Poem by Theodore Roethke ANIMAL reminds you of yourself?

1 Before ReadingThink about your pets or other animals you ve seen at the zoo or on TV nature shows. Do animals ever behave in a way that seems almost human? Have you ever thought you knew what they were feeling? In the poems that follow, you will meet three animals with distinctive human Choose one ANIMAL you identify with the most. Explain to a partner why you relate to it and what characteristics you share with ANIMAL reminds you of yourself? The FishPoem by Elizabeth BishopChristmas SparrowPoem by Billy CollinsThe SlothPoem by Theodore Roethke794 READING 3 Understand the structure and elements of poetry. 7 Understand how an author s sensory language creates imagery in literary text and provide evidence from text to support understanding.

2 RC-10(A) Reflect on understanding to monitor 7941/8/09 12:04:22 PM1/8/09 12:04:22 PMMeet the AuthorsGo to KEYWORD: HML10-795 Authors OnlineComplete the activities in your Reader/Writer Notebook. poetic form: free verseMost modern poems are written in free verse, a poetic form with no regular pattern of rhyme or rhythm. A free verse poem can be structured as one long, unbroken stanza, as in The Fish, or with many stanzas of varying length, as in Christmas Sparrow. The lines in free verse poems may also vary in length. Without a strict meter, the rhythm of free verse poetry often seems more like everyday speech. As you read, notice how the line length, sounds of words, and punctuation create a rhythm in each poem.

3 Literary analysis: imagerySometimes a poem can seem like a portrait. Sensory language, or words and phrases that appeal to the reader s senses, can help create imagery visual portraits that reinforce ideas about the subject described. For example, in The Fish, Bishop appeals to the senses of sight and touch when she describes the fish s skin. Lines like these help depict a fragile old fish. hung in strips / like ancient wallpapershapes like full-blown roses / stained and lost through ageAs you read the poems, record strong, evocative imagery on a chart like the one shown. Identify the sense the word or phrase appeals to the associations the imagery conjures up the idea that is being reinforcedPoem Title:ImagerySense(s)AssociationsIdea Reinforced reading strategy: visualizeListen carefully as y0ur teacher reads aloud the poems.

4 Visualize the animals, settings, and events. Then read along with your teacher as he or she reads the poems a second time in a shared reading. Use your imagination and the word clues to see what the animals might look like. Then, read the poems again with a partner. Discuss how the shared and repeated readings helped you visualize the animals and understand the poems. Elizabeth Bishop1911 1979 Soulful Poet The poetry of Elizabeth Bishop is marked by its exact and tranquil descriptions of the physical world. Hidden beneath her poems air of serenity and simplicity, however, are underlying themes of great depth. When writing about loss and pain, the struggle to belong, and other themes, Bishop worked hard to ensure that the spiritual [was] felt.

5 Billy Collinsborn 1941 Poet for the People Billy Collins remembers publishing a poem in his high school newspaper that was later confiscated. Rising to national and popular prominence years later, Collins became Poet Laureate (2001 2003) and launched the Poetry 180 program, which aimed to get more high school students to read well-written, understandable poetry each day during the 180-day school year. Theodore Roethke1908 1963 Passion for Nature When I get alone under an open sky, wrote Theodore Roethke , where man isn t too evident then I m tremendously exalted.. A passion for nature pervades Roethke s poetry. His poems also explore love, mortality, and the quest for spiritual wholeness. 79510/19/09 8:29:39 AM10/19/09 8:29:39 AMThe FishElizabeth BishopI caught a tremendous fishand held him beside the boathalf out of water, with my hookfast in a corner of his didn t hadn t fought at hung a grunting weight,battered and venerableand homely.

6 Here and there ahis brown skin hung in stripslike ancient wallpaper,and its pattern of darker brownwas like wallpaper:shapes like full-blown rosesstained and lost through was speckled with barnacles,fine rosettes of lime,and infestedwith tiny white sea-lice,and underneath two or threerags of green weed hung his gills were breathing inthe terrible oxygen the frightening gills,fresh and crisp with blood,that can cut so badly I thought of the coarse white fleshpacked in like feathers,the big bones and the little bones,the dramatic reds and blacksof his shiny entrails,51015202530a FREE VERSEN otice the different lengths of the lines in this poem. How do the short lines affect the poem s rhythm?Language CoachConnotations The images and feelings connected to a word are its connotations.

7 In line 18, infestedliterally means overrun or permeated. What connotations do you associate with infested? Would you want to eat an infested fish?796 unit 7: the language of 7961/8/09 12:04:53 PM1/8/09 12:04:53 PMand the pink swim-bladderlike a big looked into his eyeswhich were far larger than minebut shallower, and yellowed,the irises backed and packedwith tarnished tinfoilseen through the lensesof old scratched shifted a little, but notto return my stare. It was more like the tippingof an object toward the light. bI admired his sullen face,the mechanism of his jaw,and then I sawthat from his lower lip if you could call it a lip grim, wet, and weaponlike,hung five old pieces of fish-line,or four and a wire leaderwith the swivel still attached,with all their five big hooksgrown firmly in his green line, frayed at the endwhere he broke it, two heavier lines,and a fine black threadstill crimped from the strain and snapwhen it broke and he got medals with their ribbonsfrayed and wavering,a five-haired beard of wisdomtrailing from his aching jaw.

8 CI stared and staredand victory filled upthe little rented boat,from the pool of bilgewhere oil had spread a rainbowaround the rusted engineto the bailer rusted orange,the sun-cracked thwarts,the oarlocks on their strings,the gunnels until everythingwas rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!And I let the fish VISUALIZER eread lines 34 44. What aspects of the fish s character can you see in this description of its eyes? c IMAGERYWhat senses does this description of the fish s face appeal to? What associations form in your mind about the fish? the fish 7971/8/09 12:04:59 PM1/8/09 12:04:59 PMThe first thing I heard this morningwas a rapid flapping sound, soft, insistent wings against glass as it turned outdownstairs when I saw the small birdrioting in the frame of a high window,trying to hurl itself throughthe enigma of glass into the spacious light.

9 DThen a noise in the throat of the catwho was hunkered on the rugtold me how the bird had gotten inside,carried in the cold nightthrough the flap of a basement door, and later released from the soft grip of a chair, I trapped its pulsationsin a shirt and got it to the door,so weightless it seemedto have vanished into the nest of outside, when I uncupped my hands,it burst into its element,dipping over the dormant gardenin a spasm of wingbeatsthen disappeared over a row of tall Christmas SparrowBILLY COLLINSd IMAGERYWhat images describe the bird in lines 1 7? What senses do these images appeal to?Language CoachSuffixes The word pulsation (line 14) is formed by adding the suffix -ion, meaning the action of to the base word pulsate, meaning to throb or beat.

10 Restate the definition of pulsation in your own words. Can you think of other words formed from a base word and the suffix -ion? 798 unit 7: the language of poetry 7981/14/09 1:02:12 PM1/14/09 1:02:12 PMFor the rest of the day,I could feel its wild thrummingagainst my palms as I wondered aboutthe hours it must have spentpent in the shadows of that room,hidden in the spiky branchesof our decorated tree, breathing thereamong the metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,its eyes open, like mine as I lie in bed tonight epicturing this rare, lucky sparrowtucked into a holly bush now,a light snow tumbling through the windless VISUALIZEWhat details help you imagine how the bird looks and feels as it hides in the Christmas tree?