What Is Poetry?

 

 

 

Is this poetry?

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Is this poetry?

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Is this poetry?

{click to hear Dylan T. read his poem}

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Is this poetry?

 

{click to see the original site}

YES, these are all poetry. So…

What is poetry?

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Day 2

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“Abandoned Farmhouse” by Ted Kooser

Abandoned Farmhouse

BY TED KOOSER

He was a big man, says the size of his shoes

on a pile of broken dishes by the house;

a tall man too, says the length of the bed

in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,

says the Bible with a broken back

on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;

but not a man for farming, say the fields

cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.

A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall

papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves

covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,

says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.

Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves

and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.

And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.

It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.

Something went wrong, says the empty house

in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields

say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars

in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.

And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard

like branches after a storm–a rubber cow,

a rusty tractor with a broken plow,

a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.

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Simple things to describe like in “Tugboat at Daybreak“:

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Start at :32—

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Red Rose Opening

<—–§—–§—–§—–>

Newspaper Blackout: Tips for making a blackout poem (or page of a book)

HAVE A PAGE READY FROM A BOOK OF YOUR CHOICE FOR TOMORROW.

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Let’s give this a shot. What does THIS poem mean?

I don’t know you but I want you all the more for that
Words fall through me and always fool me and I can’t react
And games that never amount to more than they’re meant
Will play themselves outTake this sinking boat and point it home
We’ve still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You’ve made it nowFalling slowly eyes that know me and I can’t go back
Moods that take me and erase me and I’m painted black
You have suffered enough and warred with yourself
It’s time that you wonFalling slowly sing your melody
I’ll sing along

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Skies are crying, I am watching
Catching tear drops in my hands
Only silence as it’s ending
Like we never had a chance
Do you have to make me feel like
There’s nothing left of me?

You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I’m made of glass
Like I’m made of paper
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper

As the smoke clears, I awaken
And untangle you from me
Would it make you feel better
To watch me while I bleed?
All my windows still are broken
But I’m standing on my feet

Go run, run, run
I’m gonna stay right here,
Watch you disappear
Go run, run, run
It’s a long way down
But I am closer to the clouds up here

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DUE TUESDAY: BRING IN POETIC SONG LYRICS TO SHARE AND PUT IN YOUR POETRY BOOK. THEY MAY BE PRINTED, PHOTOCOPIED, OR RE-WRITTEN BY HAND.

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HOW CAN YOU WRITE ABOUT SOMEONE YOU LOVE AND RESPECT? BY EXPLAINING THEIR POSITIVE QUALITIES THROUGH WHAT THEY DO. HERE IS A LOOK AT THE “FARMER POEM” FROM THE TOP OF THE PAGE. WHAT DO YOU NOTICE?

• simile
  
• metaphor
• personification
• alliteration
• rhyme

—§—§—§—

God Made a Farmer

                                    Paul Harvey

And on the 8th day

God looked down on his planned paradise

and said, “I need a caretaker!”

So, God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody

 to get up before dawn and milk cows

and work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper

and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.

So, God made a farmer.

“I need somebody with strong arms.

Strong enough to rustle a calf, yet

gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild.

Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry

and have to wait for lunch until his wife is done feeding

and visiting with the ladies

and telling them to be sure to come back real soon…and mean it.”

So, God made a farmer!

God said, “I need somebody that can shape an ax handle;

shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire;

make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps.

And who, at planting time and harvest season,

will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon.

Then, painin’ from “tractor back”, put in another seventy two hours.”

So, God made a farmer!

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed

to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds

and yet stop on mid-field and race to help

when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place.

So, God made a farmer!

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees, heave bails

and yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs

and tend the pink combed pullets…

and who will stop his mower for an hour to mend the broken leg of a meadow lark.”

So, God made a farmer!

It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight…

and not cut corners.

Somebody to seed and weed, feed and breed…

and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk.

Somebody to replenish the self-feeder

and then finish a hard days work with a five mile drive to church.

Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing,

who’d laugh and then sigh…

and then respond with smiling eyes,

when his son says he wants to spend his life

“doing what dad does”.

So, God made a farmer!