Poetry Composition
Congratulations! You have now successfully analyzed, internalized, memorized, and recited-ized a poem of your choice!
You are one step closer to being an expert in all things poetry. What better way to celebrate your newfound knowledge than with CREATING a poem of your own. As you have likely noticed while perusing the Poetry in Voice catalogue, poems can come in all shapes and sizes. They can be long or short, rhyming or not, creative or structured, the sky truly is the limit. Poetry is simply using language and rhythm to elevate an idea, something we are all capable of. It is as much an art form as a written composition, and as Kurt Vonnegut so famously said: "Practicing an art, no matter how well or how badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it."
For this activity, you will be composing you own original poem, which will account for 1/3 of your Poetry in Voice unit and 5% of your overall course grade. Every Monday, Mr. Durnie will be posting a Poetry Composition seminar at 1:15 in Room 357. This seminar will review several different aspects of poetry creation and composition to help get the creative juices flowing. Each week will highlight a unique, creative, occasionally absurd) form of poetry, which you will tackle and complete, and be assessed before you leave. If you do not attend the seminar there are several other options to complete this, as outlined below. Take a look through the following list of options and choose ONE to satisfy the assignment requirements.
For this assignment, you will be using text from multiple sources (as well as your own creativity) to compose a Blip Poem. When creating a blip, you should approach it as a type of creative writing that blurs the line between poetry, prose, and art. The goal is to represent information you learn about a topic (from one or more sources) artistically. Click the link for more details.
Pop Sonnets are a really fun way to demonstrate your knowledge of the Sonnet by making what’s new sound old. Your task is to take the lyrics of one of your favourite songs and transform them into a Sonnet using Shakespearean Language. Click the link for more details.
Choose a line from your Poetry in Voice selection and use it as the first line of a new poem. For this exercise, it’s best not to use a line that was the first line in the source poem, but one from the middle or end of the poem that stands out to the student as particularly interesting, beautiful, and/or inspiring. Write this line at the top of a blank page and continue the thought introduced in that line with something from your own life and imagination. Click the link for more details.
Choose a line from your Poetry in Voice selection and use it as the first line of a new poem. For this exercise, it’s best not to use a line that was the first line in the source poem, but one from the middle or end of the poem that stands out to the student as particularly interesting, beautiful, and/or inspiring. Write a poem about a subject of your own choosing that will eventually end with the borrowed line. Click the link for more details.
The Cento is a poem made entirely of lines taken from different poems. The name cento is from the Latin word for a patchwork cape or cloak, and creating a cento is indeed like sewing a quilt by using scraps taken from many different kinds of fabric. Click the link for more details.
Write a poem in RESPONSE to the source poem that argues the opposite position. Try to follow the same form (such as ballad or sonnet) as the source poem and to pay attention to how the poem’s structure frames its argument. Click the link for more details.
Free Verse/ Open Topic:
This is a free verse poem. It can be about whatever you want with no particular rhyme, structure, etc. Go nuts!
Concrete poem:
Concrete poetry is sometimes called picture poetry or shape poetry. It combines poetic writing and drawing. The form that the poem is written in mirrors the topic of the poem. There are three traditional ways this is done:
1) the poem can follow the outline of the object
2) the poem can fill a shape that is the subject of the poem
3) the poem can use the way words are written on the page to form an image.
Social network poem:
If you spend a lot of time on a smartphone, consider using it as a tool to write poetry. If you keep an Instagram or other image-driven account, look at your feed. What do you tend to document? Think about how these images might sound if they were translated into words.
List poem:
A list poem is exactly what it sounds like — a poem made out of a list of things. List poems can be fun and yet they can also be deceptive — they look effortless, but the best ones have hidden stories within them.
Form & Structure: includes an effective and appropriate title; shows awareness of poetic form (e.g., free verse, sonnet, ballad)
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Thought & Understanding: conveys a clear idea about the assigned topic
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Presentation: conveys emotion and feeling; ends with an impact (force, surprise, a message)
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Matters of Choice: uses a variety of poetic devices to reinforce theme (e.g. simile, metaphor, repetition, onomatopoeia, imagery)
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Matters of Correctness: uses appropriate diction; uses appropriate punctuation and spelling
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