Slam Poetry Essay

Module Five Lesson One Assignment: AP-Style PoetryIn the passage, one of the themes which Lewis Carroll conveys throughout his story is the theme of “Man vs. Nature” to help express the point of his poem more clearly. Lewis Carroll uses certain literary devices in order to apply this theme to his story including imagery, allusions, and onomatopoeia. Visual imagery in this passage is used by the author in order to convey a better understanding of situations and settings of the passage to the reader for a better and more natural feel for the text. The author uses this imagery when describing the Jabberwocky to the reader by making his audience visualize the Jabberwocky and allow the reader to piece an image of the

Amongst the judgmental stares of the audience that has bestowed an image of pathetic vulnerability upon the dancer, the poem’s speaker emerges to provide a portrait of the dancer that is much less lascivious, acknowledging that “Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes / Blown by black players upon a picnic day” (3-4). The sudden juxtaposition of a “picnic day” vis-a-vis a crowded night-club highlights the speakers attempt to remove the sexualized image of the dancer with the intent of identifying her noble power as a member of the black community. The elegance of the dancer, recognized by her soft voice, is affirmed by the speaker’s specific mention of “black players,” displaying black heritage as containing multi-faceted artistic potential. While the poem begins with a dehumanizing portrayal of the dancer, the speaker successfully reformulates the identity of the dancer into a component of a larger black tradition.

Imagery is essential in poetry for the audience to get a good sense on what may be happening in a scene. “Slam, Dunk, & Hook” gives clear, specific details that provide powerful scenes in the readers mind. The author gives an edged tone that really impacts how the reader should view this poem

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.

Most poets use diction to fit the style of their writing, Brooks manages to incorporate diction to convey style, and add an extra element that allows the reader to personally connect with the problems she displays within her poems. For example in one of her award winning poems called “We real cool” one of the stanzas reads “ we lurk late, we strike straight, we die soon”. She uses certain words to portray the literal and connotative meaning behind the poem. We real cool describes how the life of careless teens lives will end quickly do to their own negligence. The diction is simple and easy just as the meaning of the poem. The teens live life care free and without rules just like her diction. Her diction is also explicit, when she wants to convey something that goes beyond a straightforward comprehension, so she explicitly describes it to an extent that even a teenager will understand. For example in her poem “kitchenette Building”, she manages to talk about the degrading roles women have like making it their job to continuously “satisfy a man”and how men abuse them by holding their freedoms within the walls of a kitchen. Brooks manages to describe the roles of women in a way that many can understand while also conveying the negative context behind their jobs back in that time. Brooks successfully uses diction as an element that lets the reader connect to her poems.

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.

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

In Percy B. Shelley essay, “A Defense of Poetry,” he states he view of how men take everything they are given, and use it to their best of their abilities. While in the novel, Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer talks about, how men go out to nature and treat it right; also how they incorporate integrity, dignity, and balance, when they do something in nature. Both men, state in their work, that men use what they are given and use these aspects to treat nature well. These aspects are what makes these two pieces of literature have some of the same meaning, and why they are so closely connected. Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer, and “A Defense of Poetry”, by Percy B. Shelley, have various correlations to which men show integrity, dignity and balance towards the aspect of nature; and how Chris embodies Shelley’s definition of poets.

In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by

The Vacuum by Howard Nemerov talks about a widower and his late wife, and how he uses the vacuum as a symbol for her death. The poem expresses deep sorrow and sadness that derive from the loneliness of the speaker, after his other half’s passing away. Nemerov attempts to take his readers on a grief-stricken journey, by strategically employing figurative language (mainly personification, metaphor, simile, and alliteration), fractured rhyme schemes and turns in stanza breaks in the poem.

poem is not merely a static, decorative creation, but that it is an act of communication between the poet and

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.

In this essay I am going to compare and contrast ‘When we two parted’ a poem of George Gordon, Lord Byron’s written in 1815 and Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s ‘Love’s last lesson’ written in c1838, both poets are British and of the romantic period.

Slam poetry is art because not only does it bring pleasure to the writer, it can also bring pleasure to the audience. Some may ask why pleasure is important or even relevant when talking about art. Pleasure is relevant because it is imperative that a person enjoys what they are doing or it would be considered work. In “What Teachers Make” by Taylor Mali you can see that slam brings him pleasure through his performance. “If someone tries to judge you / by what you make, you give them this” (31-32). This quote is a great

In Yusef Komunyakaa’s brilliantly written poem,”Slam, Dunk, & Hook”, the author writes about boys playing a game of basketball with an emotional attitude. He calls the players,”beautiful and dangerous”, shows them changing throughout the poem, and uses a comma to separate the word “slam” from “dunk” to show what the actual focus of the game is. By the end of the game, the players become more advanced without knowing because of their determinations to get their emotions under control.