Read, re-read, and notate/annotate these 8 short lyrical poems:
Free verse:
- Starkey text: “Nostalgia” (pp. 81–82)
- Sellers text: “Wedding Cake” (pp. 336–337)
- “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
- ”https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47734/lying-in-a-hammock-at-william-duffys-farm-in-pine-island-minnesota
- “The Fish”
- https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/fish-2
Closed form:
- Starkey text: “January Song” (p. 56) and “Instead of Her Own” (p. 96)
- “The Silken Tent”
- https://www.vqronline.org/silken-tent
- “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”
- https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/my-mistress-eyes-are-nothing-sun-sonnet-130
Then, select 1 free-verse poem and 1 closed-form poem and explicate both through close reading. Devote a 200-word paragraph to your close reading of the free-verse poem, focusing your attention on imagery, symbols, figures of speech, the internal music of the carefully chosen words, and the overall message of the poem. Following your close reading and analysis of the free-verse poem, write a second paragraph of at least 200 words in which you conduct a close reading of the closed-form poem; this time, focus on structures such as meter, rhythm, end rhyme, internal rhyme, and the overall message of the poem. Refer to Sellers’ chs. 3 and 7, and Starkey’s ch. 1 for assistance with poetic elements and forms. Your thread must contain a minimum combined total of 400 words. Quote key words and brief passages to support your claims.
Then, reply to at least 2 of your classmates’ threads by making meaningful observations about their close readings and asking follow-up questions which are open-ended and designed to produce conversation, rather than a dichotomous “yes” or “no” response. Each of your replies must be at least 100 words.
Submit your thread by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Thursday of Module/Week 6. Submit your replies by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Monday of the same module/week.
