The You-Can’t Get-Any-Cooler-Than-This Poetry Project
Hello, Dear Honors Students! Here is your chance to be wildly creative, to show your gifts, and to have a super time doing it! Your Poetry Project!! Okay, before you start panicking and saying, “I can’t DO this, Mrs. Thompson!!!”, hear me out. Out of the dozen poem ideas listed here, you will chose a mere 10. Just 10! You will then create a book with those 10 poems. Each poem should contain some figurative language. I have attached a list at the end of this packet. Each literary device will be worth 5 points, you must use 20, and each can ony be used once (for credit… you can use them as many times as you like, but only one will be counted). Be sure to include relevant art and color in your book. Consider me your publisher!
You will be graded as follows:
10 poems X 10 points each = 100 points
20 Literary Devices X 5 points each= 100 points
Possible Total 200 points
According to our calendar, your finished books will be due on January 20, 2008.
I will post this on the blog. Please feel free to be creative, to explore, and to have fun. And, Yes, you CAN.
The You-Can’t Get-Any-Cooler-Than-This Poetry Project
#1: Concrete Poetry
The shape of a poem on the page is indeed a worthy consideration when writing a poem. Create a poem in the shape of its subject. I think it will also make us consider and re-consider how the sculpted shape of the poem can contribute in new ways.
#2: Break on Through to the Other Side; or T+3, T+2, T+1, T=0, T-1, T-2, T-3, T-2006 AD; or The Big Crunch as Big Bang in Reverse
Recently, some physicists have provided a mathematical model that suggests that there was a time before the Big Bang, which seems contrary to reason, as how could time exist in state of no space or motion? Hmmmm…. An Honors Kid kind of concept, don’t you think?? This being said, we will be writing a Creation Poem.
According to the calculations of Tomasz Pawlowski and Parmpreet Singh, there is another universe on a timeline preceding the Big Bang, and this universe is similar to ours.
But what is before the Big Bang? Is a god gathering her paints, paint brushes, a canvas, and a palette? Is that universe a mirror image of ours, but maybe where the laws of thermodynamics are in reverse — things move towards order (the broken coffee mug on the floor flies up on to the table and becomes a solid mug holding coffee, which gets hotter as time progresses, or regresses as the case may be)? Or is it just part of the flux/breathing of the universe — expand, contract, expand, contract, Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva? Is there a white rabbit running around, singing "I'm early, I'm early, I'm early, for an unimportant date"? What I ask is on the other side?
Go explore. Go down the hole. See how far the rabbit hole goes, I mean, how far the other universe goes.
For more information:
Probing Question: What happened before the Big Bang? (http://live.psu.edu/story/18816) .
#3: What a Baby You Are; or The Medium of Time Travel; or The Poetry of Casey Kasem.
We will use song titles from songs that were on the top 40 chart during the week of your birth. Or you can use titles of songs that came out in the year of your birth, or the titles of albums, or the titles of books, or whatever else you can think of. The point is to discover the immediate effects of your surroundings when you we're born, by using the title of something as the lens through which you will perceive those surroundings.
#4: Fluorescent Lights as Thieves; or Me and My Bones; or In the Event of Light, the Only Safe Place is Under the Desk
Here is the assignment. Imagine a world where only inanimate objects cast shadows. Imagine how your unconscious would be symbolized. Where would all you psychological baggage be carried? What of dreams? ... Jung and Freud? What of murder mysteries and horror movies? What of fear itself? What of the song "Me and My Shadow"? Oh my…
You may also imagine a world where only organic, living things cast shadows. What then of the moon and its phases? What then of sundials? What then of a mountain's presence looming large over a small town, or are mountains organic and living? Or imagine a place of no shadows. Write. Imagine. Imagine your pencil not throwing a shadow on your words!
#5: The Other Evolution
It occurred to me evolution should have given us an extra heart, a backup heart, a just-in-case-one-heart-stops-working heart. Then it occurred to me to think what it would be like to have two hearts. How would symbolism, especially towards love, change? How would love change? How would humanity change? How would music change?
You assignment is to create a new world of humans, where each human has two hearts. You are to explore love, music, humanity, and everything else the imagination can discover in regards to that world. This should surely produce many poems, on an epic poem.
Explore form, too. Should you use quatrains? Should you use couplets? If rhyming, how would rhyme schemes change with two hearts? How would metrics change? Should you lines have two iambs each? Will the new heart beats affect the way the line breathes? etc. etc. etc.
#6: Bed Time
This poem will about when you first fall asleep. What happens in those first moments of slumber? Are there dreams?
It might be useful to recall the following lines in Virgil's Aenied: "It was the time of first rest for tired mortals" (ll 268-69).
Of course, you might want to sleep on this assignment first. Haha.
#7: New Meanings
Take a poem (any poem) and find a word within the poem (a pivot word / an important word) and change its meaning and make that the title. For example, in the following Emily Dickinson poem: Faith is a fine invention when gentlemen can see,but microscopes are prudentin an emergency.I will choose "microscopes" and make it mean "love." The title of the poem will be something like--"If Microscopes Meant Love" or "Read Love for Microscopes."It's a bit of a language thing, but hopefully it will bring to life poem, at which point you should chase that life and play with the poem until it sings!
#8: The No Repeats ExperimentWrite three 10-line poems with no repeat nouns. Include internal rhymes within lines 9 and 10. Do not think about content while writing the little vignettes. Afterward, look for a common theme and bring it to life! (Revise away the form if it doesn't serve the poem). Go Forth!!
#9: The Rainbow Connection
Compose a poem with the phrase "choking on a rainbow." Variants can include "eating a rainbow" or "cooking a rainbow" or whatever. You know?!
Have fun!
#10: Ok Parder
Start a poem with "Ok Pardner, this is it." Partner can be used in place of pardner should you choose. This seems to provide for a strong, exciting opening.You might also want to refer to Chris Howell's poem "The Holdup" in Third Coast Spring.The HoldupGive me your money, he said.We don't have money, they replied,we have eggs.Oh, very well, he sighed, give me your eggs.We don't have complete eggs, they said, onlythe shells.Well, then, give me your shells, quicklybefore I become tense.The shells we have are broken, they said,we will give you the pieces.
#11: Translation
I heard about this one somewhere. Translate an English poem from English to English (think about what we did with Antigone when we did the dramatic skits… you can use any poem, but it might be easier to use one that is written in an older style of English). I imagine this can done on a word-to-word basis or a line-to-line basis, or the music/melody could just be carried over, or the syntax could be carried over. Whatever you think translation means.
12: The Reader's Digest Experiment
Write a poem titled "An Abridged Version for the Modern Reader."
The You-Can’t Get-Any-Cooler-Than-This Poetry Project
Teacher: Who knows why we call it figurative language?Student: Because you have to figure out what it means!
Your poems must include examples of FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. Please use 20 of the following Literary Devices in your Poems. On the bottom of the poem, please tell which of these devices you have used. Each device can only be used FOR CREDIT once, and each credit is 5 points.
AlliterationAllusionAnalogyArchetypeAssonanceCaesuraCharacterizationChiasmusCircumlocutionConflictConnotationConsonanceDenotationDictionEuphemismEuphonyForeshadowingHyperboleImageryIronyMetaphorMetonymyMotifMoodOnomatopoeiaOxymoronParadoxPersonificationPoint of ViewPlotRhyme SchemeRhythm & RhymeSatireSettingSimileStanzaSymbolSyntaxThemeToneTragedyUnderstatement
