Thanksgiving is coming!!! ...but for now be thankful for one more class. :) then eat turkey.

Tuesday's to-do's:

First, write a poem! It must be at least 14 lines long.

Second, write a journal entry on one of the poems we have studied. Tell me what you think the poem is communicating, and how it uses it's poetic devices to accomplish this. Try to be specific! Use examples from the poem. Don't forget your topic sentence, and it must be a good two paragraphs long. 

Hasta Martes! (See ya Tuesday.. en espanol)

Finishing up... check the updated link, please!

I've posted an updated link, entitled "Modern Poetry, pt2," for Thursday's class. Please, don't miss it! And don't forget to study for the quiz! It will be short answer, definitions for terms of grammar and terms of poetry that we have learned. Please look over your notes,  and email me if you have any questions. See ya in 50-something hours. :) 

Well, ya know... Poetry!

So, if you didn't get a chance to read the Modern Poetry for Thursday, providence has smiled on you and given you a whole extra weekend's worth of time to catch up! It's a wonderful life! This next Thursday, we'll have a quiz (more info in class on Tuesday), so don't think this is all in vain! :)

Also, for Tuesday, we'll be working on compliments, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences in your grammar handbook. You will find the helpful exercises on p. 46 (odds), p. 47 (odds), and p. 49 (all). I'm sure you guys will knock these out of the park!

See you on Tuesday!

...and more poetry!

Sorry so late in the day! There were so many fascinating examples of modern and contemporary poetry, I just couldn't contain myself! 

Starting with T.S. Eliot, we have an example of post "Great War" (which is what people called it before WWII came along) poetry. You may notice the darker tones. I didn't include a whole lot of poetry from this period, because it is a bit depressing (Justin, you'll LOVE it! haha.) Also, some Irish poetry from W.B. Yeats--a great example of Niche-like hatred for traditional religion.

Roethke is a bridge from modern to contemporary, the poem here serving as a great example of existential thinking (becoming by being).

Then I just went straight to contemporary poetry, because it was so enticing! In the poetry of Kunitz, you see reflections of Freidian thought, while finally in Collins' works, we have a turning to slightly happier tones. Collins was held the position of Poet Laureate in America, from 2001-2003, so his reputation is fairly estabilished. 

More on Thursday! Enjoy!

.... and more poetry....

I've posted a link to your sampling of poetry from the Romantic Period. Come ready to discuss how they are different from the sonnets we've been reading! See ya on Tuesday!

Poetry, poetry, poetry!

Hi guys! Sorry, I didn't get a chance to post yesterday! 

So, is your head swimming with alphabet soup and rhyming couplets after yesterday's discussion? We've got Petrarch and Shakespeare. They both wrote sonnets, which we learned was a 14-line type of poem that juxtaposes two ideas in order to communicate a point. 

Sonnets written in the Petrarchan style had two parts, called an octave and a sestet. The first 8 lines (octove) had a rhyme scheme something like abbaabba, followed by the six lines of c's, d's, and e rhymes, not usually ending in a couplet.

The Shakespearean sonnets usually went more like ababcdcdefef, followed by a rhyming couplet [gg].  This format was better suited to the English language because of it's flexibility and easier rhyme scheme. 

Both kinds of sonnet contain what we call "the turn," where the rhyme scheme changes, signifying a change in thought.

SO, in the packet of poems I gave you (feel free to explore more of them!), there are five religious poems at the end. For a journal entry due tomorrow, please pick out one of the five and tell me:

1. the rhyme scheme,
   
2. followed by a paragraph on what two ideas, images, objects, etc the poem is juxtaposing, where the turn is, and what is the poem's final conclusion or question raised. 
   

As, always, please let me know if you have any qestions!