ENGLISH 1302 - REVISING SENTENCES (DEEP REVISION - POETIC FORMS IN SENTENCES )
EXAMPLE STUDENT SENTENCE (THESIS STATEMENT) - THREE STAGES OF GRAMMATICAL / POETIC REVISIONS
Example student sentence (marked):
PV (passive voice)
Descriptions of language and rural family activities in Texas [ are used ] by Gloria Anzaldúa to define her
Spanish and Aztec heritage (478).
First Revision (shift passive voice to active voice – identify a primary content subject and verb):
Gloria Anzaldúa defines her Spanish and Aztec heritage with descriptions of language and rural family
activities in Texas (478).
Second Revision (reverse emphasis, then identify and compress initial alliteration, vowel assonance, and end consonance):
Descriptions of rural family activities define Gloria Anzaldúa’s Aztec and Spanish-speaking Texas heritage (478).
ˎ ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ ˎ
Descriptions of rural family activities define Gloria Anzaldúa’s Aztec and Spanish-speaking Texas heritage (478).
De
de
dú
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al am
ac
An al
Az
an
as
age
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Sp
sp
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ti ties
tec
Tex
ta
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ura
ori
eri
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fam
fine
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ip
iv / it
ish
it
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ipti
ish-pea
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Line chart (mapping alliteration, assonance, consonance – D/de/dú..., an/Az…, Sp/sp, Tec/Tex/tage, etc.)
Third and final revisions (based on the line chart and generating a new syntax with poetic forms-functions and emphasis):
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ ˎ
ˎ ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
ˎ
Descriptions define Anzaldúa’s active Aztec heritage; Texas activities; family define, Spanish heritage, [etc.] (478).
( over )
POETIC FORMS IN SENTENCES - SELECTED QUOTES - EUROPEAN, ASIAN, AND AZTEC SOURCES
Sounds as well as thoughts have relation both between each other and towards that which they represent, and a
perception of the order of those relations, has always been found connected with a perception of the order of the
relations of thoughts. Hence the language of poets has ever affected a certain uniform and harmonious recurrence of
sound without which it were not poetry, and which is scarcely less indispensable to the communication of its
influence, than the words themselves without reference to that peculiar order. There is this difference between a story
and a poem, that a story is a catalogue of detached facts, which have no other bond of connexion than time, place,
circumstance, cause and effect; the other is the creation of actions according to the unchangeable forms of human
nature, as existing in the mind of the creator, which is itself the image of all other minds. A story of particular facts is
as a mirror which obscures and distorts that which should be beautiful: Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that
which is distorted. – Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, 1821, published 1840)
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Poetry is the product of earnest thought. Thought cherished in the mind becomes earnest; exhibited in words, it
becomes poetry. The feelings move inwardly, and are embodied in words. When words are insufficient for them,
recourse is made to sighs and exclamations. When sighs and exclamations are insufficient for them, recourse is made
to the prolonged utterances of song. When those prolonged utterances of song are insufficient for them, unconsciously
the hands begin to move and the feet to dance. The feelings go forth in sounds. When those sounds are artistically
combined, we have what is called musical pieces. The style of such pieces in an age of good order is quiet, going on to
be joyful―the government is then a harmony. Therefore, correctly to set forth the successes and failures of
government, to move heaven and earth, and to excite the spirit to action, there is no readier instrument than poetry…
Classic of Poetry (‘The Great Preface,’ c. 1000 B C E .)
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Our native poetry springs from the human heart as its seed, producing the countless leaves of language. Multitudinous
are human affairs in this world – what their minds think, what their eyes see, what their ears hear they must find
words to express. Listening to the nightingale singing amid the blossoms of spring, or to the murmur of frogs among
the marshes in autumn, we know that every living thing plays its part in the mingled music of Nature. Our poetry,
effortlessly, moves heaven and earth, draws sympathy from invisible spirits, softens the relations between men and
women, and refreshes the heart of the warrior. Its origin goes back to the origins of heaven and earth… The Kokinshū
(from the Japanese preface, c. 900 C E .)
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For the ancient Aztecs, tlilli, tlapalli, ‘la tinta negra y roja de sus codices’ (the black and red ink painted on codices
[books]) were the colors symbolizing escritura y sabiduria (writing and wisdom). They believed that through
metaphor and symbol, by means of poetry and truth, communication with the Divine [God] could be obtained, and
topan (that which is above, the gods and spirit world) could be bridged with mictlán (that which is below, the
underworld and region of the dead). An image is a bridge between evoked emotion and conscious knowledge; words
are the cables that hold up the bridge. [When I write], I am playing with my Self, I am playing with the world's soul, I
am a dialogue between my Self and el espiritu del mundo. I change myself, I change the world. I choose words, images,
and body sensations and animate them to impress them on my consciousness, thereby making changes in my belief
system and reprogramming my consciousness. – Gloria Anzaldúa (from La Frontera / Borderlands, 2012)