Take Notes in your composition book

People have been more successful at appreciating poetry than at defining it

What is poetry?

Share and take more notes about what poetry is.

Poetry• Ancient• A universal language• Primitive people used it• Civilized people have cultivated it• Regarded as important, central to existence• Something we are better off for having• It is not primarily to communicate information• Short stories, plays, novels, and poetry exist to bring

us a sense and a perception of life. Their concern is with existence

Take notes in poetry packet

Poetry

• We all have an inner need to live more deeply and fully with greater awareness– to know the experience of others– to understand our own experience better

• Poets create significant new experiences for their readers.

• Literature is not only an aid to living, but a means of living.

Suppose we are interested in eagles...

Refer to encyclopedia or book of natural history– 55 species– hooked bills– curved claws– broad wings– powerful muscles– 16-40in in length– hunt while flying– lay 1-2 eggs– nest in tall trees or inaccessible cliffs

We learned facts, but what about its lonely majesty, its power, its wild regal surroundings that would make the eagle a living creature rather than a mere museum specimen.

We grasped the feathers of the eagle, but not its soul.

For the soul of the eagle, we must turn to literature.

• Poetry’s primary concern is not with beauty, not with philosophical truth, not with persuasion, but with experience.

• Beauty and philosophical truth are aspects of experience.

• Ordinary language – the kind we use purely to communicate information – is one-dimensional and its one dimension is intellectual.

• Poetry involves intelligence, your senses, emotions, and imagination.

The Eagle He clasps the crag with crooked hands;Close to the sun in the lonely lands,Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;He watches from his mountain walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;Close to the sun in the lonely lands,Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;He watches from his mountain walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892

The Eagle

Blue, cloudless sky

Steep rugged rock/peak

Reduced to the size of wrinkles, emphasizing how far above sea eagle is

Packet Directions

1. Read each poem2. Do a close reading (critical reading) of each poem3. Annotate each poem4. After “experiencing” all of these poems, you

will refer to them as models to write your own poetry.