Group Poem Analysis

As you send them to me, I will add your analysis to the blog. Thus, this post will be continually "edited" to reflect the projects that have been turned in. If yours doesn't show up here by 6/2, it means it has not been turned in and you should get it in. You can continue to update and modify your analysis until 6/2. Your changes should show up here as well. You should read ALL of these, not just the ones done by your classmates, in preparation for the final.

Cambridge Ladies analysis by B4
Cambridge Ladies by B2
My Sweat Old Etcetera by B2 
My sweet of Etc by B4
Humanity i love you by B2 
Humanity i love you by B4
All ignorance by B2 
All ignorance by B4
What if a Much of a Which of a Wind by B4
What if a Much of a Which by B2
pity this monster by B4
pity by B2
Poetry or Beautry Hurts Mr Vinal by B2
n(o)w by B2 
n(o)w by B4

NOTE:  Given that I am unable to post the analysis by either of the groups doing Jehovah Buried, Satan Dead on time, I will not ask any questions about that poem on the final.

oil tel duh woil doi sez

Here's what others have to say about this crazy poem.

AP English Meeting

If you are taking AP English next year, then you need to attend a lunch meeting on Thursday in H11.

Cummings' titles

A list of Cummings' books and an explanation of how and why he chose his titles, including the book that has no title (often referred to as [No Title])

If you want to comment, choose a quotation from the text and share your thoughts on it.  This is NOT on the final, but may help increase your overall understanding of cummings and his work.

Get Your CUmmings-esque Poem Published

I know that not all of you will be interested, but for those of you who have been patiently waiting all year for us to finally get to poetry, I wanted to pass along a little bit more.  There is an entire organization devoted to thinking about Cummings and his work, the E.E. Cummings Society.  They publish an annual magazine titled Spring.  (Many of the articles linked to this blog come form that magazine.)  The magazine includes scholarly articles about Cummings as well as contemporary poetry that is influenced by Cummings.  So, if you are interested in submitting your poem to the magazine (what's the worst that could happen?), send a clean copy of your poem, a self addressed stamped envelope, and a brief cover letter to:

Michael Webster
Spring Editor
129 Lake Huron Hall
Grand Valley State University
Allendale, MI, 49401

I strongly suggest taking a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the publication before submitting, so that you can sound like you know a bit about your audience.

the dirt on cummings' marriage to Elaine

All the gossip about who cummings' relationship with his wife Elaine.  Is this relevant to our study of his work?

cummings comic

Making your poem analysis website

You are going to work with a group of your peers to create a google docs analysis of a cummings poem and then post it online for the rest of the class to view.  I have done one as a sample.  There are also directions for how to do this.  I had a lot of fun making the sample.  I hope you have fun with this too :)

Please either email your link to me or share your document with me BEFORE the start of class on 6/2/11. After I receive them, I will post them for your classmates to read.

Spring Poems

An article on his spring poems
An article on cummings' diction 

These articles are NOT going to be on your final.  However, you may find that they help you to better understand the poems that WILL be on the final.  

If commenting in response to this post, you might choose a favorite quotation from an article and comment on it.  How did it add to your understanding?  Why do or don't you agree with it?  etc...

life and times

Whitman Connections?

Song of Myself
Excerptsby Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)

---

1
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

6

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he. 

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

52. The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud° of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse° my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fiber your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

(Note: For some reason the line breaks and spacing aren't formatting quite right on the blog.  Sorry.)

Questions to Contemplate.  Answer in comments if you are so inclined.
1. What, in your opinion, is the most important—or most interesting, or most puzzling—line in Whitman’s poem? Why?  What do you think the line means?
2. Nature:  How does Whitman show his connection to the natural world in this poem? For example, what qualities does he say he shares with the spotted hawk?  How is or isn't his relationship to nature reminiscent of Cummings' connection to nature?
3. Style:  What verb tense does Whitman use in this poem and other selections from “Song of Myself”? How would the effect have been different if the speaker had spoken in a different tense? 
4. Self:  The first line of “Song of Myself” is “I celebrate myself, and sing myself”; the last line is “I stop somewhere waiting for you.” What do you think this might reveal about Whitman’s purpose in writing “Song of Myself”?  What is cummings' purpose?  How does each man view himself within the context of the larger world?  How do you know?  How do they compare? 
5: Art: What do you think Whitman means when he describes his own poetry as his “barbaric yawp”?  How does this compare with cumming's views on poetry and art?
6.  Politics: Some readers of this poem have further taken the meaning of “barbaric yawp” to refer to the way Europeans might have viewed the “American experiment” of democracy. What do you think?  Does Whitman express political views?  If so, how do they  compare with cummings' political ideas?
7.  If you have any questions of your own about this poem, please post them in the comments, so that others might attempt to answer them.

next to god of course american i love you

You probably noticed references to the "Star Spangled Banner." and "My Country 'Tis of Thee", but some say the poem also references Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade":  Do you agree?

Buffalo Bill

Some interesting background on Buffalo Bill

Can you make sense of this poem

oil tel duh woil doi sez
dooyuh unnurs tanmih essez pullih nizmus tash,oi
dough un giv uh shid oi sez.    Tom
oidoughwuntuh doot,butoiguttuh
braikyooz,datswut eesez tuhmih.    (Nowoi askyuh
woodundat maik yurarstoin
green?    Oilsaisough.)—Hool
spairruh luckih?    Thangzkeed.    Mairsee.
Muh jax awl gawn.    Fur Croi saik
ainnoughbudih gutnutntuhplai?
                                                       HAI
yoozwidduhpoimnuntwaiv un duhyookuhsumpnruddur
givusuhtoonunduhphugnting

Post your thoughts in the comments.  I'll post an analysis in a few days.

Scavenger Hunt Answers

Allusion	Is a reference in literature to a familiar person, place, thing, or event
Tone	Is the overall feeling, or effect, created by a writers use of words. This feeling may be serious, mock-serious, humorous, satiric, and so on.;
Hyperbole	Is an exaggeration, or overstatement
Metaphor	Is a comparison of two unlike things in which no word of comparison is used.
Metonymy	Is the substituting of one word for another that is closely related to it.

Ballad	Is a poem in verse form that tells a story
Blank verse	Is an unrhymed form of poetry that normally consists of ten syllables in which every other syllable is stressed

Describe this object using two of these devices and bring it to me for your next destination.

My Father was a Farmer: A Ballad by Robert Burns

MY father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O,

And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O;

He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne’er a farthing, O;

For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, O.

Then out into the world my course I did determine, O;

Tho’ to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charming, O;

My talents they were not the worst, nor yet my education, O:

Resolv’d was I at least to try to mend my situation, O.

In many a way, and vain essay, I courted Fortune’s favour, O;

Some cause unseen still stept between, to frustrate each endeavour, O;

Sometimes by foes I was o’erpower’d, sometimes by friends forsaken, O;

And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst mistaken, O.

Then sore harass’d and tir’d at last, with Fortune’s vain delusion, O,

I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to this conclusion, O;

The past was bad, and the future hid, its good or ill untried, O;

But the present hour was in my pow’r, and so I would enjoy it, O.

No help, nor hope, nor view had I, nor person to befriend me, O;

So I must toil, and sweat, and moil, and labour to sustain me, O;

To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred me early, O;

For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for Fortune fairly, O.

Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, thro’ life I’m doom’d to wander, O,

Till down my weary bones I lay in everlasting slumber, O:

No view nor care, but shun whate’er might breed me pain or sorrow, O;

I live to-day as well’s I may, regardless of to-morrow, O.

But cheerful still, I am as well as a monarch in his palace, O,

Tho’ Fortune’s frown still hunts me down, with all her wonted malice, O:

I make indeed my daily bread, but ne’er can make it farther, O:

But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard her, O.

When sometimes by my labour, I earn a little money, O,

Some unforeseen misfortune comes gen’rally upon me, O;

Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my goodnatur’d folly, O:

But come what will, I’ve sworn it still, I’ll ne’er be melancholy, O.

All you who follow wealth and power with unremitting ardour, O,

The more in this you look for bliss, you leave your view the farther, O:

Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore you, O,

A cheerful honest-hearted clown I will prefer before you, O.

Personification	Is a literary device in which the author speaks of or describes an animal, object, or idea as if it were a person.
Simile	Is a comparison of two unlike things in which a word of comparison is used.
Alliteration	Is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in words.
Assonance	Is the repetition of vowel sounds without the repetition of consonants.

Describe something that could happen in this location using two of the above devices and bring it to me for your next destination.

Twisters which also illustrate alliteration:

•    Angela Abigail Applewhite ate anchovies and artichokes.

•    Bertha Bartholomew blew big, blue bubbles.

•    Clever Clifford Cutter clumisily closed the closet  clasps.

•    Dwayne Dwiddle drew a drawing of dreaded Dracula.

•    Elmer Elwood eluded elven elderly elephants.

•    Floyd Flingle flipped flat flapjacks.

From John Milton's Paradise Lost:

 ...the broad circumference

 Hung on his shoulders like the Moon, whose Orb

 Through Optic Glass the Tuscan Artist views

 At ev'ning from the top of Fesole...

 In this case, the assonance involves the sound u and o.

Assonance and alliteration often work together.

 In "Moby Dick," Melville uses alliteration to build character and to help the reader experience the colorful scene on board a whaling ship. The character, Stubb, for instance, is described as having "rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general," and as saying "the most terrific things to his crew." His use of assonance is part of how Melville illustrates these things. "The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions," Stubb says, for instance. "Start her -- start her, my silver spoons! Start her, marling spikes!" (In this last quote, we have not only alliteration in the repetition of the s sounds, but also an example of assonance in the words "start" and "marling.")

Caesura	Is a pause or sudden break in a line of poetry
Canto	Is the main division of a long poem

Stanza	Is a division of poetry named for the number of lines it contains Couplet two line stanza Triplet three line stanza Quatrain four line stanza Quintet five line stanza Sestet six line stanza Septet seven line stanza Octave eight line stanza
Heroic Couplet	Consists of two successive rhyming lines that contain a complete thought

Write a short, flattering poem, including two different kinds of stanzas and a heroic couplet about someone you might find in this location.  Then bring it to me for your next location.

)when what hugs stopping earth than silent is

more silent than more than much more is or

total sun oceaning than any this

tear jumping from each most least eye of star

and without was if minus and shall be

immeasurable happenless unnow

shuts more than open could that every tree

or than all his life more death begins to grow

end's ending then these dolls of joy and grief

these recent memories of future dream

these perhaps who have lost their shadows if

which did not do the losing spectres mine

until out of merely not nothing comes

only one snowflake(and we speak our names

 -by ee cummings

Consonance	Is the repetition of consonant sounds
Rhyme	Is the similarity of likeness of sound existing between two words
End rhyme	Is the rhyming of words that appear at the ends of two r more lines of poetry
Internal rhyme	Occurs when the rhyming words appear in the same line of poetry
Enjambment	Is the running over of a sentence or thought from one line to another

Use two of these devices to describe something that might happen in this location and then bring it to me for your next location.

"Bantams in Pine Woods" by Wallace Stevens

Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan

Of tan with henna hackles, halt!

Damned universal cock, as if the sun

Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.

Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal.

Your world is you. I am my world.

You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!

Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,

Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,

And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet #18

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Free verse	Is poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme
Rhythm	Is the ordered or free occurrence of sound in poetry
Meter	Is the patterned repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry
Foot	Is the smallest repeated pattern of stressed and un stressed syllables in a poetic line Iambic an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable Anapestic two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable Trochaic a stressed followed by an unstressed syllable Dactylic a stressed followed by two unstressed syllables Spondaic two stressed syllables Pyrrhic two unstressed syllable

Verse

Is a metric line of poetry. It is named according to the kind and number of feet composing it Monometer one foot Diemter two feet Trimeter three feet Tetrameter four feet Pentameter five feet Hexameter six feet Heptameter seven feet Octometer eight feet

Choose a type of metric feet and (ex: iambic tetrameter) and use it to describe your own feet.  Bring it to me for your next location.

Most poetry has rhythm, and rhythm is achieved  by emphasizing or deemphasizing certain syllables in the words used in the  lines of the love poem.

The syllables, themselves, are then grouped into  two or three syllable units called "feet".

Examples of different types of  "feet": (note: all  underlined syllables are  emphasized)

[My  love] [for  you] [will  al]  [ways  be,]

The above feet in [ ]  brackets are called "iambs" because they are each composed of two syllables with the second syllable of each foot  emphasized.

[Slow ly]  [soft ly]  [and so]  [gent  ly]

The above feet in brackets are called "trochees"  because they are each composed of two syllables with the first  syllable of each foot  emphasized.

[Sweet  heart]  [thou  art] [al  ways]  [at  heart]

The above feet in brackets are called "spondees"  because they are each composed of two syllables with both syllables  of each foot  emphasized.

[Self res  pect] [is  a-chieved]  [when one leaves]  [lust and  greed]

The above feet in brackets are called "dactyls"  because they are each composed of three syllables with the  first syllable of each foot  emphasized.

[Dis res pect]  [can not be] [for a  love] [to be  free]

The above feet in brackets are called "anapests'  because they are each composed of three syllables with the  third syllable of each foot  emphasized.

Rhythm, as you can see from the above, depends  on emphasized and deemphasized syllables  which make up "feet." Taking this a step further, a "line" or "verse" of  a poem is made up of one or more "feet."

Examples of Lines  (Verses):

Iambic Tetrameter  (4-meter)

[My  love] [for  you] [will  al] [ways  be,]

This verse has four iambic feet.

Iambic Trimeter  (3-meter)

[I  kiss] [you  in] [my  dreams]

This verse has three iambic feet.

Iambic Pentameter  (5-meter)

[Thus  soon] [I'll  need] [the  warmth] [of  your] [em  brace]

Lyric	Is a short verse that is intended to express the emotions of the author
Onomatopoeia	Is the use of a word whose sound suggests its meaning
Refrain	Is the repetition of a line or phrase of a poem at regular intervals
Repetition	Is the repeating of a word or phrase within a poem or prose piece to create a sense of rhythm

synecdoche

Using a part of something to represent a whole.

Use  as many of these as you can to write a poem about Harbor High.  Bring it to me for your next location.

The Bells (excerpt)

 by Edgar Allan Poe

I         Hear the sledges with the bells--

             Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

       How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle

           In the icy air of night!

       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,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

    From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

               Bells, bells, bells--

  From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.       Hear the mellow wedding bells

             Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

       Through the balmy air of night

       How they ring out their delight!

           From the molten-golden notes,

               And all in tune,

           What a liquid ditty floats

    To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

               On the moon!

         Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

               How it swells!

               How it dwells

           On the Future! how it tells

           Of the rapture that impels

         To the swinging and the ringing

           Of the bells, bells, bells,

    Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

               Bells, bells, bells--

  To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

sonnet

A 14- line poem using iambic pentameter Italian/ petrarchan sonnet: has two parts.  An octave and sestet.  Usually rhyming abbaabba, cdecde.  Often a question raised in the octave is answered in the sestet. Shakespearian/ Elizabethan sonnet: consists of 3 quatrains and a final heroic couplet.  Rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg.  Usually the question or theme is set forth in the quatrains while the answer is in the couplet.

Create a mnemonic that will help you to remember the features of a sonnet.  Bring it to me for your next location.

"Sonnets are full of love..."

-Christina Rossetti

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome

Has many sonnets: so here now shall be

One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me

To her whose heart is my heart's quiet home,

To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee

I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;

Whose service is my special dignity,

And she my loadstar while I go and come

And so because you love me, and because

I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath

Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:

In you not fourscore years can dim the flame

Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws

Of time and change and mortal life and death.

cummings inspires music

LOTS of cummings poems have been set to music.  In fact, over 143 composers have put his words to music.  Here are a few that you can hear online:
Check out the songs based on cummings poetry... we aren't studying all of these, but many of them are in your packet...
This artist has made love songs out of his poems.
Neither of these poems are in your packet, but they still make beautiful songs.
For the musicians among you, here's the sheet music for o sweet spontanious earth and cambridge ladies.

E. E. Cummings or e e cummings?

To capitalize or not?  The debate rages on... without extensive research, but knowing his poetry, what do you think on the issue?

cummings the artist

How do the style or content of these paintings reflect the style and content of his poems?

Extra Credit Opportunities

During our unit on ee cummings, I will post almost daily.  I strongly encourage you to take the time to read the posts, as they will augment your understanding of both the man and his poetry.  Why? Because your final will be one super awesome test on all things cummings (and vocabulary, of course).  In order to encourage your reading, I am offering extra credit to students who post responses to the posts.  Responses could be things such as: interesting quotations from articles provided and why you think they're interesting, additional thoughts on a poem, thoughts on a question that is posed, etc.

Also, please remember that you can set it up to have the blog posts emailed to you daily (see the "Follow By Email" icon in the upper right corner).

Sample college admissions essays

a site with several sample essays
what the college board has to say about essays
popular college essays

Infinite Campus

I am almost done reading all of the essays that were turned in on the due date... BUT do not freak out if your score isn't entered because I didn't get them all entered before heading to the faculty meeting.  I hope to pass them back tomorrow and we can deal with any concerns then.  Until then, enjoy reading At the Western Palace.
-Ohana

More Gatsby inspired music

For those who were absent 5/6/11

First, we missed you.

Second, here's what you need to know about today's class: There is no vocab quiz to make up.  You do need to turn in your vocab and you White Tigers questions.  Remember that the work on the other stories is in the folders in the classroom on the orange book shelf.  You are responsible for doing anything that should be in the composition book.  There will be a Woman Warrior test, so you may want to look at the other material to assist you in preparing for that.

Also, for next class:

• Read Shaman
• Come by to pick up the College writing packet.  We started this on Wed and Monday.  If you pick it up Monday, you'll have time to fill out the "Getting to Know Yourself" questions for next class.

Update

As requested by the B4 class, the blog is now open to all viewers... which means anyone on the big wide web.  So don't comment if you aren't okay with having your comments seen... which also means you can how sign up to have posts emailed to yourself.

For those of you who are or have been absent: Don't forget that work is still due as long as you are on campus that day, even if you are taking an AP test.  You need to come by the room to get the work from the older on the orange book shelf by the door.

For those of you who are stressing out:  It is okay to make tough choices.  I will not take it personally if you decided that studying for your AP test is more important than your English homework... yes, you will still get a zero on your homework, but sometimes you really can't do everything and you need to make difficult, but informed and intelligent decisions about how to use your time.

See you tomorrow.

Today's vocab for absent folks

Anachronistic: out-of-date, not attributed to the correct historical period

Frugal: thrifty, cheap

Obdurate: hardened against feeling; hardhearted, impatient

Craven: cowardly

Obsequious: full of or exhibiting servile compliance; fawning

Quiz next class.

Using Google Presentation for woman Warrior Project