Intro - Lit Review

Quiz Intro

The ending of a poem serves as a final thought, but can also be ambiguous which lets the reader participate in making meaning of the poem. The poet Elizabeth Bishop ends her well-known poem The Fish with the line "was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! / And I let the fish go." (The Academy of American Poets). This ending includes assonance and repetition; two kinds of literary devices that help the audience interpret the ambiguity of the poem. An older poet and contemporary of Bishop, William Carlos Williams, ends his well-read poem This is Just to Say, with the lines: "...so sweet / and so cold" (The Academy of American Poets). Like Bishop, Williams, uses assonance and repetition, in the end of this poem to create ambiguity. While both literary devices both create ambiguity--they also offer different moral possibilities. 


Corrected

The ending of a poem serves as a final thought, but can also be ambiguous. This ambiguity lets the reader participate in making meaning of the poem. The poet Elizabeth Bishop ends her well-known poem “The Fish” with the lines "was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! / And I let the fish go" (The Academy of America Poets). This ending includes assonance and repetition, two kinds of literary devices that help the audience interpret the ambiguity of the poem. An older poet, and contemporary of Bishop, William Carlos Williams, similarly ends his well-read poem “This is Just to Say” with ambiguity.  The lines “so sweet / and so cold" (The Academy of America Poets) contain assonance and repetition as well.  While both literary devices create ambiguity, they also offer different moral endings as possibilities. 

Sample Conclusion

As discussed in this paper, the ending of a poem is integral to how the reader interprets the poem's entirety. While assonance and repetition aren't the only way to achieve ambiguity at the end of a poem, these literary devices have obvious roots in Bishop and Williams' work. Some people prefer their endings to be neat and tidy, pointing to a singular way of understanding language. Personally, I enjoy an ending that offers ambiguity; I like to mediate on an idea and come to my own conclusions rather than be told what to think. Williams once wrote, "That which is possible is inevitable," which speaks to the value and necessity of individual reader's interpretations of poetry. Without a bit of ambiguity, discovering  a poem's meaning wouldn't be as open to inquiry, nor would it be as pleasurable to read.

Poetry Group Work

Each group will be assigned a poem to analyze. After your group discusses the poem, you will present your work to the class. For your presentation, you will answer the following:

1. Find three SOUND devices (alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, or rhythm) in the poem and explain why that sound is important for your understanding of the poem. How sound contributes to the tone and the meaning of the poem? Also, is there an absence of sound? If so, how does this also contribute to your understanding of the poem?

2. Look at the FORM/STRUCTURE of the poem. How is it composed? Discuss line length, stanzas, syllables, and space. Is there repetition in this poem?  Discuss how the form/structure of the poem helps you understand how this poem wants to be read.

3. MEANING: Who are the characters in this poem? Is there a narrative? Is there ambiguity in the poem? Allusion? An epigraph? Maybe an oxymoron (when contradictory terms are combined)? How do all these elements help you understand the general meaning of the poem?

4. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE helps us understand the poem in interesting ways. Find THREE examples of figurative language: simile, metaphor, personification (Add this to your list - it's when you give inanimate objects human characteristics. For example, "the lamp shed a tear."), hyperbole (an exaggeration), and cliches. How does each example help you find an under-the-surface meaning?

5. How is the title of the poem significant to your understanding of the poem?

Peer Review – Response Essay

1. Does the essay have a clear introduction that follows the proper format: hook, summary, thesis?

2. Is there a clear thesis? Is it specific, take a stand, and answer the prompt?

3. Does each body paragraph make a specific point that leads back to the thesis statement?

4. Does each paragraph begin with a “transition” sentence (does the sentence move back & look forward?)

5. Does at least one SPECIFIC example from the film accompany each point?

6. Is each point accompanied by a thoughtful response from the author?

7. (continued from #6)…does each response exhibit maturity of thought>

8. Does the essay respond to the film, akin to a conversation?

9. Does the conclusion move the conversation forward or does it summarize the essay?

10. Can you point out grammatical mistakes such as:comma misuse, run-ons, passive voice, semi-colon and colon misuse, tense disagreements, pronoun disagreements, and singular-plural disagreements?

Boy Discussion Questions

1. Trauma plays a role in how Boy, Rocky, and Alamein function with the absence of the mother figure. How do they find proxies to fill this role? At the end the film, we see them reunite at the gravesite. As an ambiguous ending, how will the family move forward?

2. As much as this film is a coming-of-age story of Boy, how is this the same for Alamein? How does he negotiate his role as father or "hulk"?

3. When his grandmother leaves for a funeral, Boy must assume authority and takes care of this household. How does the appearance of Alamein undermine his role and challenge his notions of being a man? What is Boy's "potential"?

4. In Boy we see references to 80's pop culture. Two important figures in the film are Michael Jackson and the film E.T. Michael Jackson is the "King of Pop" and E.T. is an iconic coming of age story about a boy who befriends an alien. Why are these references important to our understanding of "Boy" and his relationship with his father?

5. Alamein (the elder) desires to name himself Shogun, and his gang the "Crazy Horses." As Alamein himself points out, he and his buddies are  "renegades." Is Alamein a true renegade? Why or why not? How do the real and imagined depictions of "Shogun" and the "Crazy Horses" add to the significance of Alamein's character (which is, at times, full of narcissism and self-delusion)?