3 Options...

OPTION A

Choose ONE of the following poems and apply our analytic method, as explained in “Poetry: A Reader’s Guide,” found at Carmen. Quote as you see fit.

· Read the title.

· Read the poem.

· Re-read the poem.

· Read the poem out loud.

· Read for punctuation, language use and line breaks. (Pay attention to verbs and nouns, pronoun references, repetitions, diction, and imagery.)

· Ask yourself who is speaking the poem, and to whom.

· Assume that the poem is purposeful.

· Assume that the parts work together.

· Attempt a paraphrase. Be generous. How would explain this poem to your grandfather?

· Be open to the possibility of other readings.

Hook

James Wright

I was only a young man In those days. On that evening The cold was so God damned Bitter there was nothing. Nothing. I was in trouble With a woman, and there was nothing There but me and dead snow. I stood on the street corner In Minneapolis, lashed This way and that. Wind rose from some pit, Hunting me. Another bus to Saint Paul Would arrive in three hours, If I was lucky. Then the young Sioux Loomed beside me, his scars Were just my age. Ain't got no bus here A long time, he said. You got enough money To get home on? What did they do To your hand? I answered. He raised up his hook into the terrible starlight And slashed the wind. Oh, that? he said. I had a bad time with a woman. Here, You take this. Did you ever feel a man hold Sixty-five cents In a hook, And place it Gently In your freezing hand? I took it. It wasn't the money I needed. But I took it.

(305) Emily Dickinson

The difference between Despair And Fear – is like the One Between the instant of a Wreck And when the Wreck has been –

The Mind is smooth – no Motion – Contented as the Eye Upon the Forehead of a Bust – That knows – it cannot see –

The Boat Family

Maggie Roche

I am a little piece of chocolate expensive and mean no nutritional values have I. You may have me once in a while I will make you smile.

You are a fifty pound bag of soybeans more than a bargain to me. You take hours to cook, you have serious taste. You make me sob.

I am a poison and I am fun, illegal lightweight luxury. You are the law, the long hard road, grave inevitable destiny.

This is story of the boat family, came over here from the Red China Sea, moved into the sovereign state of Suffern. When they got their picture taken they were laughing.

OPTION B: VERSIONS OF BREUGHEL

The following are examples of ekphrasis: a poem written in response to a visual object, in this case Pieter Breughel’s “Hunters in the Snow” (a copy of this painting is easily available online). Your task in this option is to compare and contrast the two versions, using these questions as a guide:

· What image metaphors do the poems have? Which images in particular call attention to themselves?

· Consider the language of the poems. Are there any odd or unusual words? Are there are any notable repetitions of words or ideas?

· Note the enjambments, end-stopped lines, caesura, and line length in general in both poems. How do these formal aspects affect the way you read the poem?

· Explore the ways in which these poems present different ways of understanding the painting, and therefore make different claims about its meaning. What are the major differences between the poems? Do they both tell stories? What are those stories?

Winter Landscape

John Berryman

The three men coming down the winter hill In brown, with tall poles and a pack of hounds At heel, through the arrangement of the trees, Past the five figures at the burning straw, Returning cold and silent to their town,

Returning to the drifted snow, the rink Lively with children, to the older men, The long companions they can never reach, The blue light, men with ladders, by the church The sledge and shadow in the twilit street,

Are not aware that in the sandy time To come, the evil waste of history Outstretched, they will be seen upon the brow Of that same hill: when all their company Will have been irrecoverably lost,

These men, this particular three in brown Witnessed by birds will keep the scene and say By their configuration with the trees, The small bridge, the red houses and the fire, What place, what time, what morning occasion

Sent them into the wood, a pack of hounds At heel and the tall poles upon their shoulders, Thence to return as now we see them and Ankle-deep in snow down the winter hill Descend, while three birds watch and the fourth flies.

The Hunters in the Snow

William Carlos Williams

The over-all picture is winter icy mountains

in the background the return

from the hunt it is toward evening from the left sturdy hunters lead in

their pack the inn-sign hanging from a broken hinge is a stag a crucifix

between his antlers the cold inn yard is deserted but for a huge bonfire

that flares wind-driven tended by women who cluster about it to the right beyond

the hill is a pattern of skaters Brueghel the painter concerned with it all has chosen

a winter-struck bush for his foreground to complete the picture

OPTION C: THE PINEAPPLE

Below is a famous fragment (incomplete poem) from Wallace Stevens. Your task in this option is to A) finish the poem, and B) give a detailed explanation (300-400 words) about why you finished it that way. Hint: you may want to use the “method” before you do anything. You’ll be graded on how brilliant your imitation is, and how well you justify it.

Someone Puts a Pineapple Together

Wallace Stevens

The hut stands by itself beneath the palms.

Out of their bottle the green genii come.

A vine has climbed the other side of the wall.

The sea is spouting upward out of rocks.

The symbol of feasts and of oblivion.

White sky, pink, sun, trees on a distant peak.

The lozenges are nailed-up lattices.

The owl sits humped. It has a hundred eyes.

The cocoanut and cockerel in one.

This is how yesterday’s volcano looks.

There is an island Palahude by name –

An uncivil shape like a gigantic haw.