POETRY An Introduction

W HY DO WE READ POETRY ? W HAT DOES POETRY GIVE US ? Thoughts by Stephen Matterson and Darryl Jones, authors of Studying Poetry.

R OBERT L OUIS S TEVENSON ' S “R EQUIEM ” Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: ‘Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.’

P OETRY … Allows us to articulate our feelings Provides comfort Endures because we need it: “Church-Going” by Phillip Larkin Someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself for something more serious

P OETRY … After 911 Terrorist Attacks Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times (1996) Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (2002) Being Alive: The Sequel to Staying Alive (2004) Poems and Readings for Funerals (2004)

A UDRE L ORDE, E SSAYIST “For women, then, Poetry is not a luxury, it is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light with which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”

W ILLIAM C ARLOS W ILLIAMS “Asphodel, That Greenery Flower” It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

W E WILL LEARN … How to deepen and articulate our appreciation of poetry through: Observation of the poet’s craft The poet as a shaper of words The skill of putting words together in memorable and significant ways

E FFECTS S TEVENSON CREATED Nursery rhyme simplicity of the rhythm and the language Eight-syllable lines with four stressed syllables each, it does not use a strict metre. Alliteration Parallelism Repetition

A LLITERATION --W HAT IS THE EFFECT ? H ere h e lies where h e long’d to be; H ome is the sailor, h ome from sea, And the h unter h ome from the h ill.

R HYMES Simple one-syllable rhymes Rhyme scheme: (aaab cccb)—last line of each stanza has the same rhyme. Effect?

P ARALLELISM Modulated repetition of syntax Third line of each stanza: “Glad did I live and gladly die” “Home is the sailor, home from sea”

R EPETITION “Home” Means poem modulates between the literal and the figurative. 1 st = literal 2 nd = “home from sea” is more figurative 3 rd = suggestion of final home; grave

C ONTEXTUALIZATION Invokes the hunter and the sailor Represents humanity’s most enduring occupation T.S. Eliot: the “evening hour” that “brings the sailor home from sea, / the typist home at teatime.” A poem does not record an emotion, it creates emotion through the use of language: “A poem is an event not the record of an event.” --Robert Lowell, poet

B ASIC SKILLS TO STUDY POETRY Appreciating how a poem works Observing and learning to articulate the language of poetry Use of Genre Relation to tradition and other poems

P OETRY AS A CONSTANT Part of being human is contained in our ideas and definitions of poetry, and in our need for poetry. In times of crisis, we turn to poetry. Poetry provides form to our budding, inarticulate sensibilities.

T HIS NEED FOR P OETRY R EFLECTS … “ …the dominant Romantic approach which understands poetry as primarily a medium for the exploration of personal and emotional issues and feelings.” - Stephen Matterson & Darryl Jones, Studying Poetry

E NJOY !