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Poetry and Its Elements

This document contains an analysis of the poem "If We Must Die" by Claude McKay. It begins with the full text of the poem. Then, it discusses some of the key elements of poetry like theme, imagery, meter, and rhyme scheme. It provides examples from other poems to illustrate these concepts. It also includes discussion questions about two example poems, "Touched By An Angel" and "The Day Keepers", that analyze theme, rhythm, and interpretation.

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144 views39 pages

Poetry and Its Elements

This document contains an analysis of the poem "If We Must Die" by Claude McKay. It begins with the full text of the poem. Then, it discusses some of the key elements of poetry like theme, imagery, meter, and rhyme scheme. It provides examples from other poems to illustrate these concepts. It also includes discussion questions about two example poems, "Touched By An Angel" and "The Day Keepers", that analyze theme, rhythm, and interpretation.

Uploaded by

jess mejia
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ENGLISH I

October, 2010
“If We Must Die” by Claude McKay
“If We Must Die”
By Claude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs


Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry
dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though
dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us
brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one
deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly
pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
 Watch the video “If We Must Die” by Claude
McKay as inspired by a modern rap song.
 What makes poetry different from other
forms of literature?
A lyrical form of beauty
 tellingof a story without the use of
conventional structures (sentences).
 is presented in verses and makes use of
stanzas.

 The speaker of a poem is called the persona


and not the narrator.
 Itrelies heavily on figurative languages which
makes it difficult for most people to
understand.
 The focus of poetry is on the manipulation of
words to achieve the poetic elements and
to execute a message with style.
Rhyme, Meter, Theme, and Imagery
Elements of Poetry
 It is the likeness of the terminal sound of
words. It emphasizes poetic beat.

Ex.
My head looks high
And then falls down,
I give out a sigh
I’m still in this town.
 Ithelps unify a poem because it repeats a
sound that allows us to see the overall
concept of the poem in an artistic manner.
 A rhyme scheme of a poem may differ from
another. You determine the rhyme scheme by
labeling the end sound with the use of
letters.
Ex. Can You See the Pride In the Panther (a)
As he grows in splendor and grace (b)
Toppling obstacles placed in the way, (c)
of the progression of his race. (b)
- “Can You See The Pride In The Panther”
by Tupac Shakur
 Example:
 
We wear the mask that grins and lies, (a)
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,- (a)
This debt we pay to human guile; (b)
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, (b)
And mouth with myriad subtleties. (c)
- “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Touched By An Angel
by Maya Angelou
QUESTIONS:

1. What is the rhythmic pattern of the poem?

2. What is the interpretation in the first stanza?


Second stanza? Third stanza?

3. Connecting the rhythmic pattern and our analysis of


the stanzas, what is the overall interpretation of the
poem?
Elements of Poetry
 It is the distinct rhyme you notice when you
read a poem.

Ex.
All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I.
- “Alone Looking At The Mountain” by Li
Po
 It is the basic rhythmic structure of a line in
a poem.

Ex.
Her mother pawned her wedding ring
To lay her out in white;
She'd be so proud she'd dance and sing
to see herself tonight.
- “A Brown Girl Dead” by Countee Cullen
 Meter has two functions. The first is that it
makes the poem enjoyable because of its
“sing-song” aspect.
 The second function of meter is that it makes
a poem meaningful. It can always be felt
when we read a poem and lost when we
paraphrase the poem or translate it.
The Day Keepers
by Arna Bontemps
QUESTIONS:

1. What particular tune did you notice of the poem?


What is this tune?

2. What is happening in the poem?

3. What did you feel while reading the poem? Did the
tune have any effect on the way you understood it?
Elements of Poetry
 It is the controlling idea of the poem and the
idea continuously developed by using a set of
key words.
 It is usually the dominant feeling the author
tries to convey.

Ex.
When seeing me sickens you
and you walk out
I'll send you off without a word, no fuss.
- “Azaleas” by Kim
Sowol
 The word ‘theme’ is used to name the
particular subject matter of the poem in
relationship to the reader's previous
observation of the life about him and
within him.
“Grace”
by Forrest Hamer
QUESTIONS:

1. Who was the persona of the poem? What was


he feeling?

2. What happened in the poem?

3. What is the poem trying to convey?


Elements of Poetry
 This refers to the "pictures" which we
perceive with our mind's eyes, ears, nose,
tongue, skin, and through which we
experience the "duplicate world" created by
poetic language.
 Thepoet makes use of concrete details that
appeal to the reader’s senses in order to build up
images.
Ex.
Today again I confront a day that is a source of mystery.
 
In this day the past, present and future are one,
just as each drop of water in that river
is linked to a tiny spring in some mountain valley
and linked to the distant, azure sea.
- “Today” by Ku Sang
Eating Alone
by Li-Young Lee
QUESTIONS:
1. Cite particular instances from the poem in which
imagery was exemplified. What were these images?

2. Based on the images, what is our understanding of


the poem?

3. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, how


strong was the imagery presented in the poem?
Why?
 http://litera1no4.tripod.com/
themepoetry_frame.html

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