Today, we began thinking about poetry in the context of private moments: “Poems have their origins in life, especially in the formal or informal ceremonies that occur at crucial moments or phases in a single private life – birth, adolescence, marriage, death…(Vendler 1)
We looked specifically at Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband," Ben Jonson's "On My First Son," and Michael Harper's "Nightmare Begins Responsibility." We discussed both content and form, adding these terms to our literary vocabulary:
alliteration - the matching or repetition of consonants
anaphora - repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses
couplet – a pair of rhyming lines
elegy - a song or poem expressing grief for one who is dead (poem of mourning)
free verse - verse in which lines are different widths, and which does not have a regular rhyme scheme
Tomorrow, we will discuss A.R. Ammons' "Easter Morning," Seamus Heaney's "Digging," and Sylvia Plath's "Daddy." Due tomorrow: one sentence each for "Easter Morning" and "Daddy."
Due Monday: Choose any poem from the Week 1 reading list. In approximately one page (double-spaced), discuss the following:
~ What piece of life is it concerned with?
~ Where and when is this life being lived?
~ How does the author bring originality to the moment?
(from Vendler)~ How does the author bring originality to the moment?
In closing, below are two good insights from today's homework:
"["To My Dear and Loving Husband"] is a proclamation of a woman's love for her mate. It's a love poem meant to say 'I know we'll be together forever." - Christin Helt
My thought on "Nightmare Begins Responsibility" is that he expresses both pain and fear, the agonizing pain of losing both sons after only one day of life...and the fear of his children's lives in a stranger's hands." - Quinton Bailey
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