Phillip Mcconnell's Unseen Poetry Sji Lit Seminar

How to get inside a poets head
Approaches to the unseen poetry question SJI Literature Seminar 2010
Step One: know what you are dealing with

Make sure you have a thorough understanding of what poetry is, compared to other genres (drama, fiction) Look at the Road Not Taken worksheet
Some definitions
Emotion recollected in tranquility.
1850 William Wordsworth 1770-
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

T.S. Eliot 1888-1965
Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Robert Frost 1874 1963
Blood, imagination, intellect, running together.

DH Lawrence 1885-1930
Prose [is] words in their best order; Poetry [is] the best words in the best order.
1834 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-
A poet's work is to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.
Step two: compile a set of questions to ask about the poets choices
The two basic and vital kinds of questions are:
What . . .?
&
Why . . . ?
what questions require a

factual answer pinpointing key features of the poem
e.g. what choices did the poet make about . . . the form, the identity of the speaker, the nature of the diction and the imagery, the use of sound, the tone and the mood.
Why questions ask why the poet chose a particular form, diction and imagery, speaker etc Answers to why questions must always relate to the purpose, meaning and effects of the poets choices.
Never forget . . .
An answer to a what question which is not explicitly related to an answer to the why question will not gain any credit. E.g. The poet uses alliteration in the first stanza. Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
This is the kind of full comment required:

The poet uses alliteration (1) of harsh sounding consonants in the first stanza to create the sounds of battle (3): Only the monstrous anger of the guns. (2) Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle REMEMBER:
Step three: know the poets options

What kinds of form are there? Metrical verse with a predictable pattern of
lines and rhyme (sonnets, odes, ballads etc.) Metrical verse with a predictable pattern of lines but no rhyme (blank verse) Verse with no predictable pattern of lines or rhyme (free verse) N.B Free verse may make use of rhyme but you cannot find a strict pattern you cant predict it
What choice of speaker and audience?

In some poems the speaker seems to be the poet him/herself In some poems the speaker may be a created character as in drama a persona adopted by the poet In some poems the speaker may be addressing us as the reader or another person, with us overhearing
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the
What choices of diction are there?

concrete specific, precise informal, natural, colloquial, complex, elaborate, ambiguous natural emotional, passionate sophisticated original, fresh earthy, realistic, coarse, vulgar connotative, humorous, playful, ironic abstract vague, generalised formal, grand, solemn simple, direct, economical rhetorical, ornate, musical, elegant restrained, understated, rational, objective, unemotional child-like, innocent, naive hackneyed, clichd euphemistic, circumlocutory denotative, referential, neutral
What choices of imagery?

Types: Simile, metaphor, symbol, allegory, personification, pathetic fallacy Appeal: emotions, the senses, the intellect, humour in any combination Consider these examples . . .
O my luve's like a red, red rose. That's newly sprung in June; O my luve's like a melodie That's sweetly play'd in tune.
Our two soules therefore . . . If they be two, they are two so As stiffe twin compasses are two, Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th'other doe. And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth rome, It leanes, and hearkens after it, And growes erect, as it comes home. Such wilt thou be to mee, who must Like th'other foot, obliquely runne; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end, where I begunne.
What choices of sound?
Apart from rhyme, listen out for alliteration, consonance, assonance, rhyme, rising and falling rhythms, climaxes and pauses especially in the middle of a line REMEMBER read with your ears as well as your eyes
A word about punctuation

Check out the punctuation: full stops, exclamation marks, question marks, colons, dashes especially in the middle of a line indicate a pause, possibly a change in thought, a new idea or mood. Dont assume a sentence has stopped just because you have reached the end of a line lines which run on into the next line(s) are (nearly) always followed by a pause somewhere in the middle of a line a very heavy pause indeed and you must account for it.
The sounds enact the sense Rhythm: balanced phrases, emphatic, repetitive, tortuous, accumulative, falling, rising, climax, enjambement (run-on) and end-stopped lines, disjointed, fragmented, heavy pause , obtrusive Consonance (alliteration) and assonance: physical, muscular, harsh, grating, guttural, soft,
Sounds: a few wellchosen words
WHEN I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide, 'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?' I fondly ask. //BUT patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, 'God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
What choices of tone and mood?

Does it matter?losing your legs?... For people will always be kind, And you need not show that you mind When the others come in after hunting To gobble their muffins and eggs. Does it matter ?losing your sight?... There's such splendid work for the blind; And people will always be kind, As you sit on the terrace remembering And turning your face to the light. Do they matter?those dreams from the pit?... You can drink and forget and be glad, And people won't say that you're mad; For they'll know you've fought for your country
Summary of tools for analysis what questions and then the First ask the
why questions Look for patterns and then where the poet changes it Check out the little words connectors and tenses often the key to the developing of the thinking Look for turning points often from verse to verse, or a change in rhyme scheme Binaries what radical alternatives are set against each other? Often the key to the meaning
Answering the examination question
Subject (topic) and theme (area of life)? Argument, purpose and appeal (feeling or intellect?) Persona transparent? A character? Verse form and structure patterns? Diction and imagery patterns? Tone and mood? Sound rhythm, rhyme, consonance, assonance? What binaries can you find in any of the above?
Subject (topic) and theme (area of life) The subject of Othello is a man who murders his wife. Think of subject as a headline for a news story e.g. FOREIGN TALENT MURDERS WIFE The themes are pride, jealousy, evil, love, race, the disparity between appearances and reality etc
Christian Cemetery Robert Yeo

These tombstones have been uprooted. Chipped madonnas and broken crosses, all weathered grey, are strewn on grass. Never thought I would see them thus. These stones that have been here so long it seems the land was theirs for good but for the Urban Renewal Department which needed that plot for a park.
My granny, though Catholic, was cremated according to her wish. She knew room in our affections was all the space she needed. Or perhaps shed heard all about urbanization, how her stone, had she been buried, would wear away or be dislodged. And so when she had to give up what space she occupied, she left us something that cannot be lost in stone and therefore fears no renewal.
Christian Cemetery Robert Yeo

These tombstones have been uprooted. / 8 Chipped madonnas and broken crosses,/ 8 all weathered grey, are strewn on grass./ 8 Never thought I would see them thus. // 8 These stones that have been here so long 8 it seems the land was theirs for good // 8 but for the Urban Renewal Department 11
A word about tone

Sometimes the hardest, most subtle, feature of a poem to uncover, but often the most important to understanding its meaning and effect. How does the poet feel about the cemetery, his granny, the URD? What words and phrases express the tone
My granny, though Catholic, was cremated 11 according to her wish.// She knew 8 room in our affections was all 8 the space she needed. //Or perhaps 8 shed heard all about urbanization, / 10 how her stone, /had she been buried, / 8 would wear away or be dislodged. // 8 And so when she had to give up 8 what space she occupied, /she left us 9 something that cannot be lost in stone 9 and therefore fears no renewal. 9

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How to get inside a poets head

Approaches to the unseen poetry question SJI Literature Seminar 2010

Step One: know what you are dealing with

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Blood, imagination, intellect, running together.

what questions require a

This is the kind of full comment required:

Step three: know the poets options

What choice of speaker and audience?

What choices of diction are there?

What choices of imagery?

What choices of sound?

A word about punctuation

Sounds: a few wellchosen words

What choices of tone and mood?

Answering the examination question

Christian Cemetery Robert Yeo

Christian Cemetery Robert Yeo

A word about tone

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