Group Presentations (10-15 minutes) on Poetic Form
- Describe the poetic form and its variants (if any).
- Discuss its history: origins, evolution, and current use.
- Post at least two examples of the form: one traditional/classic and one modern/contemporary, along with brief analyses in the context of their form.
- Prepare a handout for class (20 copies), in which you briefly describe the poetic form and include the two poems from item #3.
Poetic Forms
- The Villanelle - Maria, Blanca
- The Sestina -Sandra, Zaira
- The Pantoum -Wilmarie, Jennifer
- The Sonnet - Cristina, Wi Hong
- The Ballad - Sharon, Janice
- The Heroic Couplet - Ahiesha, Lidsay
- The Stanza - Castelar, Leo
- Blank Verse -Stella, Gerardo
- Free Verse - Natalie, Antonio
- International Forms: haiku, ghazal - Karen, Viviana
4 comments:
The first poem that was chosen as an example of a Villanelle is "The House on the Hill":
They are all gone away,The House is shut and still,There is nothing more to say.Through broken walls and grayThe winds blow bleak and shrill.They are all gone away.Nor is there one to-dayTo speak them good or ill:There is nothing more to say.Why is it then we strayAround the sunken sill?They are all gone away,And our poor fancy-playFor them is wasted skill:There is nothing more to say.There is ruin and decayIn the House on the Hill:They are all gone away,There is nothing more to say.
As we can see, typical of a Villanelle, the first lines of the poem are repeated at the very end of the poem. Also, the poem consists of 19 lines which is also a characteristic of a Villanelle.
The second poem chosen was "Do not go Gentle into that Good Night":
Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.And you, my father, there on the sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
As the previous poem, this poem is also composed of 19 lines. It also dtarts and ends with the same two lines which distinguished as a Villanelle. As is quite evident, this poem deals with a more serious subject, that of death. This was a tendency of the Villanelle in the 20th century.
The haiku that I choose as an example for a classical haiku is one written by Matsuo Basho:
Old Pond
frogs jump in
sound of water.
This haiku clearly represents the a classical haiku in which in the first 5 syllables sets the scene of the image and then transports the reader to his/her thoughts to make the mental image of a quiet moment in a pond n which you can hear the sounds of the frogs jumping into the water.
The second haiku i choose to represent the modern "era" of the haikus is Ezra Pound's "In a Station of a Metro"
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Even though it doesn't follow the traditional form of the haiku it uses imagery to capture a specific moment and triggers a response in the readers.
Lidsay Centeno and Ahiesha Centeno
Classic Heroic Couplet
An example of a Classic heroic couplet is found in the general prologue of the “Canterburry Tales” by Chaucer:
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The doughte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
One of the characteristics of Chaucer, when using the heroic couplet, is that he tends to use little if any punctuation through out the poem. He is trying to create a flow effect “that lets the rhythm of the pentameter lines carry through long sentences without many dramatic stops” http://www.math.grinnell.edu/~simpsone/Connections/Poetry/Forms/couplet1.html
Modern/ Contemporary Heroic Couplet
A contemporary poet that used the Heroic Couplet is Gwendolyn Brooks in her poem “Religion” she mocks the “heroic stature of the couplet”.(Kalaidjian, W., Roof, J., Watt, S. (2004). Understanding Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Rhyme. Pp. 805-809. Houghton Mufflin Company.)
Our teachers feed us geography.
We spit it our in a hurry
The Ghazal is a poetic form used in Arabic, Turkish, Uzbek, Pashto and Urdu Literature that has a limited use of vocabulary and images. It is often used to express ones love for a beloved and its tone is usually melancholic. It has a rhyme scheme of aa ba ca...
The Ghazal started to be used as the standard form of poetry by the Persian during the 11th and 12th century. During this time poets such as Hafez became very famous. An example of one of his poems is the following:
O beautiful wine-bearer, bring forth the cup and put it to my lips
Path of love seemed easy at first, what came was many hardships.
With its perfume, the morning breeze unlocks those beautiful locks
The curl of those dark ringlets, many hearts to shreds strips.
In the house of my Beloved, how can I enjoy the feast
Since the church bells call the call that for pilgrimage equips.
With wine color your robe, one of the old Magi’s best tips
Trust in this traveler’s tips, who knows of many paths and trips.
The dark midnight, fearful waves, and the tempestuous whirlpool
How can he know of our state, while ports house his unladen ships.
I followed my own path of love, and now I am in bad repute
How can a secret remain veiled, if from every tongue it drips?
If His presence you seek, Hafiz, then why yourself eclipse?
Stick to the One you know, let go of imaginary trips.
As you can see, this poems follows the rhyme scheme before mentioned and it theme is sad due to the departure of his loved one. At the same time the images are very limited as well as the vocabulary. Nowadays, contemporary poets, in particular American poets, have taken an interest in ghazals, especially in translating the classics so it can become available to English speakers.
A modern version of a Ghazal is Agha Shahid Ali, who introduced the Ghaza to a modern audience with his son "Even the Rain"
What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?
But he has bought grief's lottery, bought even the rain.
"our glosses / wanting in this world" "Can you remember?“
Anyone! "when we thought / the poets taught" even the rain?
After we died--That was it!--God left us in the dark.
And as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain.
Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
For mixers, my love, you'd poured--what?--even the rain
Once again we can see the limited use of vocabulary and imagery and the same rhyme scheme.
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