POETRY UNIT – day 2
TODAY’S TERM: Alliteration
- a way to make things “sound good…”
- the repetition of an initial consonant sound for effect or emphasis
- like a tongue-twister but more subtle, less “in your face”
4. Example from yesterday’s “Cache Street North”
gravel, gravel, piece of a sign “meet you at M”
big baked truck tread marks in mud climbing the curb
SAMPLE PASSAGE:
Can you find at least 5 examples of ALLITERATION in this passage?
Please underline or hightlight them as you go.
SARAH CYNTHIA SYLVIA STOUT
WOULD NOT TAKE THE GARBAGE OUTShel Siverstein 1974
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
And so it piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,
Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens,
Soggy beans and tangerines,
Crusts of black burned buttered toast,
Gristly bits of beefy roasts. . .
The Summer DayBY MARY OLIVER
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
PEACEFUL by a former student
The soft crunch of grass beneathy my feet,
The soft pile of wood chips beneath me as a I sit,
Above me, songbirds soar,
Below me, I know there are worms.
I am due to dissect one later today.
I wish could soar like the birds,
Sprout roots and grow tall like the trees,
But I know I can’t.
On the ground, I see a pine cone,
Towering above it is a tree,
Everything around me is quiet, peaceful.
The snap of wood chips as I get up,
We are going back inside.
YOUR TURN
Observe your surroundings. What do you see, touch, hear, and smell? What are the heaviest, lightest, largest, tiniest things you can see? What thoughts, feelings, memories, or wishes do you experience as you observe?
Perhaps your notes will lead to a “Nature Poem.”
MAKE A PAGE IN YOUR WRITER’S NOTEBOOK LOOK LIKE THIS…
SEE:
TOUCH:
HEAR:
SMELL:
HEAVY:
LIGHT:
LARGE:
SMALL:
THOUGHTS/FEELINGS/MEMORIES: