Poetry - Concrete and Abstract Language

Warmup: Copy and discuss the following poem by Emily Dickinson (born 1830, died 1886):

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Students found definitions in the dictionary for words they didn't know. Then we talked about how metaphor is different from simile and found the metaphors in Dickinson's poem. Students found imagery and details in the poem that support the central metaphor, i.e. hope = bird.

Some helpful definitions:

simile: a comparison between two things using "like" or "as"

metaphor: a more direct comparison, not using "like" or "as"

cliche: anything that has become trite or commonplace through overuse

imagery: words or phrases that bring a picture to mind

concrete language: specific, descriptive words based in the senses: sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste. Adjectives and verbs are often very concrete.

abstract language: ideas, concepts, not accessible through the senses. Words like truth, hope, justice, love, color, emotion, and transportation are all abstract. You know what they are, you can give examples of types of justice or types of transportation, but you can't touch, see, hear, smell, or taste them using your body. A lot of nouns are abstract.

It's confusing when we talk about feeling something, because we use the same word for feeling an emotion as we do for feeling an object. When I feel surprised it's a different beast than when I feel the warmth of the sun.

To help us figure out the difference, the class listed some concrete words for sounds that expressed abstract ideas like: Heart, hate, hope, heavy and happy. We got some great lists of very specific verbs for each abstract word. Individual students then made their own lists using as many concrete sense words for abstract words as they could.

No homework tonight.

Tomorrow: more work with using concrete language, plus alliteration and the exquisite corpse game.

Intro to Poetry

Homework: Write a concrete, descriptive poem about a food item, using all five senses, without mentioning what the item is. In class, students chose either grapes, carrots, Goldfish crackers, or graham crackers.

Classwork:

1. For the warmup, students copied William Carlos Williams' poem, "Nantucket."

Flowers through the window lavender and yellow changed by white curtains – Smell of cleanliness – Sunshine of late afternoon – On the glass tray a glass pitcher, the tumbler turned down, by which a key is lying – And the immaculate white bed

2. Students wrote about what makes poetry different from other types of writing.

3. We had a class discussion about the poem "Nantucket" and poetry in general.

4. Each student chose a food item to write about.

5. Assignment: write a list of three adjectives (descriptive words) per sense for your food item. These will be used for your first poem.

Tips on concrete writing:

We're trying to avoid writing about things that remind us of other things and focusing on the thing itself. Just like when we were drawing Picasso's portrait of Stravinsky upside down, we're practicing looking at something differently so we can break through the assumptions we have about what words mean.

So, when you write about how a grape feels in your hand, you're not, for this assignment, thinking about the grapes you ate last night, or how much you hate raisins, or how your grandma has a bunch of plastic grapes in a bowl in her living room. You're writing about the experience you're having with THIS grape, RIGHT NOW. Make your reader hear the "squish!" and feel how it is to bite through the skin of the grape.