American Poetry

1
American Poetry

• -Biographies of American poets
• -Ideologies/styles in American poetry

2
Emily Dickinson

• Known for her unusual life of isolation.
• Had a rift with family due to disagreement over
  religion.
• Questioned the nature of immortality and death in
  her poems.
• Known as a transcendentalist poet.

3
Because I Could Not Stop for Death Annotation

1. In line 2, what adverb describes Deaths actions?
   Why is this ironic?
2. What three scenes does the carriage pass in
   Stanza 3? What is the significance of these
   images?
3. Paraphrase stanzas 4-6. What is she seeing? Is it
   literal or symbolic?
4. How does this poem show qualities of
   transcendentalism?
5. What do you think is the overall message of this
   poem?

4
Walt Whitman

• Struggled to make ends meet his entire life.
• Was the poet to bridge Transcendentalism and
  Realism
• Often discussed politics and issues of human
  rights in his poems, which were long and very
  prose-like.
• Known as the poet of democracy he was
  anti-slavery, pro-temperance, and open to all
  religions and sexualities.
• The Beat poets of the 1950s (like Jack Kerouac
  and Allen Ginsberg) modeled themselves after
  Whitman.
• Known as a humanist

5
Song of Myself Annotation

• 1.  According to section 1 of the poem, what
  things seem important to the speaker, and what
  does he enjoy?
• 2.  What is the mood of the first two stanzas in
  particular?  What words give you this sense?
• 3.  How does the speaker of the poem feel about
  schools and other institutions (stanza 4)? 
• 4.  How does the speaker of the poem feel about
  nature according to the beginning of section 6? 
• 5.  What are the qualities of grass that the poet
  admires as explained throughout the stanzas in
  section 6? 
• 6. Which lines here are similar to the ideas from
  Because I Could Not Stop for Death?
• 7. Why do you think Whitman titled his entire
  book of poetry Leaves of Grass? 
• 8. What realistic images are portrayed in section
  14?
• 9. What are the connections that can be made
  between the transcendentalist, humanist, and
  realist aspects of the poem? What verses or
  stanzas support this?

6
Robert Frost

• Attended Dartmouth College for a few months is
  known as the most famous Dartmouth dropout.
• Also attended Harvard for some time but never
  graduated.
• Personal life was filled with grief many deaths
  in the family.
• Known primarily as a realist poet, for his
  realistic descriptions of rural life in New
  England

7
Nothing Gold Can Stay

1. What is the overall message of this poem?
2. What devices are used to get this message across?
3. How does this poem show qualities of realism?
   Transcendentalism?

8
A Time to Talk

1. What is the overall message of this poem?
2. Do you agree or disagree with this message?
   Why/why not?
3. How does this poem show qualities of realism?

9
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

1. What two actions does the speaker engage in in
   the first stanza?
2. What does the fact that the speakers horse must
   think it queer reveal about what the speaker is
   doing?
3. What phrase is repeated in the poems last two
   lines? Why do you think it is repeated?
4. What do you think is the overall message of the
   poem?
5. How does this poem show qualities of realism?

10
The Imagism Movement

• The Imagist movement was a style of poetry that
  was free verse (non-rhyming poems) and devoted to
  clarity of expression through the use of precise
  visual images and as few words as possible.
• Imagism was a reaction to the flabby abstract
  language and "careless thinking" of Romanticism.
  
• Imagism actually originated in Chinese and
  Japanese lyric poetry.
• Also known as modernism.

11
William Carlos Williams

• Imagist/Modernist poet of the early 20th century.
• His primary occupation was as a doctor.
• He considered himself a socialist and an opponent
  of capitalism.

12
This is Just to Say

1. What is the intention of the speaker in this
   poem? (look at the title---what was the poem
   supposed to be?)
2. Which details in the second stanza challenge the
   speakers sincerity?
3. What might this poem be suggesting about people?
4. How could this poem connect to the poets
   socialist beliefs?

13
Langston Hughes

• Best known for his work during the Harlem
  Renaissance, which began in the 1920s was one
  of the first successful African American writers
  in the 20th century.
• Created a bridge between Imagism and jazz poetry
  (poems with a jazz-like rhythm).
• Left a legacy of black pride in his poems that
  some later poets considered to be too aggressive.
• His main message in his poems was to uplift his
  people and give them hope for a better future.

14
All Dream poems

• What is the overall message of this poem?
• What poetic devices are used to get this message
  across?
• Contrast How is Dream Variations different
  from the previous two poems in message, use of
  devices, and general form?