Block Day, Jan. 12-13 ~ Poetry Terms and memorization!

EQ: Can you confidently identify the poetic devices within a poem?

NEW TERM - Enjambment- from a French word enjambment, means to step over or put legs across. In poetry it can be defined as a thought or sentence that does not come to an end at the line break but continues on to the next line. Why do poets use this feature? Where do you see it in the first stanza of "If"?

MEMORIZATION: "If" by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

• Heads up:
• If Memorization Quiz #1 on Tuesday, Jan. 17
• No school on Monday!

• Poster work time ~ 40 minutes
• Carousel Walk ~ These terms will be on the final in two forms. You will need to be able to recognize the term by the definition and an example. As you read each poster, make sure you would recognize the example.

And a poem about poems!
Journal 2:

1. First name all the devices in the poem below.
2.  Consider his use of random stanzas. Why do you think he chose to split up the text this way? Does it add anything to the meaning or rhythm of the poem?

"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins

 I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light(1)
like a color slide(2)

or press an ear against its hive.(3)


I say drop a mouse into a poem(4)
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room(5)
and feel the walls for a light switch.


I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.


But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.(6)


They begin beating it with a hose(7)
to find out what it really means.

HW: Memorize If for Tuesday and complete Journal 2. 

You may also want to study poetic devices. They are coming in quiz form later next week.