Poetry

=__**Poetry**__=

**Genre:** Poetry

 * Text:**

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox

and which you were probably saving for breakfast

Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

The text is very approachable. This is a good poem to include in a what is poetry discussion. Students will enjoying using //This Is Just To Say//as a model for apologizing without saying sorry using simple descriptive language. [|Read, Write, Think]
 * Themes and Text Complexity:**
 * Forgiveness and Apologies
 * Simple pleasures
 * Sharing
 * Images
 * What is poetry
 * Rationale:**
 * Resources:**

**Poets.Org**
[] This informative website contains a biography, a list of poems as well as recorded poems.

** William Carlos Williams Reading--//This Is Just To Say// **
[]


 * Title:** Fog
 * Author:** Carl Sandburg
 * Genre:** Poetry
 * Text:**

The fog comes on little cat feet.

It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.


 * Themes and Text Complexity:**
 * Personification
 * Poetic imagery
 * Understanding metaphor
 * Using descriptive language
 * Making inferences
 * Sensory imagery
 * Rationale:** This simple poem uses powerful imagery through direct metaphor.
 * Lexile Level:**
 * Resources:**
 * [|Substitution in the Teaching of Poems]**

What's my Line? Carl Sandburg
[] (Uploaded by [|NorbertR33] on Nov 16, 2008) Snippet of Sandburg on this television game show. The host gives him accolades and we learn about Sandburg's humor and wisdom.

**Description (Text):**
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

**Themes/Topics:**
Christianity, allegory, disillusionment, war, imagery, violence, and other Modernist themes.

**Rationale:**
This is an important work of Modernist poetry. It contains powerful language and imagery and deals with important themes including religion, chaos, and disillusionment. Yeats also makes brilliant use of allusion. It is an important piece on its own but is also useful when related to the historical period (the period between WWI and WWII) and other literary works from the same genre and time period.

**Text Complexity:**
The text is complex and contains difficult vocabulary, archaic terms, and religious allusions. Lexile level is N/A. = Media Resources =

Poets.org
[] Website contains biography, list of works and recordings of poems.

W.B.Yeats Reading His Own Verse
[] (Uploaded by [|brychar66] on Nov 16, 2007) Recordings of different poems for the wireless in 1932, 1934 and the last on 28 October 1937 when he was 72. Has a photograph of Yeats shows him sitting before the microphone in 1937. Not the best recording and might make the kids laugh. = W.B.Yeats 'When You Are Old' recording read by David Shaw Parker = []

=**Title:** Ode on a Grecian Urn= =**Author:** John Yeats= =**Genre:** Poetry=

Thou still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
 * Description (Text):**

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit dities of no tone. Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal---yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unweari-ed, Forever piping songs forever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! Forever warm and still to be enjoyed, Forever panting, and forever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity. Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"---that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. [] [] []
 * Rationale:** While complex due to its "Old English", the poem has powerful imagery; painting a vivid picture in the reader's mind. The themes of art, beauty, and the idea of being frozen in time forever are all of interest to young readers.
 * Themes: Art, Beauty, Youth, Paradox**
 * Text Complexity: Difficult**
 * Additional Resources:**

**Text Complexity:**
The text is does not contain difficult vocabulary. The poem uses metaphor and symbolism which may be difficult for some students to extapolate. Lexile level is N/A. **Media Resources:** This simple poem evolved into a short story, then a play, and finally a film was made. Here is the poem as it was incorporated into the film. []

**Rationale:**
=== With its sophisticated linguistic devices and its organization that envisions an escape from a confined lecture room to the glory of the night sky, the poem contrasts the limited scientific process with a personal and romantic interaction with the stars. This marks an important period in American romantic poetry, and students will explore the poet and themes within that context. ===

**Text Complexity:**
The poem uses some words that may require definition. Lexile level is N/A. **Media Resources:** A clip from the popular TV show, Breaking Bad, in which a character recites this Whitman poem (beautifully) and ends with a funny quip: []

The poem read aloud and set to some neat graphics: []