1st Lesson in my Poetry Unit

1. Words-The Building Blocks of Poetry
• Are the spoken and written signifiers of
thoughts, objects and actions.
• Create rhythm, rhyme, meter, and form
• Define the poem’s speaker, characters,
setting, situation, and emotions
• Attract and express a vast array of different
meanings
• Poets search for perfect words

2. Word Terms
Specific vs General
Concrete vs Abstract
Denotation vs Connotation
Idiom
Syntax
Rhetoric
◦ Parallelism and repetition
Decorum
◦ How the words and subject are in perfect harmony
Diction
◦ High, middle, low

3. • The Lamb
• BY WILLIAM BLAKE
• Little Lamb who made thee?
• Dost thou know who made thee?
• Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
• By the stream & o'er the mead;
• Gave thee clothing of delight,
• Softest clothing wooly bright;
• Gave thee such a tender voice,
• Making all the vales rejoice!
• Little Lamb who made thee
• Dost thou know who made thee ?
•
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
• Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
• He is called by thy name,
• For he calls himself a Lamb:
• He is meek & he is mild,
• He became a little child:
• I a child & thou a lamb,
• We are called by his name.
• Little Lamb God bless thee.
• Little Lamb God bless thee.
• Who or what is the speaker in this poem? The
listener? How are they related?
• What is the effect of repetition in the poem?
• How would you characterize the diction in this
poem?
• What are the connotations of softest, bright,
tender, meek, mild? What do these words imply
about the Creator?
• Describe the characteristics of God imagined in this
poem.

4. •
Tyger Tyger. burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
• In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?
• And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread
feet?
• What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
• When the stars threw down their
spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make
thee?
Tyger, Tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
• What associations of the word
burning suggest? Why is the burning
done at night rather than day? What
is the connotation of night?
• Line 20 Why does Blake phrase this
line as a question rather than an
assertion?
• The sixth stanza repeats the first
stanza with only a change of wording.
Contrast these stanzas, stressing the
difference between could (line 4) and
dare (line 24).

5. • Richard Cory
• BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON
• Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
• We people on the pavement looked at
him:
• He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
• Clean favored, and imperially slim.
•
And he was always quietly arrayed,
• And he was always human when he
talked;
• But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
• "Good-morning," and he glittered when
he walked.
•
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
• And admirably schooled in every grace:
• In fine, we thought that he was everything
• To make us wish that we were in his place.
•
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
• And went without the meat, and cursed
the bread;
• And Richard Cory, one calm summer
night,
• Went home and put a bullet through his
head.
• What is the effect of using “down town,
“pavement,” “meat,” and “bread” in
connection with the people who admire
Richard Cory?
• What are the connotations and
implications of the name “Richard Cory?”
Of the word “gentleman”?
• Why does the poet use sole to crown
instead of head to toe and imperially slim
instead of very thin to describe Cory?
• What effect does repetition produce in
the poem?
• What positive characteristic does Richard
Cory possess besides wealth?

6. • Richard Cory
• BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON
• Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
• We people on the pavement looked at
him:
• He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
• Clean favored, and imperially slim.
•
And he was always quietly arrayed,
• And he was always human when he
talked;
• But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
• "Good-morning," and he glittered when
he walked.
•
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
• And admirably schooled in every grace:
• In fine, we thought that he was everything
• To make us wish that we were in his place.
•
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
• And went without the meat, and cursed
the bread;
• And Richard Cory, one calm summer
night,
• Went home and put a bullet through his
head.
• What is the effect of using “down town,
“pavement,” “meat,” and “bread” in
connection with the people who admire
Richard Cory?
• What are the connotations and
implications of the name “Richard Cory?”
Of the word “gentleman”?
• Why does the poet use sole to crown
instead of head to toe and imperially slim
instead of very thin to describe Cory?
• What effect does repetition produce in
the poem?
• What positive characteristic does Richard
Cory possess besides wealth?