Poetry can be a vital, real part of everyone's life. What place or importance does poetry have in my own life? Does poetry belong to everyone? How do I know?After the poetry unit, I have a greater respect for poetry. I never really liked poetry, mostly because I didn't understand it. But, I think now, I can understand metaphors and figurative language better. Poetry can be a way to express things without saying them, using metaphors and figurative language. I really like poetry now, especially writing it. Now I am realizing that there is poetry in everything, especially music.
I think that poetry does belong to everyone. Anyone can read it, anyone can write it, anyone can love it.
How does the life and experiences of a poet affect the poem he/she creates?
I think that the poet's life experiences definitely affect the poems that they create. For example, earlier in the poetry unit, we read a poem called "Names". The author experienced and was affected by 9/11, so that affected his poetry, since he wrote a poem about it, obviously. Another example is with poetry from Jean Toomer, who I did my Harlem Renaissance Research on. He didn't want to be seen as an African American poet and writer because he wanted to escape the restrictions of racial identity. He wanted to be seen as just American instead of black or white, and he wrote a poem called Blue Meridian which was about how how he wanted everyone to come together as American instead of putting each other into boxes of black and white. His life experiences affected his poetry and novels. And I think that that happened a lot in the Harlem Renaissance. Most of the people struggled with racism and segregation and I think that affected their poems.
Choose two poems (one that you have read and one that you have written yourself) and analyze how a poem's form and structure contribute to its meaning. Also, analyze the impact that words/phrases, rhyme, alliteration, repetition, and figurative language have on the poem.
Form and structure of poems can really affect the meaning. I think that this can show with shape poems. One example of this is called "Raindrop". It is about rain and raindrops and the poem is shaped like a raindrop. One example that I wrote is the Letter Poem. The poem is about me, and it is the shape of the first letter of my name. Really, every poem's meaning can be effected by the form and structure. Choosing to make one line only one word can make the word more powerful. I can add a pause/ more emotion.
Adding rhyme and repetition can make a poem more humorous sometimes. Using figurative language can make a poem more confusing for some people, but it can make the poem more meaningful by using symbols and metaphors. For example, Sam wrote a quatrain poem using rhyme, and the rhyme made it more humorous:
"Oh no, oh no, I've done it again.
I'm in such a pickle.
My mom's gonna be so mad at me
'Cause I sold the dog for a nickel."
Here are the poems that we have written in this unit:
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