1914 | The Wilfred Owen Association ‘When I read that a shell fell into a group of 16 schoolboys and killed fifteen, I raved. Talk about rumours of wars and earthquakes in divers places… The beginning of the End must be ended, and the beginning of the middle of the end is now.’ Reading what Owen wrote to his mother on 21 December 1914 about the Germans’ shelling of Scarborough when sixteen died and 443 were wounded, to ascribe this sonnet to that same month seems entirely plausible. Hibberd suggests it was Owen’s first poem about the war, while Stallworthy puts it among the batch of sonnets Wilfred showed Sassoon on 21 August 1917. Only lines 5 and 7 break the otherwise regular iambic metre. The contrast between the diction on the octet (lines 1 - 8) and in the sestet (9 - 14) is very marked. ‘…the winter of the worldWith perishing great darkness closes in.’ Owen knew his Shelley. ‘This is the winter of the world; and hereWe die, even as the winds of Autumn fade…’ ‘Now is the winter of the world….’
Welcome The First World War Poetry Digital Archive is an online repository of over 7,000 items of text, images, audio, and video for teaching, learning, and research. The heart of the archive consists of collections of highly valued primary material from major poets of the period, including Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, and Edward Thomas. This is supplemented by a comprehensive range of multimedia artefacts from the Imperial War Museum, a separate archive of over 6,500 items contributed by the general public, and a set of specially developed educational resources. Freely available to the public as well as the educational community, the First World War Poetry Digital Archive is a significant resource for studying the First World War and the literature it inspired. The Great War Archive was highly commended at the Times Higher Educational Awards 2008 for 'Outstanding ICT Initiative'
Writing About Poetry Summary: This section covers the basics of how to write about poetry. Including why it is done, what you should know, and what you can write about. Contributors:Purdue OWLLast Edited: 2010-04-21 08:27:54 Writing about poetry can be one of the most demanding tasks that many students face in a literature class. What's the Point? In order to write effectively about poetry, one needs a clear idea of what the point of writing about poetry is. So why would your teacher give you such an assignment? To help you learn to make a text-based argument. What Should I Know about Writing about Poetry? Most importantly, you should realize that a paper that you write about a poem or poems is an argument. What Can I Write About? Theme: One place to start when writing about poetry is to look at any significant themes that emerge in the poetry. Genre: What kind of poem are you looking at? Versification: Look closely at the poem's rhyme and meter. What style should I use?
Practical Criticism Activity 1. Browse and Collect Have small groups of students browse the Victorian Women Writers Project website to select 2 to 4 poems for commentary. Activity 2. Have students comment on one or two of the poems they have selected, following an adaptation of the procedure outlined by I. First, they should write a paraphrase of the poem, expressing in their own words its plain prose meaning. Activity 3. When they have completed their commentaries, have students discuss in small groups what they learned from the experience.
Place - 'In my country' by Jackie Kay and 'Geography lesson' by Brian Patten Alison Smith Introduction Both poems explore the importance of place: for Jackie Kay, it's about the importance of place to identity, whilst Brian Patten explores the idea of travelling without moving and of inspiring others. Whilst the latter poem seems much less complex on the surface, it is this notion that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive that is significant. Objectives For students to: Understand and respond to the ideas, themes and issues in poems Appreciate the linguistic choices made by poets, and their effects Resources needed Poetry Archive recordings of Jackie Kay reading reading 'In My Country', and Brian Patten reading 'Geography Lesson' Whiteboard or screen linked to the Poetry Archive website for viewing the texts of the poems (or individual hard copies of the poems for students). Teaching sequence of activities Starter Lesson 1 - In My Country Write "where do you come from?" Development Plenary Lesson 1 Look at Jackie Kay's introduction to the poem. Further Reading
Word Mover Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson Poetry from Prose Working in small groups, students compose found and parallel poems based on a descriptive passage they have chosen from a piece of literature they are reading. Playing with Prepositions through Poetry Students play with and explore prepositions during a whole group reading of Ruth Heller’s Behind the Mask, and then by composing and publishing prepositional poems based on the book’s style. Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson Finding Poetry in Prose: Reading and Writing Love Poems After reading several poems that expand the definition of love poetry, students compose found poems based on a personal memoir—either their own or a love story of another writer. Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson Found Poems/Parallel Poems Students compose found and parallel poems based on a descriptive passage they have chosen from a piece of literature they are reading. Grades K – 2 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson Word Mover Dr.
"Elements of Poetry" Song for Teaching Literature - Free Worksheets Educational Songs with Free Worksheets Song Preview An engaging rap song for teaching the elements of poetry to students. Includes fun worksheets and multiple versions of the song to assist with scaffolding. “Poetry (For Life)” helps students understand the elements of poetry as well as how to write poems by using music, rhyme, and repetition. The song presents elements of rhyme and rhythm including meter and feet (iamb, trochee, anapest, and dactyl). This hip-hop song is suitable for teaching the elements of poetry to advanced elementary school (3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade), middle school, high school, and home school students. Chorus Just give me poetry, for life All I need is that beat, for life Let’s go, come along with me Let’s go, come along with me Chorus And the dactyl’s like the trochee You still put a stress on the first syllable, but there’s three So what kind of poem will you write? Reading Lesson Plans & Activities
Poetic Devices in Lyrics Poetic devices can help lyrics go from mundane to first rate if used properly. Most beginning lyricists either don't take advantage of poetic devices (or know about them) or use them to excess. Metaphors are comparisons between two objects that give a clearer meaning. For instance, saying "She is the rain" is a metaphor comparing a woman to rain. If a metaphor uses "like" or "as" for the comparison, that is called a simile. Metaphors can create powerful and lasting images ingrained in our brains for years. Imagery is used in lyrics writing to appeal to any or all of one's senses. Personification is basically animating some inanimate object or objects. Point-of-view is also used by lyricists to great effect. Hyperbole is the exaggeration of something for dramatic effect. Repetition is what it is and what it says it is and is self-explanatory, in itself it is. Symbols are used sometimes in lyric writing as a brief way to evoke a larger emotional response.
How to Write a Haiku – What is a Haiku Poem These snappy, rhythmic, three-line poems are lots of fun to write. If you have a good ear for music, you’ve got a head start in writing haiku. But even if you’re not a music fan, don’t worry; it’s easy to pick up the rhythm of this ancient form of Japanese poetry. Haikus are short poems that don’t rhyme, but instead focus on the total number of syllables in each line (syllables are the sounds created by a vowel or sometimes by the letter ‘Y’ and are where you pause when saying a word). Traditional haikus use a total of 17 syllables spread over three lines of text. Though compact in size, a haiku still delivers a message. An old silent pond… A frog jumps into the pond, splash! In Basho’s haiku, the reader is asked to think about the contrast between the silence of the pond and the noisy splash that the frog makes. Here’s another example of a more modern haiku by a Western author, James W. Half of the minnows Within this sunlit shallow Are not really there. Choose a topic.