What is poetry?

Our next unit is: Reading and Writing Poetry (woo-hoo!)

I HEART Poetry! This is one of my favorite units to teach. I have been reading and writing poetry since I was in third grade or so. Today, I continue to write and publish poetry and perform at public readings in the New York city area.

In this unit, I hope that you will ultimately find inspiration and passion for this genre. More specifically, you will read, interpret, and at times perform a myriad of poems and learn and apply different poetic devices and structures. You will also write poems and hand in your best, revised piece. You will also write reading responses, and hand in a revised response to a poem.

Be prepared to sound your barbaric yawps and snap your fingers to the rhythms and harmonies of poetry...

Lesson 1: What is poetry?

It isn't easy to define. Yes, it is a genre of writing. No, it is not prose. Yes, it is sometimes short (Japanese haiku), but it is also sometimes really long (Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"). Yes, it sometimes rhymes, but it doesn't have to. Poetry defies classification. It also intentionally defies conventional rules of language. It is a complicated, sacred being that represents complicated ideas and emotions, yet because it is sometimes short in length, it seems remarkably simple. Make no mistake, however: poetry does require skill, thought, heart, and soul. It isn't something you write in 5 seconds; like any art, it takes time to master.

Poetry also means different things to different people. Poets often write Ars Poetica (literally meaning the art of poetry) poems to define what it means to them. We are going to read an example of this. Here are excerpts from What is Poetry?, a book by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, one of my favorite poets who helped establish City Lights Bookstore and was the first Poet Laureate of San Francisco and is considered an important Beat Poet.

What is Poetry?

--Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Poetry is news

from the frontiers

of consciousness

Poetry is

the shook foil of the imagination
It should shine out

and half blind you

Poetry is the anarchy of the senses

making sense

A poem can be made

of common household ingredients

It fits on a single page

yet it can fill a world

and fits in the pocket of a heart

It is a pulsing fragment

of the inner life

an untethered music

Poetry is perpetual revolt

against silence exile and cunning

The poet a subversive barbarian

at the city gates

constantly challenging

our status quo

Poetry is religion

Religion is poetry

A poem is its own Coney Island of

the mind

its own circus of the soul

its own Far Rockaway of the heart

Understanding the poem:

Reread the poem. Choose 1 stanza, write a par

Here the writer often uses metaphor, a literary device in which something is described by comparing it to something unlike itself. It is based on the premise that all things in the world have some inherent commonalities. Examples: "my love is a red, red rose"; "you are my sunshine, my only sunshine"; "poetry is religion".

There are also allusions. An allusion is when a write subtly alludes or refers to another text, writer, work of art, example from current events, history, real life. The second stanza alludes to a poem called "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The last stanza alludes to Ferlinghetti's book, A Coney Island of the Mind.

Writing activity:

For homework, write a poem about what poetry is. Use metaphor and/or allusion. Either make a list of metaphors or just choose one and write a poem using extended metaphor as in "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes.