poets to heighten their meaning.
4. A famous classical poet has said that the aim of literature is ‘to teach and to delight’. In the work ONE poet you have studied, examine some poems where both of these aims (instruction and something that pleases the reader) have been included, and show how that has been achieved.
5. Words said to or by another person are often included in poems. In ONE poem you have studied, show how quoting words spoken by others or the inclusion of lines of dialogue have been used by poets to add impact to their work.
6. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, consider how they have constructed their materials and their attitudes to remind us that we live in a global village where mutual respect is of utmost importance.
1. Ancestors, parents, children. The connections and oppositions among these groups often provide interesting material for poets. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, examine the means by which such relationships have been explored.
2. Poets often include in their poems places that evoke strong emotion. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, show how settings in poems have been connected to the presentation of feelings.
3. There are many strategies by which poets increase the effect of their words and one of those is the repetition of words, images, sounds and the like. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, show how various kinds of repetition have allowed poets to heighten their meaning.
4. A famous classical poet has said that the aim of literature is ‘to teach and to delight’. In the work ONE poet you have studied, examine some poems where both of these aims (instruction and something that pleases the reader) have been included, and show how that has been achieved.
5. Words said to or by another person are often included in poems. In ONE poem you have studied, show how quoting words spoken by others or the inclusion of lines of dialogue have been used by poets to add impact to their work.
6. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, consider how they have constructed their materials and their attitudes to remind us that we live in a global village where mutual respect is of utmost importance.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Poem Set #2
Here is a quote from Naomi Shihab Nye:
“Why should it be a surprise that people find solace in literature? Literature slows us down, cherishes small details.…We need literature for nourishment and noticing, for the way language and imagery reach comfortably into experience, holding and connecting it to ourselves.”
Also, if you haven't read the letter that she wrote after 9/11, you should. It's on the portal. And if you don't know much about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, you might want to do some research. A lot of Nye's poetry deals with her identity as a Palestinian- American and her experience navigating two cultures. But her poetry also delves into her cultural and family heritage and the experience of people living in Palestine.
Here are two more poems:
Also, if you haven't read the letter that she wrote after 9/11, you should. It's on the portal. And if you don't know much about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, you might want to do some research. A lot of Nye's poetry deals with her identity as a Palestinian- American and her experience navigating two cultures. But her poetry also delves into her cultural and family heritage and the experience of people living in Palestine.
Here are two more poems:
Arabic Coffee
It was never too strong for us:
make it blacker, Papa,
thick in the bottom,
tell again how the years will gather
in small white cups,
how luck lives in a spot of grounds.
Leaning over the stove, he let it
boil to the top, and down again.
Two times. No sugar in his pot.
And the place where men and women
break off from one another
was not present in that room.
The hundred disappointments,
fire swallowing olive-wood beads
at the warehouse, and the dreams
tucked like pocket handkerchiefs
into each day, took their places
on the table, near the half-empty
dish of corn. And none was
more important than the others,
and all were guests. When
he carried the tray into the room,
high and balanced in his hands,
it was an offering to all of them,
stay, be seated, follow the talk
wherever it goes. The coffee was
the center of the flower.
Like clothes on a line saying
you will live long enough to wear me,
a motion of faith. There is this,
and there is more.
make it blacker, Papa,
thick in the bottom,
tell again how the years will gather
in small white cups,
how luck lives in a spot of grounds.
Leaning over the stove, he let it
boil to the top, and down again.
Two times. No sugar in his pot.
And the place where men and women
break off from one another
was not present in that room.
The hundred disappointments,
fire swallowing olive-wood beads
at the warehouse, and the dreams
tucked like pocket handkerchiefs
into each day, took their places
on the table, near the half-empty
dish of corn. And none was
more important than the others,
and all were guests. When
he carried the tray into the room,
high and balanced in his hands,
it was an offering to all of them,
stay, be seated, follow the talk
wherever it goes. The coffee was
the center of the flower.
Like clothes on a line saying
you will live long enough to wear me,
a motion of faith. There is this,
and there is more.
My Grandmother in the Stars
It is possible we will not meet again
on earth. To think this fills my throat
with dust. Then there is only the sky
tying the universe together.
Just now the neighbor’s horse must be standing
patiently, hoof on stone, waiting for his day
to open. What you think of him,
and the village’s one heroic cow,
is the knowledge I wish to gather.
I bow to your rugged feet,
the moth-eaten scarves that knot your hair.
Where we live in the world
is never one place. Our hearts,
those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us
moons before we are ready for them.
You and I on a roof at sunset,
our two languages adrift,
heart saying, Take this home with you,
never again,
and only memory making us rich.
on earth. To think this fills my throat
with dust. Then there is only the sky
tying the universe together.
Just now the neighbor’s horse must be standing
patiently, hoof on stone, waiting for his day
to open. What you think of him,
and the village’s one heroic cow,
is the knowledge I wish to gather.
I bow to your rugged feet,
the moth-eaten scarves that knot your hair.
Where we live in the world
is never one place. Our hearts,
those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us
moons before we are ready for them.
You and I on a roof at sunset,
our two languages adrift,
heart saying, Take this home with you,
never again,
and only memory making us rich.
Monday, April 17, 2017
Poem Set #1
My Father and the Fig Tree
For other fruits, my father was indifferent.
He'd point at the cherry trees and say,
"See those? I wish they were figs."
In the evening he sat by my bed
weaving folktales like vivid little scarves.
They always involved a figtree.
Even when it didn't fit, he'd stick it in.
Once Joha was walking down the road
and he saw a fig tree.
Or, he tied his camel to a fig tree and went to sleep.
Or, later when they caught and arrested him,
his pockets were full of figs.
At age six I ate a dried fig and shrugged.
"That's not what I'm talking about! he said,
"I'm talking about a fig straight from the earth –
gift of Allah! -- on a branch so heavy
it touches the ground.
I'm talking about picking the largest, fattest,
sweetest fig
in the world and putting it in my mouth."
(Here he'd stop and close his eyes.)
Years passed, we lived in many houses,
none had figtrees.
We had lima beans, zucchini, parsley, beets.
"Plant one!" my mother said.
But my father never did.
He tended garden half-heartedly, forgot to water,
let the okra get too big.
"What a dreamer he is. Look how many things
he starts and doesn't finish."
The last time he moved, I got a phone call,
My father, in Arabic, chanting a song
I'd never heard. "What's that?"
He took me out back to the new yard.
There, in the middle of Dallas, Texas,
a tree with the largest, fattest,
sweetest fig in the world.
"It's a figtree song!" he said,
plucking his fruits like ripe tokens,
emblems, assurance
of a world that was always his own.
-Naomi Shihab Nye
He'd point at the cherry trees and say,
"See those? I wish they were figs."
In the evening he sat by my bed
weaving folktales like vivid little scarves.
They always involved a figtree.
Even when it didn't fit, he'd stick it in.
Once Joha was walking down the road
and he saw a fig tree.
Or, he tied his camel to a fig tree and went to sleep.
Or, later when they caught and arrested him,
his pockets were full of figs.
At age six I ate a dried fig and shrugged.
"That's not what I'm talking about! he said,
"I'm talking about a fig straight from the earth –
gift of Allah! -- on a branch so heavy
it touches the ground.
I'm talking about picking the largest, fattest,
sweetest fig
in the world and putting it in my mouth."
(Here he'd stop and close his eyes.)
Years passed, we lived in many houses,
none had figtrees.
We had lima beans, zucchini, parsley, beets.
"Plant one!" my mother said.
But my father never did.
He tended garden half-heartedly, forgot to water,
let the okra get too big.
"What a dreamer he is. Look how many things
he starts and doesn't finish."
The last time he moved, I got a phone call,
My father, in Arabic, chanting a song
I'd never heard. "What's that?"
He took me out back to the new yard.
There, in the middle of Dallas, Texas,
a tree with the largest, fattest,
sweetest fig in the world.
"It's a figtree song!" he said,
plucking his fruits like ripe tokens,
emblems, assurance
of a world that was always his own.
-Naomi Shihab Nye
from 19 VARIETIES OF GAZELLE
* Joha - A trickster figure in Palestinian folktales
Blood
Related Poem Content Details
“A true Arab knows how to catch a fly in his hands,”
my father would say. And he’d prove it,
cupping the buzzer instantly
while the host with the swatter stared.
In the spring our palms peeled like snakes.
True Arabs believed watermelon could heal fifty ways.
I changed these to fit the occasion.
Years before, a girl knocked,
wanted to see the Arab.
I said we didn’t have one.
After that, my father told me who he was,
“Shihab”—“shooting star”—
a good name, borrowed from the sky.
Once I said, “When we die, we give it back?”
He said that’s what a true Arab would say.
Today the headlines clot in my blood.
A little Palestinian dangles a truck on the front page.
Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root
is too big for us. What flag can we wave?
I wave the flag of stone and seed,
table mat stitched in blue.
I call my father, we talk around the news.
It is too much for him,
neither of his two languages can reach it.
I drive into the country to find sheep, cows,
to plead with the air:
Who calls anyone civilized?
Where can the crying heart graze?
What does a true Arab do now?
The Words Under the Words
for Sitti Khadra, north of Jerusalem
My grandmother’s hands recognize grapes,
the damp shine of a goat’s new skin.
When I was sick they followed me,
I woke from the long fever to find them
covering my head like cool prayers.
My grandmother’s days are made of bread,
a round pat-pat and the slow baking.
She waits by the oven watching a strange car
circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son,
lost to America. More often, tourists,
who kneel and weep at mysterious shrines.
She knows how often mail arrives,
how rarely there is a letter.
When one comes, she announces it, a miracle,
listening to it read again and again
in the dim evening light.
My grandmother’s voice says nothing can surprise her.
Take her the shotgun wound and the crippled baby.
She knows the spaces we travel through,
the messages we cannot send—our voices are short
and would get lost on the journey.
Farewell to the husband’s coat,
the ones she has loved and nourished,
who fly from her like seeds into a deep sky.
They will plant themselves. We will all die.
My grandmother’s eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death.
When she talks of the orchard and the new olive press,
when she tells the stories of Joha and his foolish wisdoms,
He is her first thought, what she really thinks of is His name.
“Answer, if you hear the words under the words—
otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges,
difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones.”
Naomi Shihab Nye, “The Words Under the Words” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995).
Two Countries
Skin remembers how long the years grow when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel of singleness, feather lost from the tail of a bird, swirling onto a step, swept away by someone who never saw it was a feather. Skin ate, walked, slept by itself, knew how to raise a see-you-later hand. But skin felt it was never seen, never known as a land on the map, nose like a city, hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope. Skin had hope, that’s what skin does. Heals over the scarred place, makes a road. Love means you breathe in two countries. And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass, deep in the pocket that is skin’s secret own. Even now, when skin is not alone, it remembers being alone and thanks something larger that there are travelers, that people go places larger than themselves.
Poetry Unit
We are beginning a unit of reading poetry with the poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Look her up to get some information about her.
Here is some biographical information about her from the Academy of American Poets:
"Naomi Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas"
(www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/naomi-shihab-nye)
She writes a lot about family, nature, and humanity. Like most poets, she tries to create a new way of seeing the world, and she explores complex meanings while painting a simple picture with words.
Here is a video of Nye reading a poem written from a child's perspective of the world. You can see how she sees children as having an innocent yet unique (even knowledgeable): https://youtu.be/biJ3FP8aDjY
Here is a link to an interview with the poet that aired on PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_nye.html
Finally, here is a famous letter that she wrote after 9/11. I think the letter will help you understand some of why she writes and what she is trying to accomplish in her poetry:
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/shihabnye.html
Here is some biographical information about her from the Academy of American Poets:
"Naomi Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas"
(www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/naomi-shihab-nye)
She writes a lot about family, nature, and humanity. Like most poets, she tries to create a new way of seeing the world, and she explores complex meanings while painting a simple picture with words.
Here is a video of Nye reading a poem written from a child's perspective of the world. You can see how she sees children as having an innocent yet unique (even knowledgeable): https://youtu.be/biJ3FP8aDjY
Here is a link to an interview with the poet that aired on PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_nye.html
Finally, here is a famous letter that she wrote after 9/11. I think the letter will help you understand some of why she writes and what she is trying to accomplish in her poetry:
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/shihabnye.html
Friday, April 14, 2017
Quiz 2
1. Choose a theme that you see the author exploring in the novel. Explain the theme (how it is being explored in the novel), and choose a scene to stage that helps show that (please choose a scene that we have not seen or discussed yet in class). Describe in detail how you would stage the scene and explain why/how that shows the theme. (minimum 400 words)
2. Create a dialogue between Daniel and Andrea that shows how/why he falls out of love with Desiree and chooses Andrea instead. This is not shown exactly in the novel so you need to use your own creativity behind the reasoning. After the dialogue, explain in a few sentences what you were trying to show.
Do not post the answers on your blog. Please email them to me by midnight Sunday.
2. Create a dialogue between Daniel and Andrea that shows how/why he falls out of love with Desiree and chooses Andrea instead. This is not shown exactly in the novel so you need to use your own creativity behind the reasoning. After the dialogue, explain in a few sentences what you were trying to show.
Do not post the answers on your blog. Please email them to me by midnight Sunday.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Sample questions for Exam 1 (called Paper 1 by the IB)
1. Select a passage from the novel you have chosen to study and, showing how the mood and atmosphere is evoked in the passage, explain in detail how you would create this mood and atmosphere in performance for an audience.
2. Choose a passage from the novel you have chosen to study which emphasizes the difference in status between two or more characters. How would you present this passage on stage in order to communicate these differing statuses to an audience?
3. In transforming prose to performance for an audience, the representation of physical description is a challenge that must be overcome. Select a passage from the novel you have chosen to study which features an extended description of a place, or a significant action, or a character. Discuss how you would use performance to transfer one of these to the stage.
4. Novels often include funny episodes. Choosing one comic passage from the novel you have studied show how you would present this passage to entertain an audience.
5. Novels often devote passages top the development of one character. Through focusing on one passage of this kind show how such a focus could be made fascinating for an audience
6. Choose one passage from the novel you have studied that might be considered climactic. Show how you would stage this passage to convey the excitement of the original to the audience.
7. Select a passage from a novel you have chosen to study in which a character makes a crucial discovery. Discuss how you would convey this moment in performance for an audience.
8. Select a passage from the novel you have chosen to study and show how the descriptions of setting and action may be registered in the stage design and the performances of the actors.
9. Select a passage from a novel you have chosen to study which involves an antagonistic scene between actors. How would you stage this scene for an audience to convey the significance of this conflict?
10. Select a passage from a novel you have studied which presents a social gathering of some kind. Discuss the presentation and importance of this passage, showing in detail how it could be realized in performance.
11. Choose an extract from the novel that provides an insight into a key concept or theme. Explore the way this concept or theme is depicted and how it might be conveyed in performance.
12. Select a passage from the novel which focuses on the introduction of one or two key characters. Examine the presentation of the character/s and ways you would convey their introduction to an audience.
13. Elements of exaggeration, the grotesque or the ridiculous are often subjects for fictional representation. Select a passage from a novel you have studied to demonstrate how one or more of these elements might function in a staging of it for an audience.
14. In any dramatization of a prose passage the question of how characters move and interact on stage is fundamental. Select a passage from the novel you have chosen to study and demonstrate how your characters would move and interact on stage in order to communicate the meaning of the passage to an audience.
15. In many passages from novels the reader is made aware of the private, interior worlds of the narrator or of characters. Select a passage from the novel you have studied and explain in detail how you would bring out this interior life in performance for an audience.
16. Select a passage from a novel you have chosen to study where a transaction between characters occurs which has serious consequences for their destinies in the narrative. By paying due attention to the context of the passage, outline how you would stage the transaction in order to convey its importance to an audience.
17. Select a passage from the novel you have chosen to study and indicate how a passage of descriptive writing might be used to establish a suitable stage setting for an important event. In your answer you should comment on staging, production and design effects and how they might combine to create a suitable atmosphere for the audience.
18. Select a passage from a novel you have chosen to study which offers you the opportunity to dramatize a major theme in the narrative. Show how you would do this for an audience.
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