Poetry Explication

|Spend about 1 hour on this section. Think carefully about the poems before you write your answer. |

Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

In David Almond’s magic realist novel Skellig, the story follows the protagonist Michael, a young boy who is facing many difficulties and challenges in his young life, the author uses a number of language devices to tell his story, including puns, metaphors and similes. However one of the most powerful devices are symbols. The author strongly uses symbols to reinforce character traits and to show the connections between characters throughout the novel. The author constantly refers to the symbols of evolution, death, birds and wings.

Prompt: Read the following two poems very carefully, noting that the second includes an allusion to the first. Then write a well-organized essay in which you discuss their similarities and differences. In your essay, be sure to consider both theme and style.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. Good morning Ms Linton and students, today I will be informing you on why you must choose these two poems for the poetry speaking contest. The poems I have chosen are ‘The Man from Ironbark’, by Banjo Patterson as well as ‘He Started the Cycling Craze’ by myself. Narratives help the readers enjoy and understand poetry as it is a way the poets can connect to their readers by using storylines that may relate to them or something that they enjoy.

Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.

o, Searing flames piercing through my whole ego, Leading blames appearing whenever she shows, Cheating claims punching through the dirt below, Seeking aims listening to gangster street flows,

In the story “So What Are You, Anyway?” by Lawrence Hill, the protagonist in the story is a relatable character because she goes through racism, she gets really frustrated and irritated when someone is judging/questioning her race and she is innocent.

At the end of each line, there is a major pause… like the end of a sentence.

Ted Kooser, the thirteenth Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner, is known for his honest and accessible writing. Kooser’s poem “A Spiral Notebook” was published in 2004, in the book Good Poems for Hard Times, depicting a spiral notebook as something that represents more than its appearance. Through the use of imagery, diction, and structure, Ted Kooser reveals the reality of a spiral notebook to be a canvas of possibilities and goes deeper to portray the increasing complexities in life as we age.

Alfred Tennyson gifted the Victorian Era, and the literary world with two iconic poems. The author explored the themes of personal development and culture clash in one of his most famous poems, “Ulysses”. Tennyson also discovered and analyzed the themes of love and death through his renowned and eminent poem, “Tears Idle, Tears”. The poet was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire in 1809 in the East Lindy district of England. Tennyson experienced numerous amounts of difficulties in his childhood and growing adolescent phases that spilled into his adult life. These trials and tribulations became a foundation and source of inspiration for Tennyson, who used them as a stimulus and catalyst to aide his literary progress and ideas. Two of the most

Appreciation is something that hardly happens without being aroused by an outside force. In other words, people don’t commonly express their love unless they have a reason to. In Shakespeare’s poem “The Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold”, the speaker is dying and asks his audience to reflect upon their own lives in order to appreciate them more. Shakespeare employs simple metaphors to demonstrate that as death draws nearer, love increases.

Linda Pastan is an American poet of Jewish background. She was born in New York on May 27, 1932. Today, she lives in Potomac, Maryland with her husband Ira Pastan, an accomplished physician and researcher. She is known for writing short poems that address topics like family life, domesticity, motherhood, the female experience, aging, death, loss and the fear of loss, as well as the fragility of life and relationships.

Folklore exists in many cultures throughout the world. Folklore in the form of tales, myths and legends is passed from generation to generation through the oral tradition. Folklore in the Caribbean has been drawn from the rich and diverse backgrounds of our ancestors who came from various parts of the world. Our ancestors brought with them their language, culture, religious beliefs and practices, and their tradition of storytelling. The tales of demons, ghosts, zombies and spirits have been fascinating for the young and old alike, and variations of these stories have been told again and again. “Le Loupgarou” and “Ol' Higue” share similar characteristics as they are both based on Caribbean folklore.