Poetry Unit: Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Essential Questions
1.) How can poetry be defined?
2.) What are commonly used poetic devices? How are poetic devices used to engage readers?
3.) Why is figurative language as a poetic/literary device important in understanding/appreciating poetry?
4.) How does poetry differ from prose?
5.) What are the forms in which poetry can be written?
Wolf
by Billy Collins
A wolf is reading a book of fairy tales.
The moon hangs over the forest, a lamp.
He is not assuming a human position,
say, cross-legged against a tree,
as he would in a cartoon.
This is a real wolf, standing on all fours,
his rich fur bristling in the night air,
his head bent over the book open on the ground.
He does not sit down for the words
would be too far away to be legible,
and it is with difficulty that he turns
each page with his nose and forepaws.
When he finishes the last tale
he lies down in pine needles.
He thinks about what he has read,
the stories passing over his mind,
like the clouds crossing the moon.
A zigzag of wind shakes down hazelnuts.
The eyes of owls yellow in the branches.
The wolf now paces restlessly in circles
around the book until he is absorbed
by the power of its narration,
making him one of its illustrations,
a small paper wolf, flat as print.
Later that night, lost in a town of pigs,
he knocks over houses with his breath.
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Multiple Choice for “Wolf” by Billy Collins
Directions: Choose the BEST answer. Use your strategies for answering multiple choice.
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1. Which book is the wolf reading?
a. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”
b. “The Three Little Pigs”
c. “The Princess and the Pea”
d. “Little Red Riding Hood”
2. The poem is written in which point of view?
a. First Person
b. Second Person
c. Third Person Objective
d. Third Person Omniscient
3. Which of the following best describes the mood of the poem?
a. Eerie
b. Joyful
c. Sorrowful
d. Angry
4. The poem relies heavily on the use of which literary device?
a. Irony
b. Personification
c. Hyperbole
d. Sarcasm
5. If this poem were a story, the author most likely would not have used which device?
a. Imagery
b. Figurative Language
c. Rhyme
d. Stanzas
6. Why does the wolf not sit down to read?
a. He is a statue, not a real wolf, so he is immovable
b. He is afraid that he will be hunted by other animals
c. He will not be able to see the words from a seated position
d. He is injured and can’t move
7. Which literary device is used in the following sentence: “The moon hangs over the forest, a lamp”?
a. Metaphor
b. Simile
c. Hyperbole
d. Personification
8. Which two things are being compared in the following simile: “the stories passing over his mind/like the clouds crossing the moon”?
a. Stories and mind
b. Stories and moon
c. Mind and moon
d. Clouds and moon
9. What happens to the wolf as a result of reading the book?
a. He decides to write the sequel
b. He is hunted by humans
c. He grows bored and falls asleep
d. He becomes a character in the story
10. Which of the following lines helps to personify the wolf?
a. This is a real wolf, standing on all fours,
b. his rich fur bristling in the night air,
c. A zigzag of wind shakes down hazelnuts.
d. He thinks about what he has read,
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Poetry Set : Choose 1 (of 4). Then, identify label 5 examples of figurative language AND 3-5 poetic conventions.
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Slam, Dunk, & Hook
By Yusef KomunyakaaHe was a big man, says the size of his shoes
Fast breaks. Lay ups. With Mercury’s insignia on our sneakers,
We outmaneuvered the footwork
Of bad angels. Nothing but a hot
Swish of strings like silk
Ten feet out. In the roundhouse
Labyrinth our bodies
Created, we could almost
Last forever, poised in midair
Like storybook sea monsters.
A high note hung there
A long second. Off
The rim. We’d corkscrew
Up & dunk balls that exploded
The skullcap of hope & good
Intention. Lanky, all hands
& feet . . . sprung rhythm.
We were metaphysical when girls
Cheered on the sidelines.
Tangled up in a falling,
Muscles were a bright motor
Double-flashing to the metal hoop
Nailed to our oak.
When Sonny Boy’s mama died
He played nonstop all day, so hard
Our backboard splintered.
Glistening with sweat,
We rolled the ball off
Our fingertips. Trouble
Was there slapping a blackjack
Against an open palm.
Dribble, drive to the inside,
& glide like a sparrow hawk.
Lay ups. Fast breaks.
We had moves we didn’t know
We had. Our bodies spun
On swivels of bone & faith,
Through a lyric slipknot
Of joy, & we knew we were
Beautiful & dangerous.
Skating in the Wind
By Kristine O’Connell George
I crouched.
My brother Bill shoved hard.
I held up my jacket;
the wind caught it, shaped it taut like a sail.
The wind slammed into my back.
My skates clattered.
Skidding,
Skimming,
like butter on a hot skillet.
Mouth dry,
the wind roared in my ears.
Bill said I was almost flying-
until the fence.
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Spring Storm
by Jim Wayne Miller
He comes gusting out of the house,
the screen door a thunderclap behind him.
He moves like a black cloud
over the lawn and---stops.
A hand in his mind grabs
a purple crayon of anger
and messes the clean sky.
He sits on the steps, his eye drawing
a mustache on the face in the tree.
As his weather clears,
his rage dripping away,
wisecracks and wonderment
spring up like dandelions.
Abandoned Farmhouse
By Ted Kooser
He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house;
a tall man too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.
A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth, and they had a child
says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, says the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar-hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.
It was lonely here, says the narrow gravel road.
Something went wrong, says the empty house
in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard
Like branches after a storm – a rubber cow,
A rusty tractor with a broken plow,
A doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.
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Knoxville Tennessee
By Nikki Giovanni
I always like summer
best
you can eat fresh corn
from daddy's garden
and okra
and greens
and cabbage
and lots of
barbeque
and buttermilk
and homemade ice-cream
at the church picnic
and listen to
gospel music
outside
at the church
homecoming
and go to the mountains with
your grandmother
and go barefooted
and be warm
all the time
not only when you go to bed
and sleep
How to Paint A Donkey
by Naomi Shihab Nye
She said the head was too large,
the hooves too small.
I could clean my paintbrush
but I couldn’t get rid of that voice.
While they watched,
I crumpled him,
let his blue body
stain my hand,
I cried when he hit the can.
She smiled. I could try again.
Maybe this is what I unfold in the dark,
deciding for the rest of my life,
that donkey was just the right size.
What—Me Worry?
By Greta B. Lipson
Many kids, contrary to adult expectations,
Have a lot of worries
But not me!
Other kids are riddled with fear
Like holes in a block of Swiss cheese.
But not me!
Why should I worry about
Being humiliated,
Looking ugly,
Sounding dumb,
Moving,
Not being asked to the dance,
Going blind,
Having an accident in class,
Seeing my parents argue,
Fitting in,
Being on the outside, looking in,
Dressing wrong,
Getting good grades,
Earning money,
Not knowing what I will be what I grow up,
Being cool,
Not having a single good friend,
Parent/teacher approval,
The facts of life
And death.
How do I know other kids are riddled with fear?
I read a lot and besides—they told me
But me, personally—
I don’t have a worry in the world.
Lineage
by Margaret Walker
My grandmothers were strong.
They followed plows and bent to toil.
They moved through fields sowing seed.
They touched earth and grain grew.
They were full of sturdiness and singing.
My grandmothers were strong.
My grandmothers are full of memories
Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay
With veins rolling roughly over quick hands
They have many clean words to say.
My grandmothers were strong.
Why am I not as they?
Snowmen
By Agha Shahid Ali
My ancestor, a man
of Himalayan snow,
came to Kashmir from Samarkand
carrying a bag
of whale bones.
His skeleton
carved from glaciers, his breath
arctic,
he froze women in his embrace.
His wife thawed into stony water,
Her old age a clear
evaporation.
This heirloom,
his skeleton under my skin, passed
from son to grandson,
generations of snowmen on my back.
They tap every year on my window,
their voices hushed to ice.
No, they won’t let me out of winter,
and I’ve promised myself,
even if I’m the last snowman,
That I’ll ride into spring
on their melting shoulders.My grandmothers were strong.
They followed plows and bent to toil.
They moved through fields sowing seed.
They touched earth and grain grew.
They were full of sturdiness and singing.
My grandmothers were strong.
My grandmothers are full of memories
Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay
With veins rolling roughly over quick hands
They have many clean words to say.
My grandmothers were strong.
Why am I not as they?
Lineage
Lineage
My grandmothers were strong.
They followed plows and bent to toil.
They moved through fields sowing seed.
They touched earth and grain grew.
They were full of sturdiness and singing.
My grandmothers were strong.
My grandmothers are full of memories
Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay
With veins rolling roughly over quick hands
They have many clean words to say.
My grandmothers were strong.
Why am I not as they?
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