Focus on Poetry

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Focus on Poetry

• By
• Mrs. Julious
• For
• World Literature

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Poetry (form of communication)

• To understand a poets message, you need to learn
  the elements of poetry.
• We will study selected poetry that relates to
  the plight of Americans.
• While reading A Lesson before Dying you saw
  how social injustice played a part in our
  socio-historical background in America. Poetry
  was written to convey the essence of a greater
  meaning during these times.

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Focus on Poetry

• Many people do not like poetry. Others think
  poetry is still the worlds most powerful form of
  communication. To understand a poets message
  and your next major assignment you need to learn
  the elements of poetry.

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Elements of Poetry

• Character- refers to the speaker
• Imagery- images used to appeal to any or all
  senses
• Theme- idea or meaning of a poem
• Tone- an attitude that the poet conveys to you
  the reader.

• Rhyme- is repetition of the same sound
• Metaphor- the comparison of one thing to another
• Simile- the comparison of one thing to another
  through the use of like or as
• Personification- the giving of human qualities to
  nonhuman subjects

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Poetry

• Hyperbole- to express ideas forcefully through
  exaggeration
• Alliteration- repetition of beginning sounds in
  successive syllables
• Rhythm- a regular pattern of strong and weak
  units of sound. You can discover the rhythm of a
  poem by reading the poem aloud and clapping each
  sound as you read.

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Elements of Poetry (cont.)

• Onomatopoeia- a word, when pronounced, sounds
  like the sound it is describing
• Irony- the unexpected happens
• Assonance- poet repeats a vowel sound in a line
  of poetry
• Symbol- an object that represents a larger idea.

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Guidelines for Major Assignment

• Your group will be responsible for
• Searching for a poem with group from a
  socio-historical time of your choice
• Creating a Power point presentation of this poem

• Write a brief summary of the poets biography
• What about the poets world might have inspired
  his or her words?
• What is the message the poet is trying to convey

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Guidelines(cont.)

• How did life experience impact the poets
  writing?
• Every power point must include the following
• You must read and display the poem on the screen
• Choose unfamiliar words, terms, or phrases to
  explain-at least 4
• Give at least 3 poetic devices used

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Guidelines (cont.)

• Analyze the poem/line by line
• What is the message the author is trying to
  convey?
• Make connections between the historical context,
  authors personal experiences, and your groups
  own interpretation of the poems meaning.
• Due May 19, 2008

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Steps for Reading and Analyzing a Poem

• How to Read a Poem
• Step 1 Read the poem through at least three
  times
• Step 2 Ask yourself questions about the speaker,
  situation, and subject
• Step 3 Look at patterns and poetic devices
• Step 4 So what does it all mean? What is the
  message? What is the point?
• Analyzing of Poems comes next.

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Steps for analyzing poems

• Define any unfamiliar words or language.
• Read through the poem at least twice.
• Identify any literary terms.
• Identify characters in the poem.
• Decide if the poem tells a story.
• If so, summarize the plot (sequence of events) of
  each stanza.

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Analysis Cont.

• Decide what the theme (major point, meaning or
  idea) of the poem is.
• Establish a personal relationship with the poem.
• How does this poem relate to me, my life, or my
  world.

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Paul Laurence Dunbar

• Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio, the son of
  former slaves. He began writing while still in
  high school. The only black student in his
  class, he became class president and class poet.
  He supported himself by working as an elevator
  operator, while he continued to write. Dunbar
  realized that he was not valued for the poems he
  considered to be his major work.

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Paul Laurence Dunbar (cont.)

• His readers, who were chiefly whites preferred
  poems that reinforced the stereotypes of
  contented blacks living in harmony on Southern
  plantations. Dunbar wrote short stories and
  novels, but he is best remembered as a poet. He
  died from pneumonia in 1906. Paul Laurence
  Dunbar was the first African American poet to
  achieve national recognition.

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We Wear the Maskby Paul Laurence Dunbar

• We wear the mask that grins and lies,
• This debt we pay to human guile
• With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
• And mouth with myriad subtleties

• Why should the world be over-wise,
• In counting all our tears and sighs?
• Nay, let them only see us, while
• We wear the mask.

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We Wear the Mask (cont.)

• We smile but, O great Christ, our cries
• In thee from tortured souls arise.
• We sing, but oh the clay is vile
• Beneath our feet, and long the mile
• But let the world dream otherwise,
• We wear the mask.

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Vocabulary

• Guile- skillful deceit
• Myriad- a vast number
• Subtleties- so slight as to be difficult to
  detect
• Nay- No
• Tortured- to bring great physical or mental pain
  upon another.

• Vile- disgusting
• Mask- cover of some thing used to disguise the
  face

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Analyzing the Poem

• We wear the mask that grins and lies
• It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes
• This debt we pay to human guile
• With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
• And mouth with myriad subtleties

• We bear the faces that are always smiling but
  were not
• It hides the truth and keeps us from revealing
  the truth.
• This moral obligation we pay for human deceit.
• We hide our painful feelings by smiling.
• And speak with numerous statements.

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Analyzing the Poem (cont.)

• Why should the world be over-wise counting all
  our tears and sighs?
• Nay, let them only see us, while
• We wear the mask.
• We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries in thee
  from tortured souls arise.

• Why should the world be concerned with our tears
  and sighs?
• No, let them only see our false faces.
• We show false faces.
• We smile, but we are really crying from
  unhappiness in our hearts

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Analysis of Poem (cont.)

• In thee from tortured souls arise.
• We sing, but oh the clay is vile beneath our
  feet, and long the mile
• But let the world dream otherwise,
• We wear the mask

• Souls with great physical or mental pain has
  arose.
• We sing, but have been considered low in worth,
  for a long, long time.
• But let the world pretend thats not true,
• We cover our pain with smiles

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Poetic Devices

• Rhyme- lies-eyes, guile-smile, wise-sighs
• Repetition- We wear the mask
• Personification- the mask that grins and lies/ of
  course a mask cant grin or lie but it has be
  given human qualities

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Plot of the Poem

• This mask is used for the people in this poem to
  conceal their feelings or intentions from others.
  It is like they are putting on an act to protect
  their real feelings and thoughts. They hate
  hiding their feelings but they know they must.
  Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote this, I think, to tell
  about how African Americans hid their true
  feelings from the white people during the late
  1800s and early 1900s. They did it for many
  reasons and they felt the world knew the truth
  but wanted to hide it themselves.

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Theme and Summary

• The theme of this poem would be every thing you
  see is not what it seems. This poem is showing
  how people use masks as defenses or a false
  faces. It was very hard for the African
  Americans during that time but they didnt show
  their true selves, instead they had to hide their
  true feelings. This was done for protection or
  pride.