Poems About the Natural World

T. Voboril Evan

Description

This book invites the reader to jump into a selection of poems about the natural world written by people from different places and times. It gives the reader the keys needed to unlock poems. It equips the reader to explore the meanings that a poem has, and it explains the techniques poets use to create their effects.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: Capstone Global Library
• Date de parution: 13 mars 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781406273045
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 12 Mo

Extrait

Experiencing Poetry

Poems about the Nat ral World

Experiencing Poetry

Poems about the Nat ral World

Evan Voboril

Raintree is an imprint of Capstone Global Library Limited, a company incorporated in England and Wales having its registered office at 7 Pilgrim Street, London, EC4V 6LB – Registered company number: 6695582

www.raintreepublishers.co.uk [e-mail]

Text © Capstone Global Library Limited 2014 First published in hardback in 2014 The moral rights of the proprietor have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS (www.cla.co.uk). Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission should be addressed to the publisher.

Produced for Raintree by White-Thomson Publishing www.wtpub.co.uk [phone]

Edited by Sonya Newland Cover design by Tim Mayer Designed by Alix Wood Concept design by Alix Wood Production by Victoria Fitzgerald Originated by Capstone Global Library Ltd Printed and bound in China

ISBN 978 1 4062 7290 1 17 16 15 14 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A full catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Poems reproduced by permission of: p. 33 COLLECTED POEMS 1930-1986 by Richard Eberhart (1988) 48 lines “The Groundhog”. By permission of Oxford University Press, USA, and in markets not controlled by OUP by the Richard Eberhart Estate. p. 39 Dana Gioia, “Planting a Sequoia” from The Gods of Winter. Copyright © 1991 by Dana Gioia. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org and Dana Gioia. p. 45 Nikki Giovanni, “The Yellow Jacket”. Copyright © 2007. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Picture credits can be found on p. 63

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of any material reproduced in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in subsequent printings if notice is given to the publisher.

Disclaimer All the internet addresses (URLs) given in this book were valid at the time of going to press. However, due to the dynamic nature of the internet, some addresses may have changed, or sites may have changed or ceased to exist since publication. While the author and publisher regret any inconvenience this may cause readers, no responsibility for any such changes can be accepted by either the author or the publisher.

Contents

Experiencing poems about the natural world ........ 4 “The Tyger” by William Blake ..................................... 8 “High Waving Heather” by Emily Brontë............... 14 “A Bird came down the Walk” by Emily Dickinson ..................................................... 20 “The Wild Swans at Coole” by W. B. Yeats............. 26 “The Groundhog” by Richard Eberhart ................. 32

“Planting a Sequoia” by Dana Gioia........................ 38 “The Yellow Jacket” by Nikki Giovanni .................. 44 Putting it all together.................................................. 50 Write your own nature poem .................................... 54

Bibliography .....................................................................58 Glossary ............................................................................59

Find out more...................................................................62 Index.................................................................................64

Experiencing poems about the natural world o you have a favourite poem? Perhaps you can recall D a poem that you particularly enjoyed reading, or with which you felt a special connection. Think of how the poet used words to express his or her ideas. What made this piece of writing a “poem”? What makes poetry different from other types of literature?

Many types of writing follow precise rules, and these types of writing are often easy to describe. When someone uses the words “sentence”, “paragraph”, “essay”, “novel”, or “autobiography”, we have a fairly clear idea in our minds about what those types of writing are. But a poem is much harder to define.

Take a moment to skim through and compare the poems in this book. They span a wide variety of forms and styles. A poem may only be a few lines long, or it may take up more than a page. It may be organized in blocks of text, orstanzas, or it may not be divided in any way.

Some poems follow a precise pattern of rhyming words, or a specificrhythmwith a certain number of beats per line. Other poems do not follow any pattern at all, and some sound like natural, spoken language. One of the best things about poetry is its freedom of form. Poets can choose from many types of poetry and many different devices to achieve the effect they want in their writing.

POINTS OF VIEW It is important to remember that there is no “right way” to interpret a poem. When you read a poem for the first time, you may discover something that other readers have not seen. Each reader may see the poem from a different point of view, depending on his or her age, culture, or life experiences. Everyone’s understanding of a poem is unique.

4

The poet’s purpose

A poem may affect different readers in different ways, but poets usually want to achieve something specific through their writing. They have a particularthemeor idea that they want the reader to understand. To express these ideas, poets can use a range of different features in their writing. Such features include thecontext, language, andstructureof the poem. They can all help the poet get across his or her message.

The context

As you read a poem, think about its context (the time and setting in which it takes place). Context can affect meaning – the ideas the poet wants to share with the reader. The context is especially important in poems about the natural world. In a nature poem, the reader may experience the sights, sounds, and smells of a natural environment – a dark forest, a rolling meadow, a raging river, or a placid lake.

THE PASSING OF TIME The time in which a poem is set may also be significant. Is it set in the early light of dawn, the bright midday sunshine, or the depths of night? Does the poem suggest the warmth of summer or the hard chill of winter? The time setting might even change over the course of the poem. This is especially true if the poet wants to describe the effects of the passage of time or the changes in an environment over a long period.