UNIT 4: Poetry
Lesson 4: The “Music” of Poetry: Poetry Literature Circles
Name: ______________________________
Date: _______________________________
Poetry Literature Circle Role Sheet (“Music”)
Title of the
Poem
Name of the
poetic device
(“music” tool)
Stanza and line
numbers where
it can be found
Quote and
explanation
The effect of this poetry tool on the poem’s
Tone
Mood
Theme
Rhyme * Repetition/Patterns * Rhythm * Alliteration * Words * Line-Breaks * Onomatopoeia * Assonance * Consonance
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4L04
UNIT 4: Poetry
Lesson 4: The “Music” of Poetry: Poetry Literature Circles
Title of the
Poem
Name of the
poetic device
(“music” tool)
Stanza and line
numbers where
it can be found
Name: ______________________________
Date: _______________________________
Quote and
explanation
The effect of this poetry tool on the poem’s
Tone
Mood
Theme
Rhyme * Repetition/Patterns * Rhythm * Alliteration * Words * Line-Breaks * Onomatopoeia * Assonance * Consonance
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4L04
UNIT 4: Poetry
Lesson 4: The “Music” of Poetry: Poetry Literature Circles
Title of the
Poem
Name of the
poetic device
(“music” tool)
Stanza and line
numbers where
it can be found
Name: ______________________________
Date: _______________________________
Quote and
explanation
The effect of this poetry tool on the poem’s
Tone
Mood
Theme
Rhyme * Repetition/Patterns * Rhythm * Alliteration * Words * Line-Breaks * Onomatopoeia * Assonance * Consonance
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4L04
UNIT 4: Poetry
Literature Circle Poetry
Instructional Note:
Use these poems at your discretion, based on the needs of the students in your classroom.
Most poems include poetic sound devices, imagery, and figurative language. Therefore, they
may be used for either the “music” or “meaning” literature circles. If you keep the same
groupings for both literature circle sessions, it is possible to repeat poems with different
students. The poems included here represent a wide range of text complexity, form, and style.
Later in the unit, students will use this collection to select a poem for their final recitation.
“Analysis of Baseball”
“Beat! Beat! Drums!”
“The Burden”
“The Choice”
"Dancing Dolphins"
“Dusting”
“The Eagle”
“Fire and Ice”
“Harlem Hopscotch”
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?”
“I Choose the Mountain”
“If There Be Sorrow“
“If You Forget Me”
“Invictus”
“Is the Moon Tired?”
“Lawnmower”
“Legacies”
“A Loaf of Poetry”
“Mooses”
“Night Journey”
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”
“Pole Vault”
"Pompous Mr. Pumpkin"
“Puzzlement”
“Rain in Ohio”
“Rain Sizes”
“Three Witches” excerpt from MacBeth
“Until I Saw the Sea”
“We Wear the Mask”
“your little voice”
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
May Swenson
Walt Whitman
Francesca Yetunde Pereira
Dorothy Parker
Paul McCann
Julia Alvarez
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Robert Frost
Maya Angelou
Emily Dickinson
Howard Simon
Mari Evans
Pablo Neruda
William Ernest Henley
Christina Rossetti
Dorothy Baruch
Nikki Giovanni
Naoshi Koriyama
Ted Hughes
Theodore Roethke
Robert Frost
Shiro Murano
Elsie Melchert Fowler
Gwendolyn Brooks
Mary Oliver
John Ciardi
William Shakespeare
Lilian Moore
Paul Laurence Dunbar
E.E. Cummings
UNIT 4: Poetry
Analysis of Baseball
It’s about
the ball,
the bat
and the mitt.
Ball hits
bat, or it
hits mitt.
Bat doesn’t
hit ball, bat
meets it.
Ball bounces
off bat, flies
air, or thuds
ground (dud)
or it
fits mitt.
Bat waits
for ball
to mate.
Ball hates
to take bat’s
bait. Ball
flirts, bat’s
late, don’t
keep the date.
Ball goes in
(thwack) to mitt,
and goes out
(thwack) back
to mitt.
Ball fits
mitt, but
not all
the time.
Sometimes
ball gets hit
(pow) when bat
meets it,
and sails
to a place where mitt
has to quit
in disgrace.
That’s about
the bases
loaded
about 40,000
fans exploded.
It’s about
the ball
the bat,
the mitt
the bases
and the fans.
It’s done
on a diamond,
and for fun.
It’s about
home, and it’s
about run.
-May Swenson
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Beat! Beat! Drums!
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying,
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers’ bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
-Walt Whitman
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
The Burden
Tell me no secret, friend,
My heart will not sustain
Its load, too heavily
On my mind to weigh
Involve me not, friend
Make not of me a mute.
Like a labyrinth
The road from my heart
Winds round and round,
Yet leads to an avenuethe boulevard of speech.
Tell me no secret, friend,
To you I’ll still be true.
For you I’ll fight
No matter whereBut make not a mute of me.
-Francesca Yetunde Pereira
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
The Choice
He’d have given me rolling lands,
Houses of marble, and billowing farms,
Pearls, to trickle between my hands,
Smoldering rubies, to circle my arms.
You-you’d only a lilting song,
Only a melody, happy and high,
You were sudden and swift and strongNever a thought for another had I.
He’d have given me laces rare,
Dresses that glimmered with frosty sheen,
Shining ribbons to wrap my hair,
Horses to draw me, as fine as a queen.
You-you’d only to whistle low,
Gayly I followed wherever you led.
I took you, and I let him goSomebody ought to examine my head!
-Dorothy Parker
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Dancing Dolphins
Those tidal thoroughbreds that tango through the turquoise tide.
Their taut tails thrashing they twist in tribute to the titans.
They twirl through the trek
tumbling towards the tide.
Throwing themselves towards those theatrical thespians.
-Paul McCann
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Dusting
Each morning I wrote my name
on the dusty cabinet, then crossed
the dining table in script, scrawled
in capitals on the backs of chairs,
practicing signatures like scales
while Mother followed, squirting
linseed from a burping can
into a crumpled-up flannel.
She erased my fingerprints
from the bookshelf and rocker,
polished mirrors on the desk
scribbled with my alphabets.
My name was swallowed in the towel
with which she jeweled the table tops.
The grain surfaced in the oak
and the pine grew luminous.
But I refused with every mark
to be like her, anonymous.
-Julia Alvarez
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked
hands;
Close to the sun in 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
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Robert Frost
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Harlem Hopscotch
One foot down, then hop! It’s hot.
Good things for the ones that’s got.
Another jump, now to the left.
Everybody for hisself.
In the air, now both feet down.
Since you black, don’t stick around.
Food is gone, the rent is due,
Curse and cry and then jump two.
All the people out of work,
Hold for three, then twist and jerk.
Cross the line, they count you out.
That’s what hopping’s all about.
Both feet flat, the game is done.
They think I lost. I think I won.
-Maya Angelou
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you-Nobody-Too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! they’d banish us-you know!
How dreary-to be-Somebody!
How public-like a FrogTo tell one’s name-the livelong JuneTo an admiring Bog!
-Emily Dickinson
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
I Choose the Mountain
The low lands call
I am tempted to answer
They are offering me a free dwelling
Without having to conquer
The massive mountain makes its move
Beckoning me to ascend
A much more difficult path
To get up the slippery bend
I cannot choose both
I have a choice to make
I must be wise
This will determine my fate
I choose, I choose the mountain
With all its stress and strain
Because only by climbing
Can I rise above the plane
I choose the mountain
And I will never stop climbing
I choose the mountain
And I shall forever be ascending
I choose the mountain
-Howard Simon
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
If There Be Sorrow
If there be sorrow
let it be
for things undone
undreamed
unrealized
unattained
to these add one:
love withheld
restrained
-Mari Evans
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
If You Forget Me
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or
forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your
arms
without leaving mine.
-Pablo Neruda
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
-William Ernest Henley
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Is the Moon Tired?
Is the moon tired? she looks so pale
Within her misty veil:
She scales the sky from east to west,
And takes no rest.
Before the coming of the night
The moon shows papery white;
Before the dawning of the day
She fades away.
-Christina Rossetti
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Lawn-mower
I'm the gardener today.
I push the lawn-mower
Across the grass
Zwuzz, wissh, zwuzz, wissh.
I'm the lawn's barber.
I'm cutting
Its green hair
Short.
I push the lawn-mower
Across the grass.
Zwuzz, wissh.
-Dorothy Baruch
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Legacies
her grandmother called her from the playground
“yes, ma’am”
“i want chu to learn how to make rolls” said the old
woman proudly
but the little girl didn’t want
to learn how because she knew
even if she couldn’t say it that
that would mean when the old one died she would be less
dependent on her spirit so
she said
“i don’t want to know how to make no rolls”
with her lips poked out
and the old woman wiped her hands on
her apron saying “lord
these children”
and neither of them ever
said what they meant
and i guess nobody ever does
-Nikki Giovanni
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
A Loaf of Poetry
you mix
the dough
of experience
with
the yeast
of inspiration
and knead it well
with love
and pound it
with all your might
and then
leave it
until
it puffs out big
with its own inner force
and then
knead it again
and
shape it
into a round form
and bake it
in the oven
of your heart
-Naoshi Koriyama
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Mooses
The goofy Moose, the walking house-frame,
Is lost
In the forest. He bumps, he blunders, he stands.
With massy bony thoughts sticking out near his earsReaching out palm upwards, to catch whatever might be
falling from heavenHe tries to think,
Leaning their huge weight
On the lectern of his front legs.
He can’t find the world!
Where did it go? What does a world look like?
The Moose
Crashes on, and crashes into a lake, and stares at the
mountain and cries
“Where do I belong? This is no place!”
He turns and drags half the lake out after him
And charges the cackling underbrushHe meets another Moose.
He stares, he thinks “It’s only a mirror!”
“Where is the world?” he groans, “O my lost world!
And why am I so ugly?
And why am I so far away from my feet?”
He weeps.
Hopeless drops drip from his droopy lips.
The other Moose just stands there doing the same.
Two dopes of the deep woods.
-Ted Hughes
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Night Journey
Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I wake in every nerve.
I watch a beacon swing
From dark to blazing bright;
We thunder through ravines
And gullies washed with light.
Beyond the mountain pass
Mist deepens on the pane;
We rush into a rain
That rattles double glass.
Wheels shake the roadbed stone,
the pistons jerk and shove,
I stay up half the night
To see the land I love.
-Theodore Roethke
Pullman berth: A Pullman is a type of railroad car invented by George Pullman (1831-1897).
The sleeping car featured private beds called berths.
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Pole Vault
He is running like a wasp,
Hanging on a long pole.
As a matter of course he floats in the sky,
Chasing the ascending horizon.
Now he has crossed the limit,
And pushed away his support.
For him there is nothing but a descent.
Oh, he falls helplessly.
Now on that runner, awkwardly fallen on the ground,
Once more
The horizon comes down,
Beating hard on his shoulders.
-Shiro Murano
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Pompous Mr. Pumpkin
Pompous Mr. Pumpkin,
You needn't look so wise,
Perched upon a picket fence
Staring with your eyes-Needn't think that I'm afraid
Of your fearful frown
Or your great big glaring teeth
Or your mouth, turned down;
Mr. Pumpkin, run from you?
No, sir--no indeed-Because I knew you long ago
When you were just a seed!
-Elsie Melchert Fowler
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Puzzlement
I, partly Nigerian.
I, partly Puerto Rican.
I have a Nigerian father,
a Puerto Rican mother.
I am packed in a skin that is tan.
I, too, have a heart on fire.
I, too, want to be Proud.
I, too, want to be Something and Proud.
I want to shout “I’m A TAN!”
-Gwendolyn Brooks
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Rain in Ohio
The robin cries: rain!
The crow calls: plunder!
The blacksnake climbing
in the vines halts
his long ladder of muscle
while the thunderheads whirl up
out of the white west,
their dark hooves nicking
the tall trees as they come.
rain, rain, rain! sings the robin
frantically, then flies for cover.
The crow hunches.
The blacksnake
pours himself swift and heavy
into the ground.
-Mary Oliver
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Rain Sizes
Rain comes in various sizes.
Some rain is a small as a mist.
It tickles your face with surprises,
And tingles as if you’d been kissed.
Some rain is the size of a sprinkle
And doesn’t put out all the sun.
You can see the drops sparkle and twinkle,
And a rainbow comes out when it’s done.
Some rain is as big as a nickle
And comes with a crash and a hiss.
It comes down too heavy to tickle
It’s more like a splash than a kiss.
When it rains the right size and you’re wrapped in
Your rainclothes, it’s fun out of doors.
But run home before you get trapped in
The big rain that rattles and roars.
-John Ciardi
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
“Three Witches” excerpt from MacBeth
1 WITCH
Round about the caldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.—
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one;
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot!
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
2 WITCH
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
-William Shakespeare
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
Until I Saw the Sea
Until I saw the sea
I did not know
that wind could wrinkle water so.
I never knew
that sun
could splinter a whole sea of blue.
Nor
did I know before
a sea breathes in and out
upon a shore
-Lilian Moore
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
We wear the mask
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
-Paul Laurence Dunbar
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4
UNIT 4: Poetry
your little voice
your little voice
Over the wires came leaping
and i felt suddenly
dizzy
With the jostling and shouting of merry flowers
wee skipping high-heeled flames
courtesied before my eyes
or twinkling over to my side
Looked up
with impertinently exquisite faces
floating hands were laid upon me
I was whirled and tossed into delicious dancing
up
Up
with the pale important
stars and the Humorous
moon
dear girl
How i was crazy how i cried when i heard
over time
and tide and death
leaping
Sweetly
your voice
-E.E. Cummings
Framingham Grade 7 ELA Curriculum – 7EU4