by Theodore Roethke
In textbook on page 613
Listen to the poem @ / I Ask My Motherto Sing
by Li-young Lee
Listen to the poem @ / Grape Sherbet
by Rita Dove
In textbook on page: 613
Listen to the Poem @
Essential Question: What is your most vivid memory? How can you best share it with others?
Common Core Standards: RL.1Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. RL. 4Analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.Introduction: What are some of your most vivid memories? Perhaps they include a holiday spent with your favorite relatives or your first camping trip with friends. Memories can take an important shape in your mind. Sometimes they are great stories to tell for years to come, but others might remain only as a sequence of images. The three poems you will read in this lesson consist of such images, boiled down to theirquintessential qualities.
Make the Connection: Choose a memory that is very vivid in your memory and write a short recollection. Include sensory details as well as events that present a clear image of your subject.
Poetic Form: Lyric Poetry
These three poems are all examples of lyric poetry, brief poems in which the speakers communicate and share personal thoughts and feelings. In ancient Greek, the word lyric referred to a type of poetry that expressed the feelings of a single singer, joined by a lyre, a small harplike instrument. Today lyric poems are no longer performed, but lyric poems have a great deal in common with songs, including:
- Imaginative word choice, or diction
- A sense of rhythm and melody
- The creation of a single, unified impression
Text Analysis: Imagery
Imagery is one of the most critical elements of a poem. Imagery is the words and phrases that appeal to one or more of the five senses. Imagery is a powerful way to recreate sensory experiences and conjures particular emotions and ideas in people. In the lines below from “My Papa’s Waltz,” the imagery appeal to sight and hearing but also evokes certain feelings:
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf
These lines conjure a sense of rowdy and raucous playtime.
Skills for Reading: Making Inferences
Lyric poems to be very condensed. It’s not uncommon for them there to be more suggested than explicitly stated. When reading lyrical poems it is critical to make inferences about their meanings. Think about the ideas and emotions suggested by the poet’s word choices and the poem’s images. As you read each poem, keep track of the images and your inferences by creating a graphic organizer like the one below.
“Grape Sherbet”
Image / My Associations / Inferences
“[Memorial Day] mornings we galloped/through the grassed-over mounds/ and named each stone / for a lost milk tooth.” / -Memorial Day celebrates the dead who have given their lives
-Grassy mounds and stone are found in cemeteries / -The characters must be running through a cemetery
About the Authors
Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)Roethke, a self-taught poet, learned the craft of poetry by studying other poets. He kept a notebook where he kept his thoughts, feelings, and observations and often sought inspiration there. He earned a Pulitzer Prize and two National Book Awards. He advised his readers to “listen” to his poems because “they are written to be heard. / Li-Young Lee (Born 1957)
Lee is the son of a couple exiled by the Chinese government. After his parents fled China to avoid political persecution, he and his family lived in many different Asian countries before landing in America in 1964. It wasn’t until after college that Lee began to write about his experiences. His poetry is about love, family, and every day experiences. / Rita Dove (Born 1952)
Dove has been a writer since she was in grade school when she composed a science-fiction novel based on the words she was required to learn for a school spelling bee. Her poetry collections have many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. From 1993 -1995, she served as the U.S. poet laureate. She credits her imagination for her success.
Poem #1: My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke
Listen to the poem @
Tender Moments (2000) Franks Deceus / The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt / Close Read
- Analyze Visuals – What are your impressions of the characters in the paintings? Cite the details that create that impression.
- Analyze Lyric Poems – How does the speaker feel about the bedtime waltz with his father? Cite details from the poem to explain your thoughts and opinions.
Poem #2: I Ask My Mother to Sing by Li-Young Lee
Listen to the poem @
Mother and Child by Grand Canal (2000) by Hung Liu. / She begins, and my grandmother joins her.
Mother and daughter sing like young girls.
If my father were alive, he would play
his accordion and sway like a boat.
I’ve never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,
nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch
the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picnickers
running away in the grass.
But I love to hear it sung;
how the waterlilies fill with rain until
they overturn, spilling water into water,
then rock back, and fill with more.
Both women have begun to cry.
But neither stops her song. / Close Read
- Imagery: Reread the highlighted lines. How is the speaker able to describe images of a place he’s never seen? Describe the emotions evoked by the images.
- Make Inferences: Why do the speaker’s mother and grandmother start to cry during their song?
Poem #3: Grape Sherbet
Listen to the Poem @ / Poet Rita Dove recites two poems, Singsong and Fox Trot Fridays @ Watch an interview with poet Rita Dove @
Ice Cream Dessert (1959) by Andy Warhol / The Day? Memorial.
After the grill
Dad appears with his masterpiece –
swirled snow, gelled light.
We cheer. The recipe’s
a secret and he fights
a smile, his cap turned up
so the bib resembles a duck.
That morning we galloped
through the grassed-over mounds
and named each stone
for a lost milktooth. Each dollop
of sherbet, later,
is a miracle,
like salt on a melon that makes it sweeter.
Everyone agrees – it’s wonderful!
It’s just how we imagined lavender
would taste. The diabetic grandmother
stares from the porch,
a torch
of pure refusal.
We thought no one was lying
there under our feet,
we thought it
was a joke. I’ve been trying
to remember the taste,
but it doesn’t exist.
Now I see why
you bothered,
father. / Close Read
- Reread the highlighted portion of the poem. What does the image of the grandmother indicate about her grandmother?
- Lyric Poetry: What emotion is the speaker communicating in this poem?
After Reading Questions
Common Core Standards: RL.1Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. RL. 4Analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.- Recall: In “My Papa’s Waltz,” why is the speaker’s mother frowning?
- Clarify: In “I Ask My Mother to Sing,” what is the mother’s song about?
- Summarize: Describe the setting of “Grape Sherbet” as you imagine it.
- Make Inferences: Review the chart/graphic organizers you created while reading the three poems. What essential inferencesassisted you understand the poems? What hints did you use toformulate these inferences?
- Compare and Contrast: In “My Papa’s Waltz,” and “Grape Sherbet,” the speakers recall childhood memories. How are their experiences with their fathers similar? How do they differ? Cite evidence from each poem to validate your answers.
- Interpret Imagery: Reread the lines below from the poem “I Ask My Mother to Sing.” What idea is alluded to by the image of the water lilies filling with water, spilling it into the lake, and filling up again. Think about the event explained in the first stanza.
But I love to hear it sung;
how the waterlilies fill with rain until
they overturn, spilling water into water,
then rock back, and fill with more.
- Analyze Lyric Poetry: Review the definition of a lyric poem from your notes. Then find the characteristics of a lyric poem in “I Ask My Mother to Sing.”
- Come to Conclusions: In “My Papa’s Waltz,” how do you judge the father’s behavior toward the speaker? Consider the diction used in the descriptions as you cite evidence to support your answer.
- Text Criticism: In writing about “My Papa’s Waltz,” one critic commented that Roethkediscloses “something of his own joy, bafflements, as the victim of his father’s exuberant energy.” Do you consider victim too harsh an explanation to describe the boy’s part in the evening waltz? Explain your answer.
- Enduring Understanding: Reread the essential questions. Do you think your favorite memory could be best shared in a poem? After reading these poems, do you think poetry is an effective way to share memories with others? Why or why not?