Before Reading
Spring is like a perhaps hand
Poem by E. E. Cummings
Elegy for the Giant Tortoises
Poem by Margaret Atwood
Today
Poem by Billy Collins
Can you think
OUT OF THE BOX?
RL 4 Analyze the cumulative
impact of specific word choices
on meaning and tone. RL 10 Read
and comprehend poems.
Some of the best things in life are those unlike anything ever
thought of before. Whether it’s a brilliant invention (light bulb),
a playful game (lizard boat), or an entertaining story (dog bites man),
a new idea makes life more interesting and worthwhile. Creativity
is a poet’s bread and butter; a good poet always looks at things in a
new way.
PRESENT With a small group, draw up a design
for a new tool. Then share your invention with
other groups and explain how it works.
756
Meet the Authors
E. E. Cummings
poetic form: elegy
An elegy is a specific type of lyric poem. In an elegy, the
speaker meditates about death, usually as a tribute to one who
has recently died. Generally the tone is serious and the diction
is formal. The second poem in this lesson is an elegy.
text analysis: diction
Poetry is known for its concise and exact use of language. When
reading poetry, notice the diction (the choice of words) and the
syntax (the order in which the words appear). For example, in
“Today,” Billy Collins describes his reaction to a spring day:
. . . it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
This particular use of words creates a sense of joy, freedom,
and movement—more so than if he had simply said he felt like
opening a window. Like any good poet, Collins has chosen his
words carefully to create an intended effect. As you read these
poems, notice the diction and the effects it creates.
reading skill: paraphrase
Sometimes poems can be difficult to understand because of
an unusual sentence structure. When you paraphrase a line
or stanza in a poem, you rephrase the poet’s words with your
own words. Unlike a summary, a paraphrase is not necessarily
shorter than the original text; it is simply a recasting of the
same ideas. To paraphrase, you should
1894–1962
Innovative and Popular
Critics who praise Cummings rank him
among the most innovative
tive 20thcentury poets. Believing
g in
individuality and free expression,
xpression,
Cummings played with language,
shaping it to fit his ideas.
s. Though
one of the most experimental
mental
of poets, he was
enormously popular
with the general public.
Margaret Atwood
born 1939
Canada’s Treasure
Margaret Atwood, a poet, novelist, essayist,
and short story writer, has been called “a
national heroine of the arts” in her
native Canada. Her novels feature
eature
female characters searching
for identity in a confusing and
nd
often threatening world. She
e
is especially popular in Canada,
da,
where she has gained the status
atus
usually accorded only to movie
vie
stars and musicians.
• find the main ideas and important details
• think of simpler or more familiar ways of saying what
the writer has written
• rewrite sentences in standard, subject-verb order
As you read each of the poems that follow, create a chart
in which you paraphrase difficult passages.
“Elegy for the Giant Tortoises”
Original Wording
Paraphrase
“on the road where I stand
they will materialize, /
plodding past me in a
straggling line / awkward
without water”
They [the tortoises] will appear
on the road where I stand,
walking slowly by in a scattered
line, looking clumsy because they
are not in the water.
Billy Collins
born 1941
“Most Popular Poet in America”
Billy Collins’s poetry appeals to a wide
and ever-growing audience: high
school students, fellow poets,
literary critics, and general readers.
According to one critic, “With his
books selling briskly and his readings
gs
packing them in, Mr. Collins is the
most popular poet in America.”
Authors Online
Complete the activities in your Reader/Writer Notebook.
Go to thinkcentral.com. KEYWORD: HML9-757
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Spring
is like a
perhaps
hand
E. E. Cummings
5
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look (while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here) and
What springlike elements
do you find in this image?
State your answer in
terms of subject matter,
color, shape, and texture.
changing everything carefully
10
15
spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things, while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and a
without breaking anything.
758
unit 7: the language of poetry
a
DICTION
Reread lines 16–18. What
do the words fraction
and inch suggest about
the concept of spring
presented in the poem?
Untitled (2001), Laura Owens.
Watercolor, color pencil, and photo on
paper, 14˝ × 10˝. Courtesy Gavin
Brown’s enterprise, New York (LO 185d).
image of a spring day - motion of wind visible
in trees or with blowing
curtains from a window -possibly some flowers
Elegy for the
giant tortoises
margaret atwood
Let others pray for the passenger pigeon
the dodo, the whooping crane,1 the eskimo:
everyone must specialize
5
I will confine myself to a meditation
upon the giant tortoises
withering finally on a remote island.
I concentrate in subway stations,
in parks, I can’t quite see them,
they move to the peripheries of my eyes
10
15
but on the last day they will be there;
already the event
like a wave travelling shapes vision: b
Sea Turtle (about 1985), Andy Warhol. Synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen
ink on canvas, 42˝ × 50˝. © Art Resource, New York/2007 Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
b
PARAPHRASE
Paraphrase lines 7–12.
What does “the last
day” refer to?
on the road where I stand they will materialize,
plodding past me in a straggling line
awkward without water
their small heads pondering
from side to side, their useless armour
sadder than tanks and history,
20
in their closed gaze ocean and sunlight paralysed,
lumbering up the steps, under the archways
toward the square glass altars
where the brittle gods are kept,
the relics of what we have destroyed,
our holy and obsolete symbols. c
1. the passenger pigeon / the dodo, the whooping crane:
extinct or extremely endangered birds.
760
unit 7: the language of poetry
c
ELEGY
Reread lines 20–24.
Notice the religious
language—altars,
gods, relics, and holy.
Why is such language
appropriate in an elegy?
Billy Collins
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
5
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
10
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
15
Flower (1964), Andy Warhol. Screenprint printed on white paper, 23˝ × 23˝.
© 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York. © Art Resource, New York.
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
d
d
DICTION
Reread lines 13–17. What
words does the speaker
use to characterize the
inhabitants of the glass
paperweight? What
sense or feeling is evoked
by this language?
elegy for . . . / today
761
Reading for Information
MAGAZINE ARTICLE Several poets in this unit have served as U.S. poet laureate.
Read the following article to learn about this honorable and worthwhile position.
U. S . P O E T L AU R E AT E S
Getting
the
Word
Out
What should be the job of a national
poet? Many readers suspect poets of being
deliberately mysterious—of placing a
hidden meaning behind a smokescreen of
random line breaks and cryptic symbols.
If that were true, then wouldn’t a national
poet keep these secrets under lock and key?
Not so. Every year since 1937, the U.S.
Library of Congress has appointed a poet
laureate to serve as the national poet.
Apart from a few official duties, the poet
is encouraged to continue to develop his
or her own projects as well as promote
the general appreciation of poetry. Some
poet laureates have taken seriously their
mission to dispel the poetry mystique.
Rita Dove, Poet Laureate from 1993–
1995, visited schools and gave readings,
presenting her complex poems in a downto-earth manner.
“I really began to think about how
poetry can reach every person. . . . If
I can reduce the anxiety level of the
audience out there and just read the poem
as if it’s an everyday thing . . . people
would come up and say, ‘I didn’t realize
poetry could be like that!’ They [are] just
terrified, that’s all.”
762
unit 7: the language of poetry
Billy Collins, Poet Laureate from
2001–2003, developed “Poetry 180,”
a website (www.loc.gov/poetry/180)
featuring one poem for each day of the
school year. He encourages students and
teachers to read aloud a poem a day,
with the strict rule that the poems are
to be simply enjoyed—not analyzed or
interpreted. Collins even helped establish
a poetry channel for Delta Airlines.
“Well, there is always a temptation just
to go to Washington and sit in this office
and blow smoke rings for a year while I
look out at the Capitol. But because of
the excessive activism of my predecessors,
it seems that an obligation falls my way to
get out and light poetry bonfires and to
spread the word of poetry.”
After Reading
Comprehension
1. Recall When does the speaker of “Elegy for the Giant Tortoises” expect
to actually see these reptiles?
2. Clarify In “Today,” what does “this larger dome” refer to?
3. Clarify What is the hand in “Spring is like a perhaps hand” doing?
RL 4 Analyze the cumulative
impact of specific word choices on
meaning and tone. RL 10 Read and
comprehend poems. W 1b Develop
claims fairly, citing evidence for
each. W 9a (RL 10) Draw evidence
from poems to support analysis and
reflection.
Text Analysis
4. Paraphrase Review your paraphrasing charts. Then read aloud one of your
paraphrases and the original passage. Which version has the stronger impact?
5. Examine Diction What words and phrases in each poem strike you as vivid
or unusual? What effect do they have on your understanding of the poem?
6. Analyze an Elegy Review the definition of an elegy on page 757. What
characteristics of an elegy are found in “Elegy for the Giant Tortoises”? Why
might Atwood have chosen this form for a poem about an endangered species?
7. Draw Conclusions In “Spring is like a perhaps hand,” what
qualities of spring does the speaker emphasize?
8. Compare and Contrast Tone is an expression of the writer’s
attitude toward his or her subject. For each poem, choose
an adjective that best describes the tone, such as bitter, sad,
lighthearted, or playful. Then list the words and phrases in
each poem that help convey the tone. Which two poems are
most different in tone? Explain your answer.
“Spring is like a perhaps hand”
Tone:
Words and Phrases:
•
•
•
reading-writing connection
writing prompt
revising tip
Extended Constructed Response: Opinion
Review your response.
Did you evaluate each
poem in terms of its
creativity? Did you
present supporting
evidence such as
diction, imagery, and
figurative language?
If not, revise your
response.
Which of the poems displays the most creativity
in its treatment of its subject? Write three to five
paragraphs, citing evidence to support your view.
Can you THINK OUT OF THE BOX?
Why is innovative thinking so important?
spring is like . . . / elegy for . . . / today
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