POETRY QUESTIONS - Truth and Bright Water

Poetry Vocabulary

1. English 10 / English 20

Abstract              -theoretical; expressing a quality or characteristic             

Alliteration         -the repetition of a sound

Concrete             -an actual thing, an actual instance

Context                   -the set of circumstances that surround a particular event, situation

Imagery               -the formation of mental images, description or illustration

Dramatic Irony       -irony is understood by audience, but not grasped by characters

Situational Irony    -situation in which actions have an effect that is opposite from what was intended

Verbal Irony            -sarcasm                             

Line -an arrangement of one behind another, a line of text in a play

Paradox                   -a statement that seems self-contradictory but in reality expresses a possible truth ex. jumbo shrimp, bittersweet,

Persona                   -the narrator of or a character in literary work, sometimes identified with the author

Personification       -attribution of human nature or character to animals or inanimate objects

Repetition           -repeat, copy  

Simile                  -comparison using like or as

Speaker               -person who speaks

Stanza                     -an arrangement of a certain number of lines, sometimes having a fixed length, rhyme

Symbol                -represents something else

Understatement     -representing in a weak or restrained way

2. English 30

Apostrophe            -sign used to indicate the omission of one or more letters in a word

“A single flow’r he sent me” (1)

Paradoxical         -having the nature of a paradox (jumbo shrimp)

“Because I never learned how / to be gentle, the country / I lived in was hard with

dead animals and men” (1)

Verisimilitude         -appearance of truth

“One perfect rose” (4)

Juxtaposition         -placing close together, especially for comparison or contrast

“Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;” (2)

Allusion -making a reference to something, call something to mind without mentioning it

explicitly

“Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.” (14)

3. Define Poetry

Poetry                   -the art of writing to evoke imagination, thought and feeling

-a quality of beauty and intensity of emotion regarded as characteristic of poems

-the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”

Robert Frost

Erin Williams

English 30-1

Henderson

1. Poetry can mean many different things to many different people.  In Dorothy Parker’s poem, “One Perfect Rose”, one can see that context was built around the rose which changed the meaning of the poem. In the first stanza, the rose appeared to be a symbol of a man’s love for a woman, the typical meaning behind any flower. Although “‘his heart [was] enclose[d]’” (5), by the third stanza the reader discovers that his “Love” (6) was not returned by the woman he gave it to, and that she would rather a gift with monetary value like a “limousine” (10). However, in “The Starry Night”, author Anne Sexton developed the thematic idea of rot and corruption by discussing suicide. Sexton takes the theme of rot and corruption to another level through use of the line “This is how / I want to die” in relation to her actual suicide in 1974. One of the main purposes of poems is to impart an empathic response in the reader, which is what Patrick Lane accomplished in his poem “Because I Never Learned”. Although I have never “step[ed] on [a] kitten’s head” (6), when I was younger “I remember” (10) I saw a dog that “had [been] run over” (8) lying on the street. I remember being able to feel “the silence of the dying” (11) and Lane’s poem reminded me of that day.

2. By looking at “The Book” by Miller Williams one can see that the reader, theme, and context were affected by the poem’s main object, which was a book. At the beginning of the poem, the main character found a book in a “fallen bunker” (1). When he initially found the book he probably thought that it was a lost book from someone who had died. However, after many years of using it as a “sketchbook and journal” (4), he found out “It’s bound, the binder said, in human skin.” (7) This changed the context in which the book was found, and lead the main character to believe that he did not ‘save’ this book, but that he promoted the horror of which went into making the book. The man made an assumption about “how beautiful it was until [he] knew” (17). As for the reader, at the beginning of the poem, I was optimistic; it seemed as though the book was an old artefact that may have been worth something, both in monetary value and historic value. Initially the book was symbolic of history, culture, and mystery, however after finding out what it was made of, the symbolization changed to “horror” (16), hurt, and anguish. Since author Williams was an international traveller, the line “What child did this skin fit?” (11), reminded me of how thousands of children were hurt over the markets of blood diamonds in Africa, equivalent to whoever was hurt over the possible profit of the book.

3. In “The World Is Too Much With Us”, author William Wordsworth developed the theme of nostalgia and longing. The writer implied that through “Getting and spending” (2), the present is not how it should be, that the present is too materialistic. Through the use of allusion, Wordsworth created the theme that “The world is too much with us” (1) and that “[he’d] rather be” (9) in the past when “Triton [blew] his horn” (14). Although not specifically stated why, it could be assumed that the writer felt like the present is too stressful. In a world with so much anger and hurt, one could think that it would often be much simpler to return to a time when it was common to believe in the Gods and the knowledge that was obtained from their stories. Even though stories of the Gods “have glimpses that would make [him] less forlorn” (12), one can simply not return to the past so he may be left to feel “out of tune” (8) and nostalgic. These feelings can be tied to the Native American character of Monroe Swimmer from the novel Truth and Bright Water by Thomas King. The character of Monroe is reminiscent of the time before his land was colonized and he attempt to restore the Native culture in the prairies. Although his attempt was not necessarily successful, it “made [him] less forlorn” (12).

4. When looking at Emily Dickinson’s “[I died for Beauty – but was scarce]” it is clear that the unique use of punctuation and capitalization is a very distinct style of poetry. The most prominent punctuation that Dickinson uses is a dash. Punctuation dictates how a poem should be read, and as a reader, these dashes were interpreted as long pauses. In the line “ “And I – for Truth – Themself are One - / We Brethren, are,” He said - ” (6) the dashes are inserted to increase the length of the reader’s pause, to increase the significance of certain sections of the poem. When read aloud, the poem sounds painful and difficult to read, like the characters are struggling. Dickinson also uses capitalization to indicate importance, as well as personification. When “Beauty” (6) and “Truth” (7) are stated as capitalized, it draws the reader’s attention to the purpose and how significant those words really are. Capitalizing ideas and concepts such as these make us think about these notions in a different way and make it seem like they are real objects.

5. By looking at Pablo Neruda’s “In Praise of Ironing” one can see that the imagery was used to reinforce the ideas developed by the writer. Even though poetry is not a physical object, when Neruda stated that “it emerg[ed] from the water covered in drops, / all wrinkled, in a heap” (2) a very clear image of fabric or paper being removed from a large barrel of water came to mind. Although not stated, this image increased the awareness of what this situation would have been like; the sound of the water drops falling off of the fabric, or “Poetry” (1) , perhaps the smell of the water from what could have been from a rain barrel, or simple the weight of the fabric and what it could have felt like. From there it “[had] to be iron[ed],” (5) and “smooth[ed]” (8) which provoked the thoughts of the feeling and look of stretched paper, the smell of the steam, as well as the heat, coming from the iron. While these details were not specifically stated in Neruda’s poem, through his writing and vivid imagery, he leaves the each reader with a unique, but distinct interpretation of his work.

6. In “Sweet Like A Crow”, author Michael Ondaatje developed a context of a certain time in a certain milieu by using important historic symbols throughout his poem to narrow down the timeframe. The poem was a comparison of sounds to what it felt like to “[have] an afternoon sleep / and [having] someone walk through [the] room in ankle bracelets” (32). As a reader, the time in which the main character was alive, was not clear, however, after using artefacts, such as a “bible” (9), the “Carnegie Hall” (9),  and “a typewriter” (17), which can be connected to a specific era, a timeframe can slowly be calculated. From starting out with the “bible” (9), to the introduction of the “Royal Thomian match” (12), the period can be cut from over 2000 years to after Sri Lanka was colonized in the nineteenth century. However, with the introduction of “Casablanca” (16) which was released in 1942, to “a jeep” (28) which debuted into the market in 1987, again narrows to timeframe. In addition, “dirt on [a] needle” refers to an old record player, which solidifies the time to be in the late nineteen hundreds, approximately the forty year span between 1950 and 1990. Although not extremely important to the actual content of the poem, the timeframe helps the reader to have more of an understanding of the milieu, and just a general respect for what was happening in the world at that time.

7. In William Carlos Williams’ poem “To a Poor Old Woman, Williams used repetition to create an impact of what was important. Although quite a simple poem, Williams reiterated how much the old woman enjoyed “munching [on] a plum” (1) by repeating the line “They taste good to her” (15) numerous times. To stress how significantly great the plums were, Williams dedicated an entire stanza of the four stanza poem to fact that “they tast[ed] good to her” (4).

8. In the poem “Icarus” by Don McKay, the main character Icarus, is never referred to by his full name, rather by “he” (5) or “him” (9). In some cultures, an insulting effect is created by calling a person either ‘he’ or ‘she’, because it creates distance and judgment. Similarly to Truth and Bright Water by Thomas King, the main character is only referred to as Tecumseh by his aunt. By not being called an actual name, a person can experience a disconnect from their personality and their identity. They may not feel as though they are an individual, but rather just another person. Since Icarus is a mythological character, McKay could have been expressing his thoughts about how Icarus is fictional or perhaps since Icarus “tumbl[ed] into [a] freefall” (23), McKay was articulating the fact that Icarus perished due to his poor choice.