1. Poetic Theme: Pain and Loneliness
Lesson
Poetic Theme: Pain and Loneliness

2. What “mood” is created in the poem?
Evelyn Lau has been publishing poetry and prose since she was thirteen. She has her poetry appear in Prism International, Queen's Quarterly and Canadian Author and Bookman, among other literary magazines. Her prose has been published in MacLean's, Vancouver Magazine and The Antigonish Review. And she has won six awards for her poetry. For two years, Evelyn lived on ""the streets"" in a world of drugs and prostitution recording these experiences in a journal. She left the streets in 1988 at the age of seventeen and extracts from this journal became the best-selling Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, which stayed on bestseller lists across Canada for months.
What “mood” is created in the poem?
What poetic devices are in the poem?
What is the poetic device “Meter”?
Metre is the regular rhythms of poetic lines created by a sequence of stressed or unstressed syllables.
Discuss how rhythm is used in Lau’s poem.

3. King of Pain – The Police (1983)
Read the lyrics and listen to the song .
What is your reaction?
How is metaphor and meter used in the song?
What is the literary device “symbolism”?
Symbolism is using one thing (object, person, place) to represent something else
Any symbols in the Police song?
Who is the speaker in the song talking to?

4. Acquainted With The Night
Everyone - choose the one word in the poem you think is most significant. Write it down.
Share your word.
Discuss your reaction to the poem
Why do you think so many poets write about pain and loneliness?
Do you think it’s necessary for an artist to “suffer”, to produce great art?