How Do Readers Approach A Poem?
My Annotated Copy of “Snow and Snow”:
Which of these annotations can you find in my margins?
Questions
1. Factual
2. Interpretive
Connections
1. Text-to-self
2. Text-to-text
3. Text-to-world
4. Within text
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Inferences
Char. trait
6. Mood
Char. motiv.
7. Big changes
Not literal
8. Symbolism
Setting
9. Theme
Conflict
development
Observations
1. Imagery
2. Narrative POV
3. Narrative structure
Insights about reading, annotating, and discussing poetry:
1) Many of the same reading skills and elements apply. For instance: ____________________
2) Certain “story-specific” elements are less important. For instance: ____________________
3) Other new elements become more important. For instance: _____________________
Late February
By Ted Kooser
The first warm day,
and by mid-afternoon
the snow is no more
than a washing
strewn over the yards,
the bedding rolled in knots
and leaking water,
the white shirts lying
under the evergreens.
Through the heaviest drifts
rise autumn’s fallen
bicycles, small carnivals
of paint and chrome,
the Octopus
and Tilt-A-Whirl
beginning to turn
in the sun. Now children,
stiffened by winter
and dressed, somehow,
like old men, mutter
and bend to the work
of building dams.
But such a spring is brief;
by five o’clock
the chill of sundown,
darkness, the blue TVs
flashing like storms
in the picture windows,
the yards gone gray,
the wet dogs barking
at nothing. Far off
across the cornfields
staked for streets and sewers,
the body of a farmer
missing since fall
will show up
in his garden tomorrow,
as unexpected
as a tulip.
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HW—1/25
•
Read the biographies of the poets Ted Kooser and Mary Oliver.
•
Read/annotate their poems: “Late February” and “White-Eyes.”
Ted Kooser (born April 15, 1939) is an American poet who lives and
works in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was born in Iowa and studied English
at Iowa State University. Many of his poems describe the people and
landscapes of the Great Plains. He is widely praised for his
plainspoken style, his gift for metaphor, and his quiet discoveries of
beauty and grief in ordinary things. One of Kooser’s favorite themes is
the passing of time—and the vanishing of older ways of living. His
books of poetry include Delights and Shadows, which won the Pulitzer
Prize. “Late February” was published in 1980. Mary Oliver (born September 10, 1935) is an American poet who lives
in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She writes prolifically, publishing
another book of poetry every year or two. This work has won many
awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Oliver was born in Maple Heights, Ohio, and began writing poetry
seriously at age 14. Her poetry is known for its clear observations of the
natural world. Oliver, an avid walker, often pursues inspiration on foot,
and her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her
Cape Cod home: shore birds, water snakes, the phases of the moon, and
humpback whales. Her most enduring theme is the intersection
between human and nature. “White-Eyes” was published in 2004.
(Sources: Wikipedia and The Poetry Foundation)
White-Eyes
By Mary Oliver
In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird
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with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us
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he wants to go to sleep,
but he's restless—
he has an idea,
and slowly it unfolds
from under his beating wings
as long as he stays awake.
But his big, round music, after all,
is too breathy to last.
So, it's over.
In the pine-crown
he makes his nest,
he's done all he can.
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I don't know the name of this bird,
I only imagine his glittering beak
tucked in a white wing
while the clouds—
which he has summoned
from the north—
which he has taught
to be mild, and silent—
thicken, and begin to fall
into the world below
like stars, or the feathers
of some unimaginable bird
that loves us,
that is asleep now, and silent—
that has turned itself
into snow.
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