Desert Places -By Robert Frost
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it - it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less -
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
Wtth no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars - on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
Questions for Desert Places:
1. How many stanzas are in this poem? What stanza form is being used?
______
2. What point of view is “Desert Places” written from? ______
3. Does this poem follow a rhyme scheme? Label the poem to determine if there is a pattern. ______
4. Is this poem in an open or closed form? How do you know? Is it a certain type? ______
Ode To Tomatoes -by Pablo Neruda
The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.
Questions for “Ode to the Tomatoes”
1. Why do you think the poet chose to write the poem in this way? ______
2. Is this poem written in free verse? How can you tell? What type of poem is it? How do we know? ______
3. What point of view is used in the poem? How do we know? ______
4. Does this poem use enjambment? Explain. ______
Types of poetry: Match the poetry type to the definition.
1. Ode / ____ A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tale or legend and often has a repeated refrain.2. Sonnet / ____ It uses the letters of the word for the first letter of each line.
3. Blank verse / ____ A sad and thoughtful poem lamenting the death of a person.
4. Elegy / ____ Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set fixed metrical pattern or expectation.
5. Free Verse / ____ is a commemorative inscription on a tomb or mortuary monument written in praise of a deceased person.
6. Ballad / ____ often a long and serious poem that is dedicated to a person, event or idea.
7. Epitaph / ____ A long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure.
8. Epic / ____ A short sometimes bawdy, humorous poem of consisting of five anapaestic lines.
9. Couplet / ____ Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter form often resembles the rhythms of ordinary speech.
10. Limerick / ____ lyric poems that are 14 lines long falling into three coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet.
11. Haiku / ____ A couplet has rhyming stanzas each made up of two lines.
12. Name / ____ A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables