Poetry Packet
We are taking a break from stories and essays, and will be studying poetry for the next few
weeks until the Winter Break. This is a great time of year to slow down, and use few words
to express a lot of meaning.
During this unit, you will read and analyze poems, and then apply your new insights to
your own poetry writing. Please keep this packet in your Writing Lessons section so you
can keep track of your progress as we go through the unit.
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Sign up for Goldilocks poem between ____________________ and
____________________. The earlier you sign up, the more chance you have of
getting your favorite!
Draft your own lyric poem by ____________________
Draft an ode by ____________________
Draft an elegy by ____________________
Draft EITHER a sonnet OR a ballad by ____________________
Bring all four poetry drafts in for peer response on ____________________
Revise 2 – 4 of your poems, and turn in your final Poetry Page on
____________________
“Ode to the woman in her garden”
by Pablo Neruda
Yes, I knew that your hands were
the flowering clove, the lily
silvered:
that you had something to do
with the dirt,
with the earth's flourishing . . .
but
when
I saw you dig down, dig down,
to push aside the stones
and finger the roots,
I knew right then,
my farmer girl,
that not just your hands
but your heart
were of the earth,
that you
were making
things
there of your own,
touching
damp
doors
through which
circulate
the
seeds.
So, then,
from one plant
just
planted
to the next,
your face
stained
with a kiss
from the mud,
you came
and went
flourishing,
you went,
and from your hand
the astrolomeria's
stalk
raised its lonely elegance,
the jasmine
dressed
your snowy brow
with stars of scent and mist.
All
grew from you,
entering
the earth,
and turning
to immediate
green light,
foliage and might.
You made contact with
your seeds,
my love,
my red-faced garden girl:
your hand
familiared
the ground
and thus right then was
the growing made clear.
Love, so too
did your watery
hand,
your earthy heart,
give
fertility
and force to my songs.
You touch
my heart
as I sleep,
and the trees bloom
from my dream.
I wake up, I open my eyes,
and you've planted
in me
shadowed stars
that rise
with my song.
That's how it is, garden girl:
our love
is
of this earth:
your mouth is the plant of life, the petals of it,
while my heart works the roots.
Translation from Spanish by Terence Clarke
1. How many stanzas does the poem have? Summarize what each stanza focuses on:
2. Though this poem does not rhyme, what are some “poetic qualities” it has?
3. What do you think Neruda means in the third stanza by “All grew from you”?
4. Analyze the fourth stanza. What parts of it are literal? What parts are figurative? (Or are some
lines both?)
5. What does Neruda mean in the fifth stanza by “of this earth,” “mouth,” and “heart”? Explain
thoroughly.
6. Does this poem mostly describe or mostly express emotions? What percentage would you assign
to each category? (Makes sure it adds up to 100%.)
Now choose a subject for your own ode. You must praise a person, place, thing, or idea (can be abstract,
like “Ode to Jealousy”!), and find many different ways to describe it. Use the five senses as much as
possible, as well as figurative language. Write at least four stanzas. DO NOT FOCUS ON RHYME!
If you want a challenge, you can try a “Horatian ode,” which has four or more stanzas, with each stanza
matching in rhythm, rhyme scheme, and stanza length. See
http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_classic_ode_make.html for more information.
Elegies
1. Read “O Captain, My Captain” in your literature textbook, p. 446.
2. On this paper, write a paraphrase of each set of lines. Write it in first person, the same
way the poet did. (Each “line” begins with a capital letter.)
Lines 1 – 2:
Lines 3 – 4:
Lines 5 – 8:
Lines 9 – 10:
Lines 11 – 12:
Lines 13 – 16:
Lines 17 – 18:
Lines 19 – 20:
Lines 21 – 24:
3. Now write your own elegy. Choose someone or something that is “dead” now. Make the
poem long enough to truly express your grief. Try writing three stanzas: First, a lament,
where you express grief and sorrow, then praise and admiration of the idealized dead, and
finally consolation and solace.1 Consider using an extended metaphor, the way Whitman
uses a fallen ship’s captain to describe President Lincoln’s assassination.
1
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5778
What is a Sonnet?
For each sonnet below:
 What is the same about each sonnet? (Consider rhythm, rhyme, etc.)
 Which sonnet seems different from the other two? How is it different?
Be ready to share out your interpretation of each poem.
Sonnet 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising,
From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven's gate.
For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as man can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
What lips my lips have kissed
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
Bonus: Study the sonnet below. Which other sonnet is it most like and why? What do you
think the sonnet’s topic is?
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon--his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years, of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.
Ballads
“The Willow Tree” by Francis J. Child
There was a youth, a cruel youth,
Who lived beside the sea,
Six little maidens he drowned there
By the lonely willow tree.
As he walked o'er with Sally Brown,
As he walked o'er with she,
An evil thought came to him there,
By the lonely willow tree.
O turn you back to the water's side,
And face the willow tree,
Six little maidens I've drowned here,
And you the seventh shall be.
Analysis
1. What is the rhythm of the poem?
Consider syllables per line, and
where the stresses are.
2. What is the rhyme scheme of the
poem?
3. In Stanza 4, why does the
murderer not want to “spoil”
Sally Brown’s “finery”?
Take off, take off, your golden crown,
Take off your gown, cried he.
For though I am going to murder you
I would not spoil your finery.
Oh, turn around, you false young man,
Oh turn around, cried she,
For 'tis not meet that such a youth
A naked woman should you see.
4. Why do you think the author
chose a willow tree as a motif?
Is there something about a
willow tree that connects with
the themes in the poem?
He turned around, that false young man,
And faced the willow tree,
And seizing him boldly in both her arms,
She threw him into the sea.
5. What is the climax of the poem?
Lie there, lie there, you false young man,
Lie there, lie there, cried she,
Six little maidens you've drowned here,
Now keep them company!
He sank beneath the icy waves,
He sank down into the sea,
And no living thing wept a tear for him,
Save the lonely willow tree.
6. How did the last stanza provide
dénouement?
Writing
If you are going to write a ballad instead of a sonnet…
o Choose a story as your subject. It can be a story from your life, from history, from a
book, from a movie, etc.
o Write (or rewrite) this story in poetic form. Make sure you break your poem into several
(six or more) stanzas and that you have rising action, a climax, and falling
action/dénouement.
o You are not required to make your ballad rhyme or a have a specific rhythm or structure,
but you might try to add rhyme later once you have a basic idea of what to write about.
The following are “tips” from Study Guide.org. You do NOT HAVE to do any of these things,
but it might be fun to try.
Ballad Writing Tips
* often have verses of four lines
* usually have a rhyming pattern: either abac or aabb or acbc (usually the easiest to rhyme)
* repetition often found in ballads
o entire stanzas can be repeated like a song's chorus
o lines can be repeated but each time a certain word is changed
o a question and answer format can be built into a ballad: one stanza asks a questions
and the next stanza answers the question
* Ballads contain a lot of dialogue.
* Action is often described in the first person
* Two characters in the ballad can speak to each other on alternating lines
* Sequences of "threes" often occur: three kisses, three tasks, three events, for example
Poet: _________________________
Responder: _________________________
Poetry Response Sheet
Underline the best uses of thorough and/or specific sensory details in red.
What are the most powerful (specific and strong) words or phrases used? Box them in green.
Read the poems aloud quietly to yourself. Put a purple * star * next to any passages that are
rhythmically choppy.
Put an orange smily face next to passages that really are deep: in other words, they express
complex ideas in only a few words. (Hint: Often, similes and metaphors can help you say a lot with
only a few words.)
Questions to ask the writer. (What do you still wonder?) Write these in blue in the margins.
Which parts moved you emotionally? Explain on the drafts.
On the drafts, use editing marks to show places that need differences in:
 Line breaks (/)
 Indentions ( )
 Capitalization (triple underline, or /)
 Spelling (sp)
 Punctuation (add with caret marks, or cross out
)
On the drafts, give a thorough critique of how the poet used rhyme (or didn’t). In other words,
where did rhyming detract from the poem? Where could adding rhyme make the poem better?
FOR A SONNET: Comment on the draft if the writer did not have the correct rhythm (ta-TUM),
number of syllables per line (10), number of lines (14), rhyme scheme, and format (indentions,
spaces).
FOR A BALLAD: Write comments about parts of the poem (beginning, middle, climax, end) that
need to be expanded (or reduced) and why.
Write any other constructive comments here:
Poetry Page
You have now written at least four poems: a lyric poem, two other lyric poems (an ode and an
elegy) and a sonnet or a ballad. For your final Poetry project, you will choose 2-4 of these
poems to revise into final form. Your poems need to fit on no more than two pieces of singlesided paper.
FORMAT: Use the fancy paper. Feel free to add images or drawings to match your pieces—
make them a complement to the meaning of your poems. Type or use pen—no pencil marks,
please. Poems should fill the page, so format your font size, columns, alignment, etc.
accordingly. Put your full name somewhere on the page.
CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION: In general, you will get full credit if you have done the
BEST job that YOU are capable of. I will expect some of you to try the challenge of a Horatian
ode (with specific structure and rhyme) and/or sonnet, for example.
The complete list of qualities I’m looking for is as follows:
Ideas expressed completely, full of feeling, interesting titles, specific and strong
vocabulary, sound devices used effectively, sensory details, flowing and consistent
rhythm, eye-catching appearance, conveys a lot of meaning. (NOTE: If you include a
sonnet, you must have 10 syllables in each of the 14 lines, the right rhyme pattern, etc.)