Poetry

Before we begin, let's talk about poetic devices: Look up the following words. Write them down, along with their definitions:

1) Repitition 2) Rhyme 3) Imagery 4) Refrain 5) Symbolism 6) Rhyme

1.8.8.C: Produce an organized product that presents and reflects on findings, draws sound conclusions, and gives proper credit to sources.

After you have looked up these words, read the following poems by Edgar Allan Poe and Lord Byron. See if you can find any of these elements in their poems. If you do, write them down. Be prepared the share your findings with the class!



//I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical ////creation of Beauty. // -Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. That makes him Capricorn, on the cusp of Aquarius. His parents were David and Elizabeth Poe. David was born in Baltimore on July 18, 1784. Elizabeth Arnold came to the U.S. from England in 1796 and married David Poe after her first husband died in 1805. They had three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie. In 1831, Edgar Allan Poe went to New York City where he had some of his poetry published. He submitted stories to a number of magazines and they were all rejected. Poe had no friends, no job, and was in financial trouble. He sent a letter to John Allan begging for help but none came. John Allan died in 1834 and did not mention Edgar in his will.

In 1835, Edgar finally got a job as an editor of a newspaper because of a contest he won with his story, //Message in a Bottle//. Edgar missed Mrs. Clemm and Virginia and brought them to Richmond to live with him. In 1836, Edgar married his cousin, Virginia. He was 27 and she was 13. Many sources say Virginia was 14, but this is incorrect. Virginia Clemm was born on August 22, 1822. They were married before her 14th birthday, in May of 1836. In case you didn't figure it out already, Virginia was Virgo.

As the editor for the //Southern Literary Messenger//, Poe successfully managed the paper and increased its circulation from 500 to 3500 copies. Despite this, Poe left the paper in early 1836, complaining of the poor salary. In 1837, Edgar went to New York. He wrote "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" but he could not find any financial success. He moved to Philadelphia in 1838 where he wrote "//Ligeia//" and "//A Haunted Palace//". His first volume of short stories, "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque" was published in 1839. Poe received the copyright and 20 copies of the book, but no money.

Sometime in 1840, Edgar Poe joined George R. Graham as an editor for //Graham's Magazine//. During the two years that Poe worked for Graham's, he published his first detective story, "//The Murders in the Rue Morgue//" and challenged readers to send in cryptograms, which he always solved. During the time Poe was editor, the circulation of the magazine rose from 5000 to 35,000 copies. Poe left Graham's in 1842 because he wanted to start his own magazine.

Poe found himself without a regular job once again. He tried to start a magazine called //The Stylus// and failed. In 1843, he published some booklets containing a few of his short stories but they didn't sell well enough. He won a hundred dollars for his story, "//The Gold Bug//" and sold a few other stories to magazines but he barely had enough money to support his family. Often, Mrs. Clemm had to contribute financially. In 1844, Poe moved back to New York. Even though "//The Gold Bug"// had a circulation of around 300,000 copies, he could barely make a living.

In 1845, Edgar Poe became an editor at //The Broadway Journal//. A year later, the Journal ran out of money and Poe was out of a job again. He and his family moved to a small cottage near what is now East 192nd Street. Virginia's health was fading away and Edgar was deeply distressed by it. Virginia died in 1847, 10 days after Edgar's birthday. After losing his wife, Poe collapsed from stress but gradually returned to health later that year.

In June of 1849, Poe left New York and went to Philadelphia, where he visited his friend John Sartain. Poe left Philadelphia in July and came to Richmond. He stayed at the Swan Tavern Hotel but joined "The Sons of Temperance" in an effort to stop drinking. He renewed a boyhood romance with Sarah Royster Shelton and planned to marry her in October.

On September 27, Poe left Richmond for New York. He went to Philadelphia and stayed with a friend named James P. Moss. On September 30, he meant to go to New York but supposedly took the wrong train to Baltimore. On October 3, Poe was found at Gunner's Hall, a public house at 44 East Lombard Street, and was taken to the hospital. He lapsed in and out of consciousness but was never able to explain exactly what happened to him. Edgar Allan Poe died in the hospital on Sunday, October 7, 1849.

The mystery surrounding Poe's death has led to many myths and urban legends. The reality is that no one knows for sure what happened during the last few days of his life. Did Poe die from alcoholism? Was he mugged? Did he have rabies?

__Tovani Activities:__ 1) Predict: This poem is obviously about someone named Annabel Lee. What do you think will happen? 2) Make Connections: Emotions play a huge role in inspiration for poetry. The narrator of Annabel Lee conveys very strong emotion about Annabel Lee. Was there ever a moment in your life where you felt such strong emotion, whether it be love, saddness, happiness, anger, etc.?

Auditory/Visual: media type="youtube" key="ecfVIt641n0" height="315" width="420" align="center"

Annabel Lee It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea: But we loved with a love that was more than love - I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her high-born kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me - Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud one night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we - Of many far wiser than we - And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea - In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Kinesthetic: Draw something that you visualize while reading Annabel Lee. It could be anything! It could be a picture of the narrator and Annabel Lee together and in love; it could be the //sepulchre// (VOCAB WORD!!) by the sea; anything that you see in your head while reading this poem!

Research another Edgar Allan Poe poem. Compare to Annabel Lee. Then, find all literary elements of poetry that you can find within the poem. Highlight each, write which element it is, and then write why you think it is that element. 1.8.8.A: Develop an inquiry-based process in seeking knowledge.

1.8.8.B: Conduct inquiry and research on self-selected or assigned topics, issues, or problems using a variety of appropriate media sources and strategies.

1.8.8.C: Produce an organized product that presents and reflects on findings, draws sound conclusions, and gives proper credit to sources. Information Retrieved From: []

//A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. // <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">~Robert Frost~

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874. He moved to New England at the age of eleven and became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was enrolled at Dartmouth College in 1892, and later at Harvard, though he never earned a formal degree. In 1895, Frost married Elinor Miriam White, who became a major inspiration in his poetry until her death in 1938. The couple moved to England in 1912, after their New Hampshire farm failed, and it was abroad that Frost met and was influenced by such contemporary British poets as Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves. While in England, Frost also established a friendship with the poet Ezra Pound, who helped to promote and publish his work.

Though his work is principally associated with the life and landscape of New England, and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time, Frost is anything but a merely regional or minor poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he is a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony.

In a 1970 review of //The Poetry of Robert Frost//, the poet Daniel Hoffman describes Frost's early work as "the Puritan ethic turned astonishingly lyrical and enabled to say out loud the sources of its own delight in the world," and comments on Frost's career as The American Bard: "He became a national celebrity, our nearly official Poet Laureate, and a great performer in the tradition of that earlier master of the literary vernacular, Mark Twain."

Robert Frost lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died in Boston on January 29, 1963.

Tovani Activities:1) Make Connections: Everyone has heard a ghost story of some sort before. What do you typically think about ghosts/spirits based on ghost stories you have heard before?2) Predict: Who do you think is narrating this poem? What do you think the poem is about?

Auditory/Visual: media type="youtube" key="-WK92957YzI" height="315" width="560" align="center"

Ghost House I Dwell in a lonely house I know That vanished many a summer ago, And left no trace but the cellar walls, And a cellar in which the daylight falls, And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.

O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield The woods come back to the mowing field; The orchard tree has grown one copse Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops; The footpath down to the well is healed.

I dwell with a strangely aching heart In that vanished abode there far apart On that disused and forgotten road That has no dust-bath now for the toad. Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;

The whippoorwill is coming to shout And hush and cluck and flutter about: I hear him begin far enough away Full many a time to say his say Before he arrives to say it out.

It is under the small, dim, summer star. I know not who these mute folk are Who share the unlit place with me-- Those stones out under the low-limbed tree Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad, Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,-- With none among them that ever sings, And yet, in view of how many things, As sweet companions as might be had.

Kinesthetic: Based on the imagery depicted in the poem, draw a picture of what you think this ghost house looks like. Include the landscape.