combing poem essay in english

Poetry Out Loud

By Gladys Cardiff

Bending, I bow my head and lay my hands upon her hair, combing, and think how women do this for each other. My daughter’s hair curls against the comb, wet and fragrant— orange parings. Her face, downcast, is quiet for one so young.

I take her place. Beneath my mother’s hands I feel the braids drawn up tight as piano wires and singing, vinegar-rinsed. Sitting before the oven I hear the orange coils tick the early hour before school.

She combed her grandmother Mathilda’s hair using a comb made out of bone. Mathilda rocked her oak wood chair, her face downcast, intent on tearing rags in strips to braid a cotton rug from bits of orange and brown. A simple act Preparing hair. Something women do for each other, plaiting the generations.

Source: To Frighten a Storm (Copper Canyon Press, 1976)

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Bending, I bow my head and lay my hands upon her hair, combing, and think how women do this for each other. My daughter’ s hair curls against the comb, wet and fragrant — orange parings. Her face, downcast, is quiet for one so young.

I take her place. Beneath my mother’ s hands I feel the braids drawn up tight as piano wires and singing, vinegar-rinsed. Sitting before the oven I hear the orange coils tick the early hour before school.

She combed her grandmother Mathilda’ s hair using a comb made out of bone. Mathilda rocked her oak wood chair, her face downcast, intent on tearing rags in strips to braid a cotton rug from bits of orange and brown. A simple act Preparing hair. Something women do for each other, plaiting the generations.

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On the Many Ways and Reasons to Mix Poetry and Prose

Contributing to a long-standing and very various tradition.

All I often knew was that I did not only want to write poems. This was a theme through my adolescence (I was an early writer, in some ways) and then later. A bizarre depression settled over the already strange young person that I was, for I had inherited a world that stringently divided prose from verse, that swore to the usefulness of prose and the mere tolerability—bemoaning a noxious lack of good, clear purpose—of poetry, as pop songs played in the background. And on this point I have mostly remained despondent. I have never wanted only to write poems or, for that matter, to write only prose.

But as luck and the lucky fact that it is nearly impossible for a human being to have an entirely unique desire would have it, I was not alone in my wish for literary combination. Though this form, practice, or, as it may be, genre is seldom taught in school (I have been to many), there exists a long-standing and various tradition of bringing together poems and prose into synthetic items of literature. In the classical West sometimes this is called prosimetrum . Elsewhere, I have liked terms like “miscellany,” “saga,” “postmodern novel.” There are, it turns out, not just many ways, but many reasons to write a work bringing together groups of sentences with groups of words that are measured out according to principles and patterns that are not merely grammatical. If your eyes can withstand another 1,500 words, you may gather what are, in my opinion, a few of the better reasons for engaging in this sort of mixture.

REASON ONE: you recognize that much distinction is arbitrary. I do not know if prose is the opposite of verse. This is like asking what the opposite of a cat is. Some may know that verse and prose have long had the strange if plausible function of designating, in writing, the difference between song and “plain” speech. It’s on these grounds, anyway, that much of the much-touted, as well as the much-debated, specialness of poetry, particularly lyric poetry, is, as far as I have been able to ascertain, based.

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Let us jump to the 17th century in France. A character in Molière’s Bourgeois gentilhomme remarks (I paraphrase), “Very cool. I had no idea I’d been speaking prose my whole life.” Such limp delight at learning that one is already playing by timeworn rules suggests a rhyme between canonicity and complacency, of course, but could also hint at the radical irrelevance of the very category of prose—or, for that matter, speech. It is surely easier to maintain interest in these matters when writing has not lain down and died in the pit suggested by the verse-prose distinction. The German Romantics’—to jump again—idea of prose was pleasantly nonstandard. If aphoristic, it was endlessly so, like a staircase in a dream. Their poems were likewise dreamy; sometimes fragmentary, disordered. Their novels included folk songs and other lyric professions, suggesting that there was something particularly worthy about the combination of lineated language with the paragraph, the breaking of prose. The poet Novalis wrote about the sentence as a temporary “containment” of linguistic dynamism, maintaining that “A time will come when it no longer exists.” And Friedrich Schlegel, in his “Letter on the Novel,” composed at the dawning of the new (19th) century, insisted on a lapidary lineage of mixed genre dating back to the late middle ages: “I can hardly imagine a novel otherwise than as a mixture of narrative, song, and other forms. Cervantes never composed otherwise, and even Boccaccio, in other respects so prosaic, decorated his collection with inset songs.”

It seems, too, that within the apparently mongrel and/or pastiche environment of novels including songs, which is to say, songs surrounded by narrative prose, poets might act not only as convenient speakers or singers but also as more or less curious characters, bringing me to my second rationale, aka, REASON TWO : it is conceivable to you that the poet is as likely to be a character or other figment, as a genuine, living person . For Anglophone readers, the inevitable point of comparison is Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire , of 1962. And, as this novel points up, when the poet, here one John Shade, becomes a character, we find a literalized depiction of those aspects of personality and personal history that in America the professional critic was tasked with discovering and/or vivisecting on behalf of the lay reader. Whether or not Nabokov was aggressively satirizing New Critical leanings in American letters, Pale Fire , like Novalis’s The Novices of Sais , places a poet in a landscape, which is at once the prose of the book and a more-or-less everyday world. In this sense the novelist might be acting as a sort of historian, folklorist, or cultural critic; the song or poem does not appear free of charge but rather demands context, which is often a close cousin of interpretation. It hardly need be said that in the novel the poem can be deployed in an endless number of ways, ranging from artifact to spell.

Yet, the paradigmatic examples of books of poems combined with plot have to be a pair of works written by contemporaries in 11th-century Japan, The Pillowbook by Sei Shōnagon and The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. In these two books, the first a diary, the second a novel, numerous characters within court society compose poetry. This is at once a pastime and a kind of networked system of communication and signification, permitting simultaneous epistolary address and reference back to the system, to its histories and commonplaces. Through the poems interspersed in The Pillowbook and The Tale of Genji we learn not merely the emotions and motivations of characters, but also how they deal with the problem of writing and how they deploy it, whether as lure, dissimulation, entreaty, or gift outright. For writing is not only unnatural, it is also and of course a means of obtaining and manipulating power. And the ambiguity of the poem permits kinds of meaning prose’s obviousness precludes. A description of a flower may be just that, yet it may also be sign or secret message; it will be read differently by different characters, just as by the reader herself, who reads over, as it were, characters’ putative shoulders.

The prismatic nature of the poem, its turning inability to remain “just text,” or “just address,” or “mere symbol,” or “absolute literal designation,” and on and on, is also exploited in exceedingly interesting ways in the American modernist context. The lack of (Romantic) mysticism or (medieval) intrigue is made up for in prosimetrical works that take the poem as an item capable of varying and destabilizing contemporary prose to ends at once aesthetic and political. Works by Jean Toomer and William Carlos Williams bring me to my third and final historical reason to combine, REASON THREE: you are bored with a certain (sad) status quo. Toomer’s Cane , of 1923, presents a combination of modernist poems, clear and vivid in their depictions of American landscapes and persons, with short prose vignettes employing vernacular language along with song-like refrains. This unique book’s intent seems to be to bring into dialogue the values of high modernism and the everyday speech and African American folk culture of the South; it seems to have ambitions at once ethnographic and loftily, exactingly stylistic. William Carlos Williams meanwhile locates an American identity through improvisation and excess, re-describing both prose style and the capacities of verse through various modes of excerption, appropriation, and apostrophe, after a fashion that belies his reputation as a rigorous reducer of words into machine-like things. Though Williams wrote many books of mixed genre, Spring and All , published in the same year as Cane and home to the famous minimal poem including a “wheel / barrow,” is the scene of a particularly powerful explosion of speed-fueled prose typewriting; it’s a book of leaps and lashings, a seeming attempt to prove that poetry can invade the syntax of the American sentence, ecstatically. If it does not exactly promote the joy of romantic love, then it demonstrates the power of an encounter of another kind, between precise syllabic poems and a tumbling, rushing onslaught of prose. Like Cane , Spring and All is a comparative text; it invents new terms and tastes by way of contrast and association.

Above I have supplied three reasons, and though I like them fairly well, they do not, in the end, as is probably to be expected, exhaust all my thinking and feeling about varying, combinatory writing styles. I may care most about a mixture of styles because it allows the paranoiac in me to comment on the conservative literary (not to mention educational) systems that I fear linger in our world, in spite of—and sometimes even paradoxically by way of—the iconoclasm of modernist heroes et al. Verse is not just, to my mind, a form with various technical appurtenances, since it has a long history and specific social functions (inputs, outputs); like prose, it seems to me at times a sort of system, with myriad institutional nodes. Though I am not so heroic myself as to believe that my contemporaries are in need of saving, I do often find that some perverse aspect of me would very much like to make things a little bit messier, throw a wrench in the engine, and otherwise, pick your frustratingly well-worn metaphor, cause to function less smoothly said system of literary production. Most of all, stubborn being that I am, I find myself drawn to various styles of silence, said silence being a possible ingredient in, or sign of, the still, at least to me, unaccountable distance between poetry and prose.

Anyway, could we remove a poem from its job as a poem? A sentence, from its job as a sentence? What would we need to contribute to writing to cause such odd dismissals to transpire in a believable manner? What is the very smallest unit that can indicate plot, as such? What occurs (to us) when we are not sure what we are reading? To the extent that these aberrant questions have answers, they indicate the direction toward which some, though certainly not all, of my writing tends, which is to say, not toward the invention of new reasons for writing between and around and among established literary modes, but toward the invention of instances of contrast, that can in turn stand in stark contrast to the abundant supply of similarities I am sure to have found, in my perverse search for fresh difference.

Lucy Ives’s latest, The Hermit , is available now from The Song Cave.

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Reflecting on the Past and Future Poetry

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Is a way to express a deeper truth and to move people or make them feel emotion. This Is true In “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost and “Combing” by Gladys Cardiff. In “The Road Not Taken” the speaker Is at a fork In the road and must choose a path. They are both worn down about the same and he tells himself he could always come back for the other. The deeper meaning is the speaker has a dilemma and must make a decision. In “Combing” a mother is braiding and combing her daughter’s hair. She remembers a time when her own mother did the same to her hair.

Then her mother combs her grandmother’s hair from a comb made of bone. This symbolizes the tradition of braiding hair for each generation. “The Road Not Taken” Is a four-stanza poem with the rhyme scheme BABY. The poet describes a path separating into two In the woods. He observes each path and knows he must make a decision. He takes the road that looked grassy and unused although they were both used about the same. He tells himself he could always come back and take the other road but In the back of his mind he doubts he will ever come back. There Is a very clear deeper meaning to this poem.

The speaker has come to conflict in his life and must choose between two choices. The poet sets the poem in the fall with the leaves falling so this symbolizes the speaker is in the fall of his life and he is too old to go back and revise major decisions he made in the past. He chooses one road and is unaware of what lies in his future. In the last stanza he second-guesses himself. He will never know what the other road was like but he’s curious and thinks it may be better. The poet writes, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I-? I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

His decision changes his life but we don’t know If It’s for better or worse. The poem suggests Its better to take the road less traveled because It could have a better future. The theme of the poem is you shouldn’t second-guess yourself and you can’t control your destiny so Just make the best of what you have, “Combing” Is also a four-stanza poem with no rhyme scheme. It is about the generations of women in a family who do each others hair. It starts off with the child getting her hair braided by her mother. The author uses imagery when she writes “My daughter’s hair curls against the comb, Wet and fragrant-?orange parings. In the next stanza the mother is getting her hair combed by her mother. Cardiff uses the simile “l feel the braids drawn up tight as a piano wire and singing, Vinegar-rinsed. ” She then tells us it is early in the morning before school and she is waiting for the toaster to ring. “Sitting before the oven I hear the orange coils tick the early hour before school. ” In the third stanza her grandmother Is getting her hair combed while she is tearing strips of orange and brown rags to make a rug. A bond Is created between the family embers from the act of braiding hair.

The women braid each other’s hair In the morning as an expression of love. It Is a happy poem that emphasizes the importance of family. The theme of the poem is women in a family can connect and ugly such as a rag and making something new and useful out of it, such as a rug. It might tie into the poem because it symbolizes connecting the past with the future. The poem by Robert Frost takes us into the mind and thoughts of someone who is reflecting on their past and they seem to be struggling with a decision they made.

Combing” also brings us into the mind and thoughts of the speaker as she is reflecting on the past, however, this person isn’t dealing with a struggle. The speaker is very much at peace in this poem and is enjoying the moment that she reflects on this act and how it connects her with the past and the future. We have a very serene feeling when we read this poem. “The Road Not Taken” leaves us with a feeling that the speaker is not at ease and may never be when at ease whenever he chooses to reflect on the time when he made this decision. There is a feeling of conflict in this poem.

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All Poems / GCSE AQA

The Emigrée, Carol Rumens

FULL POEM - SCROLL DOWN FOR LINE-BY-LINE ANALYSIS

There once was a country… I left it as a child but my memory of it is sunlight-clear for it seems I never saw it in that November which, I am told, comes to the mildest city. The worst news I receive of it cannot break my original view, the bright, filled paperweight. It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants, but I am branded by an impression of sunlight. The white streets of that city, the graceful slopes glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks and the frontiers rise between us, close like waves. That child’s vocabulary I carried here like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar. Soon I shall have every coloured molecule of it. It may by now be a lie, banned by the state but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight. I have no passport, there’s no way back at all but my city comes to me in its own white plane. It lies down in front of me, docile as paper; I comb its hair and love its shining eyes. My city takes me dancing through the city of walls. They accuse me of absence, they circle me. They accuse me of being dark in their free city. My city hides behind me. They mutter death, and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.

LINE-BY-LINE ANALYSIS

There once was a country… I left it as a child

The poem begins with the fairytale-esque phrase ‘there once was a country’ not dissimilar to the famous ‘once upon a time’. This immediately connotes emotions related to childhood and the nostalgia that accompanies them – this is fitting as the speaker reveals that she ‘left [this city] as a child’.

but my memory of it is sunlight-clear

‘Sunlight-clear’ is a warm, vibrant image suggesting that the speaker looks back fondly on her time in the city and that she was comfortable there. This imagery is the first of the pathetic fallacies that are a motif (a recurring theme) of the poem.

for it seems I never saw it in that November which, I am told, comes to the mildest city. The worst news I receive of it cannot break

The speaker reveals that her positive recollection of the city is not tainted by her ignorance of the events of ‘that November’ from which she receives the ‘worst news’. Specified later in this stanza, the reader can infer that political turmoil or conflict took hold of the city, likely forcing her to emigrate from the country. Such events potentially took place in ‘that November’ or the reference to winter is a metaphor for the brutality of the events that occurred.

my original view, the bright, filled paperweight.

The ‘bright, filled paperweight’ is a metaphor for how the speaker’s positive perception of her former home remains unwavering, keeping these fond memories at the forefront and the negative ones at bay, akin to a paperweight organising sheets of paper and preventing the onset of disarray.

It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants, but I am branded by an impression of sunlight.

The speaker’s adoration for the city (for which the ‘sunlight’ is an extended metaphor) is still present despite the conflict that ravages it. Describing it as ‘sick with tyrants’ likens the city to a person suffering from injury or disease that spreads as the war intensifies. This personification portrays the city as innocent to the conflict’s inception and defenseless to its continuation, rendering the onset of peace a distant hope.

The white streets of that city, the graceful slopes glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks and the frontiers rise between us, close like waves.

The city’s ‘white streets’ symbolise innocence and purity, linking to the concluding message of the previous stanza. This symbolism is seen across literature and religion, from the Bible to Macbeth, and from which the colour of a bridal dress is derived. Furthermore, the imagery of the city’s ‘graceful slopes’ is one of poise and elegance which is harshly juxtaposed by the war-torn symbols of ‘tanks’ and ‘frontiers’. The effect is to emphasise the disparity between the place she called home and recalls so fondly and the place she now hears about and the tragedies taking place there. These two places may share the same geographical location but, to her, couldn’t be further apart.

That child’s vocabulary I carried here like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar.

‘That child’s vocabulary’ the speaker refers to is the limited knowledge, having been forced to leave so young, she has of her native language. The simile ‘like a hollow doll’ is emotive, suggesting that the speaker feels empty, as though she’s lost her identity through her emigration – it’s not just the city she’s been forced to leave behind but it’s culture and it’s natural to feel imposter syndrome elsewhere as a result.

Soon I shall have every coloured molecule of it.

The ‘coloured molecule’ referred to here is a metaphor for words in her native language. Describing them as ‘coloured’ conjures a notion of vibrancy which, similarly to the imagery of sunlight throughout the poem, represents the fond nostalgia felt by the speaker. Additionally, the term ‘molecule’ suggests vitality, referencing the lifeline that her language provides to her home city and culture.

It may by now be a lie, banned by the state but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight.

Tragically, it appears that the state that now rules the city has ‘banned’ the speaker’s native language as part of its oppressive regime. This is known as linguistic discrimination which is still active today – publishing materials in Kurdish is currently banned in Syria, for example. Perhaps the speaker is referencing similar events or maybe, more deeply, her language is a symbol of her culture as a whole which, although to her ‘tastes of sunlight’, is now outlawed and punishable under the new regime.

I have no passport, there’s no way back at all but my city comes to me in its own white plane.

The speaker has ‘no passport’ rendering it physically impossible for her to return to her home city, however, emotionally, seemingly in a dream, it returns to her ‘in its own white plane’. ‘Plane’ in this context is defined as ‘a level of existence, thought, or development’ and here the city’s ‘white plane’ highlights the disparity between reality and fantasy, between the city as the speaker knows it and its current state.

It lies down in front of me, docile as paper; I comb its hair and love its shining eyes.

Rumens ascribes human traits to the city, a technique known as anthropomorphism, as the speaker describes how ‘it lies down in front of [her]’. The simile ‘docile as paper’ as well as how the speaker ‘combs its hair’ and references ‘its shining eyes’ portrays the city as childlike, linking to its innocence and vulnerability previously symbolised and evoking a feeling of sympathy towards it within the reader.

My city takes me dancing through the city of walls. They accuse me of absence, they circle me. They accuse me of being dark in their free city.

The speaker feels like an imposter in the ‘free city’ she has emigrated to, accused by its population of being ‘dark’ or resigned as a result. The cultural barrier the speaker is forced to overcome is such that, although ‘free’ in the sense the city is at peace, she feels trapped within it, conveying this emotion through the metaphor ‘city of walls’. The only thing that can lessen this emotional toll is clinging onto the memories of her home city – the nostalgia lifting her spirits and helping her ‘dance’ through this foreign environment.

My city hides behind me. They mutter death, and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.

The poem concludes with this thought-provoking metaphor. The childlike imagery of the speaker’s home city continues as it ‘hides behind’ her akin to a child behind their mother. It remains ambiguous, but ‘they mutter death’ is likely to refer to the locals or news outlets of the speaker’s new city discussing the tragic events of her home city and the likely influx of refugees. The speaker’s ‘shadow [falling] as evidence of sunlight’ is open to interpretation, however, Rumen’s choice for the image of ‘sunlight’ to conclude this final stanza like the two prior implies the ending to be optimistic by design.

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13.4: Sample essay on a poem

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Example: Sample essay written on a Langston Hughes' poem

The following essay is a student’s analysis of Langston Hughes’ poem “I, Too” (poem published in 1926) I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed — I, too, am America.

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English 110

Creating Change by Changing Minds

When I log onto Facebook nowadays and scroll through my feed, if it's not advertisements, it's posts talking about the injustices of the world, primarily from racism. These posts are filled with anger and strong hostility. I'm not saying anger is the wrong emotion to feel when faced with injustice, but when that hostility is channeled into violence, this does not bring about justice or change. Long lasting and effective change can only be made through non-violent methods, which is demonstrated by Langston Huges in his poem, "I, Too." In this short poem, Hughes gives many examples of how to effectively and on-violently address and combat racism.

Huges first uses people's religious morality to enlist his readers to resist racism. He starts the poem with his black narrator asserting, "I am the darker brother" (2). Brother to whom? In the Christian religion, a predominate religion during the times of slavery in the U.S and beyond, the terms brother and sister are used to show equality and kinship, and this human connection transcends race. Everyone is equal as children of God, and are all heirs to the promises of divine love and salvation. Simply by the black narrator calling himself a brother, Hughes is attempting to appeal to white Christian Americans, and to deny this connection is to go against the teachings in the Bible about brotherhood. This is very powerful in multiple ways. Firstly, establishing a sense of brotherhood and camaraderie should make anyone who tarnishes that unity feel ashamed. Secondly if anyone truly wishes to receive God's mercy, they would have to treat everyone as equals, or be punished by God, or even be denied eternal life in heaven all together. This technique is effective and long-lasting because the fear or violence inflicted on a person is temporary, but damnation is eternal.

Hughes further combats racism, not through threats of uprisings or reprisals, but rather by transforming hatred into humor and positivity. In response to his segregation, the narrator says, "They send me to eat in the kitchen/When company comes,/But I laugh,/And eat well/And grow strong" (3-7). With this, Hughes rises about racial exclusion and asks his reader to see it for what it is, ridiculous. He also shows how to effectively combat this injustice which is to learn from it and to feel empowered by not letting racists treatment from others hurt, define or hold you back. Additionally, this approach is an invitation to Hughes' white readers to be "in on the joke" and laugh at the mindless and unwarranted exclusion of this appealing and relatable person who is full of confidence and self-worth. Through his narrator, Hughes diffuses racial tensions in an inclusive and non-threatening way, but the underlying message is clear: equality is coming soon. We know he believes this when the poem's speaker states, "Tomorrow,/I'll be at the table/When company comes" (8-10). There is a strong assertion here that racism will not be permitted to continue, but the assertion is not a threat. Hughes carefully navigates the charged issue of racial unity here, particularly at the time he wrote this poem when segregation was in many places in the U.S. the law. The different forms of segregation-emotional, physical, financial, social-that blacks have suffered has and continues to result in violence, but Hughes here shows another path. Highes shows that despite it all, we can still make amends and site down at a table together. As a human family, we can overcome our shameful past by simply choosing to peacefully come together.

Finally Hughes uses American patriotism as a powerful non-violent method to unite his readers to combat racism. The poem concludes, "Besides,/They'll see how beautiful I am/And be ashamed-/I, too, am American" (15-18). Notice how he uses the word American and not American. He is not simply just an inhabitant of America he IS American in that he represents the promise, the overcoming of struggle, and the complicated beauty that makes up this country. He is integral to America's past, present and future. He is, as equally as anyone else, a critical piece in America's very existence and pivotal to its future. As Hughes united his readers through religion and the use of "brother," here he widens the net beyond religion and appeals to all Americans. As we say in our pledge of allegiance, we stand "indivisible with liberty and justice for all." To hate or exclude someone based on race, therefore, is to violate the foundational and inspirational tenants of this country. Hughes does not force or attack in his poem, and he does not promise retribution for all the harms done to blacks. He simple shows that racism in incompatible and contradictory to being truly American, and this realization, this change of heart, is what can bring about enduring change.

It has been shown over and over that violence leads to more violence. Violence might bring about change temporarily, but when people are stripped of choice, violence will reassert itself. Some of the most dramatic social movements that have brought about real change have used non-violent means as seen in Martin Luther King Jr's non-violent protests helping to change U.S. laws and ensure Civil Rights for all, as seen in Gandhi's use of non-violent methods to rid India of centuries of oppressive British rule, and as seen in Nelson Mandela's persistent and non-violent approaches of finally removing Apartheid from South Africa. However, we are not these men. Mos tof us are not leaders of movements, but we are each important and influential. We as individuals can be immensely powerful if we choose to be. We can choose to apply the examples and advice from enlightened minds like Hughes, King, Gandhi, and Mandela. When we see on Facebook or in the news on in-person people targeting or excluding others, or inciting violence againist a person or group based on race, or sexual orientation, or religion, or any other arbitrary difference selected to divide and pit us against one another, we can choose instead to respond with kindness, with humor, with positivity, and with empathy because this leads to the only kind of change that matters.

Works Cited

Hughes, Langston. "I, Too." African-American Poetry: An Anthology 1773-1927 , edited by Joan R.

Sherman, Dover Publications, Inc. Mineola, New York. 1997, p. 74.

English I ECHS C. Edge

Nov 19, 2014

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Thematic Unit: Love Poetry “Daily” by Naomi Shihab Nye Haiku poetry by Chora, Chiyo, Basho, and Issa “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke “Combing” by Gladys Cardiff “Harlem” by Langston Hughes. English I ECHS C. Edge. Reading Skills and Strategies: Poetry.

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Thematic Unit: LovePoetry“Daily” by Naomi Shihab NyeHaiku poetry by Chora, Chiyo, Basho, and Issa“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke“Combing” by Gladys Cardiff“Harlem” by Langston Hughes English I ECHS C. Edge

Reading Skills and Strategies: Poetry • Look for punctuation in the poem telling you where sentences begin and end. • Do not make a full stop at the end of a line if there is no period, comma, colon, semicolon, or dash there. • If a passage of a poem is difficult to understand, look for the subject, verb, and complement of each sentence.

“Daily” Naomi Shihab Nye Quickwrite, p. 494

“Daily” by Naomi Shihab Nye • Catalog poem – • The repetition of items in the list creates a rolling rhythm when the poem is read aloud.

Poetry Analysis of the Poem • What is the poem about? • Number of Stanzas? • Number of Lines per Stanza? • Speaker? • Rhyme Scheme? • Examples of repetition? • Examples of imagery? • Examples of symbolism?

Daily Naomi Shihab NyeThese shriveled seeds we plant,corn kernel, dried bean,poke into loosened soil,cover over with measured fingertipsThese T-shirts we foldinto perfect whitesquaresThese tortillas we slice and fry to crisp stripsThis rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowlThis bed whose covers I straightensmoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanketand nothing hangs outThis envelope I addressso the name balances like a cloudin the center of the skyThis page I type and retypeThis table I dust till the scarred wood shinesThis bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash againlike flags we share, a country so closeno one needs to name itThe days are nouns: touch themThe hands are churches that worship the world Identify the repetitive images and language in ll. 16-18. How does this catalog of images affect the poem’s rhythm?

The images in this poem come from the speaker’s everyday life. • She reveals her wonderment by giving each image a special role in her day and poem. Some of the simple things are compared to awe-inspiring concepts.

“Daily” by Naomi Shihab Nye • Write a catalog poem or paragraph that lists images of things in your daily life that are miracles or make you happy to be alive.

Take notes on important elements of Diego Rivera's The Grinder: subject, colors, shapes, the feelings it evokes, the story you see in it.

Question #1, p. 498 • When you think of images in the world that give you joy or that fill you with wonder, do you look at ordinary things, as Nye does? Talk over your responses to the poet’s source of wonder and joy.

Question #2, p. 498 • What do Nye’s particular images tell you about her life and where she lives? • Images of planting corn and beans and frying tortillas suggest that Nye lives in the American southwest; images of housework suggest that she has a home and a family to care for; images of typing suggest that she writes.

Haiku PoetryMiura ChoraChiyoMatsuo BashoKobayashi Issa Quickwrite, p. 499

Haiku poetry • Japanese poetry form • 17 syllables • Line one = 5 syllables • Line two = 7 syllables • Line three = 5 syllables • Presents images of everyday life • Usually contains a seasonal word or symbol (kigo) • Presents a single moment of discovery or enlightenment (satori)

Haiku 1 Miura Chora Get out of my road and allow me to plant these bamboos, Mr. Toad. What does this haiku reveal about the speaker’s view of living creatures?

Haiku 2 Chiyo A morning glory Twined round the bucket: I will ask my neighbor for water. In haiku, comparisons are suggested, but not stated directly. What comparison is suggested in this haiku? Why does the speaker need to get water from the neighbor?

Haiku 3 Matsuo Basho The old pond; A frog jumps in: Sound of water. What might the speaker be doing? Traditional haiku contain kigo, or words associated with a season. The Japanese would know, for example, that snow indicates winter and evening showers mean that it is summer. Here, the word frog suggests spring.

Haiku 4 Kobayashi Issa A dragonfly!The distant hillsReflected in his eyes. Punctuation in a haiku—colons, dashes, or exclamation marks—indicate a shift in subject or mood. Ask students to practice reading the haiku aloud, capturing the change in the speaker’s mood after his surprise at seeing the dragonfly.

Question #1, p. 507 “Haiku” and “Fog” • All of these poems contain images of moments and miracles in nature. What image in the haiku, in “Fog,” and in “in Just-” did you find most striking, original, or powerful?

Question #2, p. 507 “Haiku” • One of the characteristics of a haiku is that it presents a moment of discovery or revelation. In your own words, describe the moment frozen in each of the haiku in this group of poems.

Question #3, p. 507 “Haiku” • In Chiyo’s haiku, the plant is a “morning glory.” How could these words also describe what the poet experienced at her morning encounter?

Question #7, p. 507 “Haiku” • Inside each of the haiku there is a person. Put yourself in each person’s shoes, one by one. Consider: • In the first haiku, do you wait for the toad to move, or do you poke it? • In the second haiku, do you ever use that bucket again? • In the third haiku, what do you think you were doing the minute before the frog jumped in? • In the fourth haiku, how long are you able to see the hills?

“My Papa’s Waltz”By Theodore Roethke Quickwrite, p. 561

“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore RoethkeElements of Literature—rhyme • Rhyme – the repetition of accented vowel sounds, and all sounds following them, in words that are close together • Approximate rhyme – rhymes that do not rhyme exactly, but appear to • Rhyme scheme – the pattern of rhyme in a poem

My Papa’s Waltz Theodore Roethke The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy.5 We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother’s countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist10 Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt,15 Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt. Listen for the waltzing rhythm created by the words in this poem. The/ whis/key/ on/ your/ breath da DA da DA da DA Could/ make/ a/ small/ boy/ diz/zy da DA da DA da DA da Identify the rhyme scheme of the poem.

What kind of work does the father do? What evidence is there in the story? • He works with his hands doing manual labor.

p. 563, Question 1 • How do you think the speaker feels about his father and the rough waltz?

p. 563, Question 2 • How does the mother feel about the waltz? How would you explain her reaction?

p. 563, Question 3 • How would you interpret line 3, “But I hung on like death”?

p. 563, Question 4 • Death is a word that usually has connotations of loss and sadness. Which other words and images in the poem have negative connotations? Which have positive connotations? You could prepare your response by making a chart like the one below.

p. 563, Question 5 • How would you express the poem’s message, or theme? (Hint: Does the poem say anything about love?)

p. 563, Question 6 • The title promises music, and Roethke delivers a three-beat waltz rhythm and a regular rhyme scheme. Scan the poem to show its meter. What is the rhyme scheme? Read the poem aloud. Do you think it sounds happy or sad?

“Combing”By Gladys Cardiff Quickwrite, p. 566

“Combing” by Gladys Cardiff • Repetition – • Alliteration – • Assonance –

Bending, I bow my headAnd lay my hand uponHer hair, combing, and thinkHow women do this forEach other. My daughter’s hairCurls against the comb, Wet and fragrant—orangeParings. Her face, downcast, Is quiet for one so young.I take her place. Beneath My mother’s hands I feelThe braids drawn up tight As a piano wire and singing, Vinegar-rinsed. SittingBefore the oven I hear The orange coils tick The early hour before school.She combed her grandmother Mathilda’s hair usingA comb made out of bone. Mathilda rocked her oak-wood Chair, her face downcast, Intent on tearing rags In strips to braid a cottonRug from bits of orange And brown. A simple act,Preparing hair. Something Women do for each other, Plaiting the generations.

Repetition • Find examples of alliteration in this poem: • Find examples of assonance in this poem:

Plaiting or braiding is the act of tying strands of hair together into one bigger strand. The bigger strand is obviously stronger than the individual hairs are. What do you think this symbolizes in this poem? • What other activity in the poem could be seen in a similar way?

Question 1, p. 568 • What gifts are giving in “Combing”?

Question 4, p. 568 • What do you think the poet means in “Combing” when she refers in the last line to women “plaiting the generations”?

Question 5, p. 568 • What other things do family members do that tie or braid generations? What other gifts do parents give children?

Scansion – • Rhythm – • Meter – • Feet – • Common types of feet: • iamb – • Trochee – • Anapest – • Dactyl – • Spondee –

“Harlem”by Langston Hughes Quickwrite, p. 590

Tone – • Figure of speech – • Simile – • Metaphor –

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— 5 And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags10 like a heavy load.Or does it explode?

What does Hughes compare a dream to? • How would you describe his tone?

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Comparing Poems

After studying this section you should be able to understand:

what features to look for in each poem
how to plan and write your response

As part of the GCSE English Literature course, one of the things you will need to do is to ‘explore relationships and comparisons between text, selecting and evaluating relevant material ’. One of the ways in which you might be asked to do this is to compare two poems.

When comparing poems you need to look for all the features that you look for when studying a single poem.

You need to look at the:

content of the poem
tone and mood of the poem
form in which it is written and structured
ways in which language is used

When writing your response, avoid writing an examination of one poem and then the other and comparing them in a final paragraph. Integrate your comments on the poems throughout.

However, you also need to compare these features in both poems.

You will need to look at each poem individually to plan your response, but when writing your response you need to integrate your ideas on both poems.

Watch the video below to help you understand key poetic terms and the forms and structure of poetry to help you analyse and compare poems for your unseen poetry paper.

Here’s one way you could approach this task:

Planning your response

1. Read both poems through carefully and get an overall sense of what each poem is about and how the poets handle their topics.

2. Re-read poem ‘A’ and make brief notes either around the poem, if you are able, or on a separate sheet, noting key words, phrases, images etc. and your response to it. Do the same with poem ‘B’.

3. Note down some brief quotations from each poem that you will use to illustrate your ideas. You could underline or circle these if you can write on the copy of the poem.

4. Make two lists – one headed similarities and one headed differences and list the main points under each heading.

Writing the response

It is important that you avoid writing an essay on each poem and then try to join them together. The best responses are those that integrate the ideas in parallel throughout the essay.

Here’s one way you could approach this:

INTRODUCTION

Introductory paragraph commenting on what each poem is about and capturing the ‘flavour’ of each.

Several paragraphs based on your detailed reading of the poems. It is a good idea to make a point about poem ‘A’ and then a point about poem ‘B’.

It can help you structure your ideas in a logical way, e.g. one paragraph could compare the way each uses imagery , while another paragraph could focus on structure etc.

A concluding paragraph, summing up the main similarities and differences, saying which you find more effective and why, if you are asked this .

Keep both poems at the centre of your focus and don’t be tempted to write all about one and then the other.

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Top 20 Famous Poems: Inspiring Poems For Your Next Essay

Are you looking for famous poems to study for your next essay? Then, check out these top 20 poems to inspire your next writing project.

Poetry has a way of capturing human emotion and conveying it in the written word through rhyme and meter. Many famous poets have made their mark on literature worldwide, writing everything from love poems to nonsense poems that explore the way words can work together to create verse.

Taking a closer look at famous poems can help to truly understand the impact that poetry has had. Here are 20 works of famous poetry that have impacted the world of literature.

1.“Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou

2. “stopping by woods on a snowy evening” by robert frost, 3. “the road not taken” by robert frost, 4. sonnet 18 by william shakespeare, 5. “do not go gentle into that good night” by dylan thomas, 6. “i wandered lonely as a cloud” by william wordsworth, 7. “how do i love thee” by elizabeth barrett browning, 8. “she walks in beauty” by lord byron, 9. “the waste land” by t.s. eliot, 10. “the raven” by edgar allan poe, 11. “jabberwocky” by lewis carroll, 12. “o captain my captain” by walt whitman, 13. “invictus” by william ernest henley, 14. “the love song of j. alfred prufrock” by t.s. eliot, 15. “fire and ice” by robert frost, 16. “every day you play” by pablo neruda, 17. “because i could not stop for death” by emily dickinson, 18. “if-” by rudyard kipling, 19. “paul revere’s ride” by henry wadsworth longfellow, 20. “ozymandias” by percy bysshe shelley.

“ Still I Rise ” is in the third poetry collection by American poet Maya Angelou. This poem pays homage to the human spirit even as it overcomes discrimination and hardship. To write, Angelou tapped into her experiences as a black American woman.

In the poem, Angelou talks bout how others have downplayed her , her accomplishment, and her people, trying to break her spirit. And yet, she rises above these problems to find success.

“You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”

Written in 1922, “ Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening ” uses imagery, personification, and repetition to create a memorable poem. It displays iambic tetrameter and appears on the surface to have a simple meaning. This poem is distinctive in how simple it appears, yet how well it holds to the meter and rhyme scheme. Simplicity and accuracy are not easy to attain.

“Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.“

Perhaps one of the most commonly-studied poems in American literature, “ The Road Not Taken ,” talks about a young man traveling through the forest when he comes to a fork in the road. He chooses the “one less traveled by” and states it has made all the difference. The final lines of this poem have become part of modern society, showing up in movies, commercials, and graduation speeches every year.

Many people know the final lines of this poem, even if they do not know that they came from a famous American poet. The poem’s lines are now part of over 400 book titles or subtitles, and that fact alone, combined with its general popularity, earns it a spot on this list.

“I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”

Perhaps one of his most famous love poems, Sonnet 18 , starts with one of Shakespeare’s most iconic lines. As he compares his lady love to a summer’s day, hearts swoon, and romantics take note.

Sonnet 18 follows the 14-line structure of most English sonnets. It has three quatrains and a couplet and follows iambic pentameter. The poem’s romantic lines make it a favorite to quote to an object of affection.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

This famous poem by Dylan Thomas is read at two out of every three funerals . It captures the feelings brought on by death and highlights how people who love someone want them to fight against the reality of the end of life.

“ Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night ” is particularly popular because it sounds so beautiful when read aloud. Thomas got much of his income from working on the radio, and as such, he learned the power of the spoken human voice. This understanding is reflected in the cadence of his verses.

“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.”

Also known as “Daffodils,” this famous poem from William Wordsworth was written in the early 1800s. It took its inspiration from a walk Wordsworth took with his sister around Glencoyne Bay, where the two came upon a large field of daffodils.

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud ” is popular due to its rich imagery. When someone reads it, they can picture the daffodils dancing on the hill. However, unlike other famous poems, it does not necessarily have a double meaning but is simply a tribute to something beautiful in nature.

“I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”

How Do I Love Thee” is the title of Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. This romantic poem indicates that the different ways the speaker loves the object of her affections simply cannot be counted.

Throughout the poem, Browning exudes her passionate love for her husband . She even indicates that her love fills the quiet moments that happen in a home when two people live together. It follows the traditional abba, abba, cd, cd, cd sonnet rhyme scheme.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace.”

This short, lyrical poem follows the iambic tetrameter pattern. It was written in 1814 by Lord Byron, who was inspired by Anne Beatrix Wilmont, his first cousin’s wife when he saw her at a party. “ She Walks in Beauty ” was put to music by Isaac Nation and is considered an excellent example of Romanticism in poetry.

This poem is on the list of famous poetry because of how many times it has been quoted. It has references in The Philadelphian, television shows like M.A.S.H. , Bridgerton, and White Collar, among others.

“She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.”

Considered one of the most influential poems of the 20th century, this poem has dissonance that mirrors what Eliot felt was the fracture of his time. Even though it was written for the 20th century, it still holds value in modern society when society still feels quite disjointed.

Throughout the lines of this poem, Eliot explores his disgust at the state of society following World War I. “ The Waste Land ” explores the thought of spiritual emptiness, which is what Eliot believed he saw in the world around him.

“April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.”

Considered one of the first poems written in America , “The Raven” holds a special place in literature. This poem is considered one about grief, showing several examples of onomatopoeia with the raven tapping and rapping on the chamber door.

The repetition in “ The Raven ” drives the reader towards the end of the poem, where the author quotes the final “nevermore.” The death of his wife, Virginia, in the event that likely triggered the poem because of Poe’s grief over the loss of his wife.

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. ’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, ‘tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more.’”

Lewis Carroll was a novelist, but he often used poetry in his novels. “ Jabberwocky ” is a nonsense poem that was part of Carroll’s 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass . It tells the story of killing a mythical creature named “the Jabberwock.” In the book, Alice finds the poem in a book when she visits the Red Queen.

With so many unknown words, “ Jabberwocky ” confuses even Alice in the book. The poem is in ballad style, an exciting way to study the style with nonsensical words. Yet it leaves many unanswered questions, which fits the world of Wonderland that Carroll is trying to create.

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.”

“O Captain, My Captain ” is a poem that shows an extended metaphor style. Whitman wrote it in 1865 after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The poem is a tribute to Lincoln and his impact on the country during such a pivotal time in history.

In the three-stanza poem, Whitman compares Lincoln to a ship’s captain. Whitman also uses the literary device of juxtaposition to show the difference between the victory the country was experiencing and the death of its leader, who could not enjoy the victory. In the final stanza, he uses personification when talking about the shores, potentially representing the masses of people welcoming the ship, not knowing that the captain is slain.

“O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.”

“ Invictus ” is an important poem in British literature written in 1875 by William Ernest Henley. Its final quatrain is the most famous of the piece, indicating that each master the fate of their soul.

Henley battled tubercular arthritis throughout his life, diagnosed at just 12 years of age. This painful disease was challenging to live with, and he was in the hospital for the amputation of his knee when he wrote “Invictus .” Knowing the personal trials, the author was dealing with makes the poem even more inspiring to the reader.

“It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is another famous piece by T.S. Eliot. It was his first professionally-published poem , and literary critics believe it marked the initiation of the shift between Romantic verse and Modernism.

The poem looks at the psyche of a modern man, who is simultaneously eloquent but emotionally stilted. In the poem, the speaker indicates he wants to reach out to his love interest, only to feel he cannot do so. What follows is a monologue that laments the lack of emotional connection that the author can create. Looking for more famous poems, check out our list of Mary Oliver poems .

“Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question… Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit.”

Poet laureate Robert Frost has another short poem that is among the most famous in literature. “ Fire and Ice ” discusses the end of the world using an untraditional rhyme scheme. It asks whether the world will end in an inferno or an ice storm.

Some literary scholars believe “ Fire and Ice” were inspired by Dante’s Inferno , while others claim a conversation with astronomer Harlow Shapley was the basis. In the end, Frost wrote a poem that did not draw any conclusion about how the world will end but instead left the idea up to the reader.

“Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.”

Not all of the poets on this list come from American or English literature. For example, Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda was from Chile and won the Prize for his contributions to literature. He was known for his ability to produce poems full of deep passion, even when talking about everyday things.

“ Every Day You Play ” is a romantic poem that implies sensuality and references flowers while talking about the love interest. It contains one of Neruda’s most famous literary lines, “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

“My words rained over you, stroking you. A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body. Until I even believe that you own the universe. I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is an elegy poem by Emily Dickinson. The six-stanza poem is written as a personal encounter with Death , a male character who drives a carriage. It indicates the speaker is not afraid of Death, which is a kind companion on this final journey.

This poem is divided into quatrains with an abcb rhyming pattern. The drive-in in the story symbolizes Dickinson’s life, and eventually, Death takes her into the afterlife. The final stanza, in which the speaker is now dead, is more abstract than the rest of the poem. If you are interested in learning about poems, learn the answer to the question is Dr. Seuss poetry .

“Because I could not stop for Death— He kindly stopped for me— The Carriage held but just Ourselves— And Immortality.”

Though he is more famous for his novels, including The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling was also a skilled poet named English Nobel laureate for his work. “ If- ” is, perhaps, his most famous poem. The work is written to serve as parental advice to Kipling’s son, John, advocating for him to look beyond what other people think of him and to make the most out of life’s difficult situations.

Each couplet in the poem starts with the word “if.” it expresses its meaning clearly, serving as a mantra to live by, which may have been Kipling’s goal. Throughout the lines, Kipling gives practical advice for dreaming and planning while keeping one’s head grounded in realistic goals.

“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;”

Longfellow is often revered as one of the most influential American poets , and “Paul Revere’s Ride” is one of his most famous pieces. While this poem does not have much literary analysis because it tells the tale of Revere’s famous ride, its regular rhyme and measure give the impression of a horse galloping through the towns.

Through this poem, Longfellow memorialized Paul Revere’s famous ride. He received inspiration from a tour of Boston he took, giving him the chance to see many of the sights of the famous day for himself. He did take some poetic license in his work, but his line “one, if by land, and two, if by sea” immortalized the signal lanterns that were part of the historic event.

“Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five: Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.”

“ Ozymandias ” is a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, a 19th-century English Romantic poet. The poem received its inspiration from the Rameses II statue on display at the British Museum during Shelley’s time. It warns against hubris and arrogance, which are common in great leaders.

The sonnet uses iambic pentameter. It showcases the sad image of a fallen statue that once stood to head the greatness of the Pharaoh. Where once a mighty king ruled the land, nothing is left but a decaying, wrecked statute. To learn more, check out our round-up of the best 10 concrete poems !

“And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Nicole Harms has been writing professionally since 2006. She specializes in education content and real estate writing but enjoys a wide gamut of topics. Her goal is to connect with the reader in an engaging, but informative way. Her work has been featured on USA Today, and she ghostwrites for many high-profile companies. As a former teacher, she is passionate about both research and grammar, giving her clients the quality they demand in today's online marketing world.

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How to deal with multiple poems in an English ee?

By PeriPeri August 14, 2013 in Extended Essay

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My EE is due in 5 days so don't worry, I'm a hot mess too!

Okay so in response to your questions (I'm doing my EE on two books but my close friend is doing hers on a poet and I've read her scaffold):

1. The number of poems you compare is up to you - it depends on the evidence you need and the length of the poems... just finalise your RQ and then see which poems match it. You should have roughly 5-7 poems (once again, it depends on length).

2. The way you organise your EE is like so:

Introduction

Paragraph 1: the first theme, with evidence from various poems

Repeat x 5 (or whatever you need)

3. It should be more of your analysis, the EE must be completely your own work and thoughts - however if you use JSTOR or resources like it, you should put those resources into your bibliography or cite them properly.

4. I'm very behind on my EE and it's due in 5 days so I beg you... DO NOT PROCRASTINATE.

You're meant to spend 40 hours on it, but that depends on how fast you work and what subject and what you need to do.

This was my friend's process:

1. Find poet

3. Find poems

4. Go through and analyse all the poems

5. Write out a detailed scaffold

6. Begin writing!!

I am so glad I've found someone who can relate haha!

This was my friend's process: 1. Find poet 2. Find RQ 3. Find poems 4. Go through and analyse all the poems 5. Write out a detailed scaffold 6. Begin writing!! So good luck, bonne chance!

Thank you so so so much for your advice, it's very helpful!

Would you mind elaborating on how your friend structured her "detailed scaffold" - That would be an outline, if I'm not mistaken?

Once again, thank you for your advice - and I totally hear you when you say don't procrastinate - that's usually my biggest fault :-S

So I'm trying my best not to botch up this ee by procrastinating... TRYING anyway.... x-D

Okay so by scaffold I do mean an outline and this is how she did it:

- write out a rough draft of what you want to say in your intro

- remember to emphasise your Research Question and Thesis

Make titles for each of your paragraphs (you should have anywhere between 6 and 10) and under each of these titles, write a short summary of what that paragraph is about. Then find quotes and put them in and maybe add a little analysis.

- summing up, mention your thesis again

Basically, by writing a detailed outline you can keep on top of structure, quotes etc and it leads to a well organised essay.

Other tips:

Keep the marking criteria beside you when writing

Write in small-ish increments - don't drag it out but obviously don't leave it too late

Hand in 2 drafts at least to your supervisor!

Make sure you LOVE the subject, because if you don't it gets really boring, really fast

Blackcurrant

2) How should I approach the comparison of multiple poems? Should I deal with each poem separately, or based on literary techniques, themes? 3) How do I research an English ee??!! Should I analyze the poems myself as well as study what other people have said about them? Should it be more of my analysis or their's?? Researching for English is really confusing me as I don't know where/how to start!! !

Question #2: The choice of approach is yours. How you go about it depends on how adept you are at writing and structuring a comparative research essay. Some take each poem separately and analyze it thoroughly before combining the separate works into a whole at the end. Avoid this approach, unless you are very good at maintaining focus and supremely confident in being able combine the separate pieces into a whole, at the very end. The safest course is to have a running commentary (a thread), that allows you to keep sight of your RQ as you make your points, with each poem providing evidence for the point you are making. You will have several points to make which help answer your RQ. Your argument, then, (and not the individual works), becomes your thread -- your points attaching themselves to it, much like carriages to a train. Your argument is the engine and tracks.

Presumably, you will have already identified a governing idea for all the works (implied by your RQ) and decided how each poem exemplifies or reinforces, in its various ways, this main idea? The detailed analysis of each poem is quite simply a way to discuss in detail how the poet's choice of words and structure convey certain meanings.

Q.#3 - The role of outside sources is to help you discover points of interest and similarities between works. They are not meant to replace your own thoughts, but can help sharpen your appreciation for what the poet has achieved.

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