This poem is written in the form of a letter from one friend to another describing his experiences in the afterlife. He explains that in the afterlife, imagination and willpower are unconstrained - he can imagine anything and it instantly becomes reality, such as writing a letter in an instant. He describes meeting historical figures who are making beautiful music, and poems floating everywhere. He emphasizes that in the afterlife, one can do anything they want without limits.

1.  Poetry is highly rhythmical
 Exists under self-imposed restrictions
 Most poets choose a closed form
• Modern poetry have rejected this and have
chosen open form

2.  Written in specific and traditional
patterns of lines produced through
• Line length
• Meter
• Rhyme
• Line groupings

3. Couplet: a,a
Heroic Couplet: a,a in iambic pentameter
Tercet: a,a,a
Terza rima-aba,bcb, ded
Villanelle-19 line poem containing 6 tercets and
ending with 4 lines
Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson
The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

4.  Reapers
 BY JEAN TOOMER
 Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones
 Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones
 In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done,
 And start their silent swinging, one by one.
 Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,
 And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds.
 His belly close to ground. I see the blade,
 Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.

5. Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green
bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding
sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I
pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
 1.What conclusions can you make about
the speaker, the listener, and the
situation in this poem?
 2.What connotative words do you find
here? Consider dying, good, night,
gentle.
 3.What five different kinds of men does
the speaker discuss in stanzas 2-5? What
do they have in common? Of what value
are the to the speaker’s father?

6.  Expresses a personal, individual emotion
 Does not tell a story
• Tyger,Tyger
• The Lamb
 Most poetry is lyric
• Sonnets
• Villianelles
• Odes
• Song

8.  Topics are meditative and philosophical
 No set form
 Is a lyric poem addressed to a specific
subject

9.  "ODE ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT,
DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLD FISHES"

1'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
 2Where China's gayest art had dyed
 3 The azure flowers, that blow;
 4Demurest of the tabby kind,
 5The pensive Selima reclined,
 6 Gazed on the lake below.

7Her conscious tail her joy declared;
 8The fair round face, the snowy beard,
 9 The velvet of her paws,
 10Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
 11Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
 12 She saw; and purred applause.

13Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
 14Two angel forms were seen to glide,
 15 The genii of the stream:
 16Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
 17Through richest purple to the view
 18 Betrayed a golden gleam.

19The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
 20A whisker first and then a claw,
 21 With many an ardent wish,
 22She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
 23What female heart can gold despise?
 24 What cat's averse to fish?

25Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
 26Again she stretched, again she bent,
 27 Nor knew the gulf between.
 28(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)
 29The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
 30 She tumbled headlong in.

31Eight times emerging from the flood
 32She mewed to every watery god,
 33 Some speedy aid to send.
 34No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred:
 35Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
 36 A favourite has no friend!

37From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
 38Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
 39 And be with caution bold.
 40Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
 41And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
 42 Nor all that glisters gold.

11.  Usually an Ode
 A poetic device used to address absent
or imaginary people or objects

12.  Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! Up
above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky.Twinkle,
twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! ****
 When the blazing sun is gone,When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! ****
 Then the traveller in the dark,Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go, If you did not twinkle so.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! ****
 In the dark blue sky you keep, And often through my
curtains peep, For you never shut your eye,Till the sun is in
the sky.Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you
are! ****
 As your bright and tiny spark, Lights the traveller in the
dark,— Though I know not what you are,Twinkle, twinkle,
little star.Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you
are!

13.  Also like an Ode
 Lament a person’s death
 Topic is death of a specific person, but is
generally concerned with mortality and
the negative or tragic aspects of life
 Pastoral in nature
• Describing rural lives and concerns
• Farm, family, country

14.  To an Athlete Dying Young
 BY A. E. HOUSMANThe time you won your town
the race
 We chaired you through the market-place;
 Man and boy stood cheering by,
 And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
 Shoulder-high we bring you home,
 And set you at your threshold down,
 Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
 From fields where glory does not stay,
 And early though the laurel grows
 It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
 Cannot see the record cut,
 And silence sounds no worse than cheers
 After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
 Of lads that wore their honours out,
 Runners whom renown outran
 And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
 The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
 And hold to the low lintel up
 The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
 Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
 And find unwithered on its curls
 The garland briefer than a girl’s.
1.What is the rhyme scheme and
how does it add to the theme of
the poem?
2.What does each stanza develop?
How effective is the poem’s
structure in creating or
reinforcing the poem’s internal
logic?
3.To what extant does the form
organize and bring out the
poem’s ideas or emotions?

15.  Only three lines, totaling 17 syllables throughout
 The first line must be only 5 syllables
 The second line must be comprised of 7
syllables
 The third line must be 5 syllables like the first
 Punctuation and capitalization rules are up to the
poet, and need not follow rigid rules used in
structuring sentences
 Haiku does not have to rhyme, in fact many times
it does not rhyme at all
 Some haiku can include the repetition of words
or sounds
 Usually has a word to indicate the season

19.  Poems that read as letters
 Some things you should keep in mind
when writing the epistle are:
 Who is writing the letter?
 Who is the letter being written to?
 How you would address that person?
 What would interest the writer and the
recipient?
 How formal or informal would the writer
be when addressing that person?

20.  The Afterlife: Letter to Sam Hamill
 BY HAYDEN CARRUTHYou may think it strange, Sam, that I'm writing
 a letter in these circumstances. I thought
 it strange too—the first time. But there's
 a misconception I was laboring under, and you
 are too, viz. that the imagination in your
 vicinity is free and powerful. After all,
 you say, you've been creating yourself all
 along imaginatively.You imagine yourself
 playing golf or hiking in the Olympics or
 writing a poem and then it becomes true.
 But you still have to do it, you have to exert
 yourself, will, courage, whatever you've got, you're
 mired in the unimaginative. Here I imagine a letter
 and it's written.Takes about two-fifths of a
 second, your time. Hell, this is heaven, man.
 I can deluge Congress with letters telling
 every one of those mendacious sons of bitches
 exactly what he or she is, in maybe about
 half an hour. In spite of your Buddhist
 proclivities, when you imagine bliss
 you still must struggle to get there. By the way
 the Buddha has his place across town on
 Elysian Drive.We call him Bud. He's lost weight
 and got new dentures, and he looks a hell of a
 lot better than he used to. He always carries
 a jumping jack with him everywhere just
 for contemplation, but he doesn't make it
 jump. He only looks at it. Meanwhile Sidney
 and Dizzy, Uncle Ben and Papa Yancey, are
 over by Sylvester's Grot making the sweetest,
 cheerfulest blues you ever heard.The air,
 so called, is full of it. Poems are fluttering
 everywhere like seed from a cottonwood tree.
 Sam, the remarkable truth is I can do any
 fucking thing I want. Speaking of which
 there's this dazzling young Naomi who
 wiped out on I-80 just west of Truckee
 last winter, and I think this is the moment
 for me to go and pay her my respects.
 Don't go way. I'll be right back.