Poetry Journal #1 Describe your previous experiences with poetry. Have you enjoyed studying poetry in school in the past? What did you enjoy / not enjoy about it? Do you have any favorite poems / poets / types of poems? Have you ever written your own poetry? If so, what type of poetry do you write and what inspires you to write? How do you feel as we begin our poetry unit? Do you think that this will be something that you will enjoy? Why or why not?

Poetry Terms Speaker: The persona responsible for the voice in a poem. The speaker is NOT the same as the author/poet. Theme: The main idea or underlying meaning of a work. Theme can be stated or implied through words and actions in the poem. Theme is not the same as subject. Subject=what the poem is about. Theme=statement or opinion about the subject. For example: Subject=war Theme=war is bad

Tone: The speaker’s attitude toward the subject (who or what the poem is about). Stanza: Songs have verses, but poems have stanzas. They give structure to a poem. Separated from each other by a space between the lines. Each stanza usually represents one idea.

Read “The Car” on page 648 in your textbook. In your notebook create two lists – one list of all the positive things associated with the car and one of all the negative things. Choose an object that is significant in your life – one that holds many memories (house, musical instrument, book, item of clothing, sports equipment, etc.) Use the structure of “The Car” to help you to create your own poem. Your poem should include both positive and negative associations and should touch upon the emotions surrounding that object. Your poem should be at least 10 lines long.

We will now read a poem called “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home” It is a light- hearted look at human life through the eyes of a visiting alien. See if you can identify the 4 everyday objects or events that the alien is trying to describe.

1) In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps, that snores when you pick it up. If the ghost cries, they carry it to their lips and soothe it to sleep with sounds. And yet they wake it up deliberately, by tickling with a finger. 2) This is a room with the lock inside - a key is turned to free the world for movement, so quick there is a film to watch for anything missed. 3) mechanical birds with many wings and some are treasured for their markings - they cause the eyes to melt or the body to shriek without pain. I have never seen one fly, but sometimes they perch on the hand. 4) This is when the sky is tired of flight and rests its soft machine on ground: then the world is dim and bookish like engravings under tissue paper.

Now you are going to try to add some stanzas to this poem! Choose an everyday object or event that a visitor to our planet might not understand. Try to create a stanza describing this object. Later, we will share some of these stanzas with the class and see who can guess what you are describing.