Exploring Poetry

A word about answers:

Exploring Poetry is intended to be used as a creative discovery and writing guide, and as such, many of the questions and exercises require individual thought, interpretation, and expression. In many cases, there is no right or wrong answer. Keep this in mind as you assess your student’s progress and use the answers below as a guide.

Section 1: What is poetry?

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  3. Writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language, chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound and rhythm.
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  7. a color slide; a bee hive; a maze; a room; water/a lake
  8. LOOK: hold it up to the light; LISTEN: press an ear to it; EXPLORE: walk inside of it and feel around; ENJOY: water-ski on it
  9. It makes one think creatively and openly about poetry; it’s not like other writing and it’s not something just to be analyzed; it encourages one to approach it in many different ways and with many senses
  10. a little twig with a bud at the end of it
  11. Poetry has to be experienced, enjoyed and tended to; it needs to be out in the open, like a tree, and not just put away and forgotten.
  12. A poet has to be willing to nurture and take care of their budding ideas to turn them into something larger.
  13. palpable, mute, dumb, silent, wordless, motionless in time, leaving, equal to: not true, it should just be
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  16. a piece of fruit
  17. bite in, juice run down chin, ripe, core, stem, rind, pit, seed, skin
  18. You should dig into poetry enthusiastically like a delicious piece of ripe fruit—even better because it doesn’t have any wasted parts; it’s all good! She also wants to teach us that at any time, it is ready to fully experience.
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  22. The writer is left floating free on a cloud of sudden azaleas.
  23. Poems usually begin with true things.
  24. Poems usually end in the imaginary, which is another kind of true.
  25. The paper will always listen.
  26. Poets are explorers, pilgrims, regular people.
  27. Answers will very somewhat: Astride: with a leg on each side of; Featly: in a graceful manner; Nimbly: quick and light in movement
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  33. The S sound, skimming, sea, swerve, sway, speed, sound, sailor, said, single.
  34. skateboard
  35. Rollerskates and scooters
  36. The poet has always loved sports and dance.

Section 2: Words & Phrases

  1. a brief expression; a group of two or more words that express a single idea but do not form a complete sentence
  2. the ordinary language that people use when they speak or write; a literary medium distinguished from poetry
  3. a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based
  4. a grouping of lines, set off by a space, that usually has a set pattern of meter and rhyme
  5. The sound and taste of words is irresistible on her tongue.
  6. Creating rhymes is like volleying a ball over the net in a tennis game.
  7. Writing free verse, without rhyme or meter, is more difficult for this poet.
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  10. maggie / milly / molly / may; shell that sang so sweetly; stranded star; blowing bubbles
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  16. “Skier”: like the flourish of a pen
    “Oranges”: tiered like bleachers; fog hanging like old coats between the trees
  17. “Skier”: wind is his one competitor; incandescent feet (comparing feet to light); white foam, white fire (comparing snow to foam & fire).
    “Oranges”: I peeled my orange that was so bright against… Someone might have thought I was making fire in my hands (comparing an orange to fire).
  18. A list poem takes the simple form of a list in order to describe something in detail.
  19. A list poem uses details and precise language to show the reader more about a thing, person, or situation.
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Section 3: Imagination

  1. creative ability; the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality
  2. profound, inexplicable, or secretive quality or character
  3. The author uses these phrases: “hope they wouldn’t laugh,” “gonna go look at the monkeys,” “maybe they’ll teach you how to talk,” “punch in the gut,” “like a deserter;” “wanted you to have my voice.”
  4. Jim Daniels says it is hard to pinpoint why he writes poetry, but it is connected to his childhood.
  5. Practicing sounds at night freed his mind to imagine ideas.
  6. The blank page represents an opportunity to share ideas without being teased.
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  9. A persona poem is written from the point of view of the poem’s subject.
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  13. Personification is used to bring the idea of words to life, they are described as crouching, hiding, being awake, hearing.
  14. He imagines exciting and unexpected things like a flying saucer landing in his back yard, giants, ogres, and dragons; volcanoes, earthquakes, peacocks on his shoes.
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  17. A three lined poem that usually includes 17 syllables arranged in lines of 5-7-5; usually describes nature.
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  19. A poem with the same pattern as a haiku but it’s about human nature rather than the natural world.
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  21. A tanka is five lines instead of three; you don’t need to count the total number of syllables in the poem; may contain metaphors and similes.
  22. A cinquain has a set number of syllables (22) and per line count of 2-4-6-8-2.
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Section 4: Image

  1. maple tree, dog, tongue, chin, paws, jaws, eyes, a fly, loose skin
  2. a yawn, buzzing fly, jaw snap, a sigh
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  5. snow, Blue Jay, sky, yard
  6. A sudden feeling of wonder or astonishment.
  7. Like the Blue Jay bringing color to a gray scene, a poem can surprise you.
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  9. We should read a poem like we would open a surprise package.
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  11. A found poem is a piece of writing that is transformed to poetry.
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Section 5: Mood

  1. A distinctive emotional quality or character; a prevailing emotional tone or general attitude.
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  3. away, drops, draws, flings, sweep, to the stars and back, shuddering climb, wild and steep, down deep
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  8. An ode celebrates a person, animal or object, it has no formal structure, it celebrates something.
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  10. An aubade laments or celebrates the coming of the dawn; it has no formal structure.
  11. freshness, hope, celebration, beauty (Answers will vary)
  12. praise, springing, fresh, sweet, sunlit, dewfall, sweetness, sprung, completeness, sunlight, heaven, born, Eden, play, elation, new
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Section 6: Rhyme & Rhythm

  1. A word that ends with the same or approximately the same sound as another word.
  2. Movement marked by the regular repetition of accent, beat, or the like.
  3. A couplet is a two-line poem or stanza that usually rhymes.
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  5. A tercet is a three-line poem or stanza; all three lines usually rhyme.
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  7. A quatrain is a four-line poem or stanza, usually rhymed AABB or ABAB, it is the most common stanza in English poetry; can also be unrhymed.
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  9. quatrains
  10. night / candle-light; way / day; see / tree; feet / street; you / blue play / day
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  12. lighthearted frustration (Answers will vary)
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  14. Syllables Rhyme Scheme
    Stanza 1:
    Line 1 11 A
    Line 2 12 A
    Line 3 12 B
    Line 4 13 B
    Stanza 2:
    Line 5 11 C
    Line 6 11 C
    Line 7 9 D
    Line 8 11 D
  15. weather/together; town/down; hat/fat; cheese/delicacies
  16. All of the lines are very close in length; this creates a strong steady rhythm.
  17. The poem is made up of rhyming couplets.
  18. Syllables Rhyme Scheme
    Stanza 1:
    Line 1 11 A
    Line 2 7 B
    Line 3 10 A
    Line 4 8 B
    Line 5 11 C
    Line 6 8 B
    Stanza 2:
    Line 7 9 D
    Line 8 7 B
    Line 9 11 E
    Line 10 7 B
    Line 11 11 F
    Line 12 6 B
  19. The syllables alternate between long lines and shorter lines. (Answers will vary)
  20. It gets more complex as the poem progresses; lines 7, 9 and 11 don’t rhyme with any other words in the stanza.
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  24. heard / bird; storm / warm; sea / me
  25. feathers / words; soul / all
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Section 7: Read, Write, Revise

  1. dripping bough, moving squirrel
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  3. bough, through
  4. Rhyme scheme: AABB; sounds: Ws, Gs, Bs; Sites: a hummingbird hovering near a flower.
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  5. ideas, words, lines, shapes, sounds, pictures, feelings
  6. A poem will sing to you all of your life.
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  9. Poetry begins in the mouth.
  10. shortwave radio, alto recorder, Swiss army knife
  11. words
  12. a wood cabinet of cool
  13. cake of ice
  14. one cracked star
  15. ice develops downward teeth
  16. vanished ice to a long ago day
  17. Poetry tries to give the look or feel of a thing, or an experience that makes the reader stop and think.
  18. When you write poetry, you hear music in your head.
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