Poetry Unit

Ask a friend, peer, or family member to look at the slides you have so far. Post one example of helpful feedback you received.

Choose a poem by your assigned poet to analyze. Annotate a copy of it. Share one thing you admire about the poem. Example: I love how  Tom Wayman's "Did I Miss Anything?"  takes a common question posed by a student who has missed class and uses it to explore with sly philosophical wit how much and how little is going on in any given situation we experience. 

Wanda Coleman Share something from your poet research that surprised or interested you. For example: I learned from a Dan Chiasson profile of the poet Wanda Coleman that she made innovations in her poetry when she " rummaged for new forms in everyday material, like aptitude tests, medical reports, and want ads." I like the idea that forms don't always have to be inherited from the classics, but can come from the "everyday material" that surrounds us.

Please read the guidelines for the poetry project . Post a question or concern you have on the class discussion page.

We began last week with a chapter from Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook on learning through imitation. Think back on that chapter and on the imitation poems you wrote. Please share one thing you learned from imitating. Post your response on the class discussion page.

Screencast with instructions here OPTIONAL: Share your Golden Shovel poem (please share!). a song in the front yard BY  GWENDOLYN BROOKS I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life. I want a peek at the back Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.    A girl gets sick of a rose. I want to go in the back yard now    And maybe down the alley, To where the charity children play.    I want a good time today. They do some wonderful things. They have some wonderful fun. My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.    My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae    Will grow up to be a bad woman. That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late (On account of last winter he sold our back gate). But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do. And I’d like to be a bad woman, too, And wear the brave stockings of night-black la...