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Before Reading
Think about your pets or other animals youve seen at the zoo or
on TV nature shows. Do animals ever behave in a way that seems
almost human? Have you ever thought you knew what they were
feeling? In the poems that follow, you will meet three animals with
distinctive human qualities.
DISCUSS Choose one animal you identify with the most. Explain to
a partner why you relate to it and what characteristics you share
with it.
What ANIMAL reminds you of yourself?
The FishPoem by Elizabeth Bishop
Christmas SparrowPoem by Billy Collins
The SlothPoem by Theodore Roethke
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READING 3 Understand the structure and elements of poetry. 7
Understand how an authors sensory language creates imagery in
literary text and provide evidence from text to support
understanding. RC-10(A) Reflect on understanding to monitor
comprehension.
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Meet the Authors
Go to thinkcentral.com. KEYWORD: HML10-795
Authors Online
Complete the activities in your Reader/Writer Notebook.
poetic form: free verseMost modern poems are written in free
verse, a poetic form with no regular pattern of rhyme or rhythm. A
free verse poem can be structured as one long, unbroken stanza, as
in The Fish, or with many stanzas of varying length, as in
Christmas Sparrow. The lines in free verse poems may also vary in
length. Without a strict meter, the rhythm of free verse poetry
often seems more like everyday speech. As you read, notice how the
line length, sounds of words, and punctuation create a rhythm in
each poem.
literary analysis: imagerySometimes a poem can seem like a
portrait. Sensory language, or words and phrases that appeal to the
readers senses, can help create imageryvisual portraits that
reinforce ideas about the subject described. For example, in The
Fish, Bishop appeals to the senses of sight and touch when she
describes the fishs skin. Lines like these help depict a fragile
old fish.
hung in strips / like ancient wallpapershapes like full-blown
roses / stained and lost through age
As you read the poems, record strong, evocative imagery on a
chart like the one shown. Identify
the sense the word or phrase appeals to the associations the
imagery conjures up the idea that is being reinforced
Poem Title:
Imagery Sense(s) Associations Idea Reinforced
reading strategy: visualizeListen carefully as y0ur teacher
reads aloud the poems. Visualize the animals, settings, and events.
Then read along with your teacher as he or she reads the poems a
second time in a shared reading. Use your imagination and the word
clues to see what the animals might look like. Then, read the poems
again with a partner. Discuss how the shared and repeated readings
helped you visualize the animals and understand the poems.
Elizabeth Bishop19111979
Soulful Poet The poetry of Elizabeth Bishop is marked by its
exact and tranquil descriptions of the physical world. Hidden
beneath her poems air of serenity and simplicity, however, are
underlying themes of great depth. When writing about loss and pain,
the struggle to belong, and other themes, Bishop worked hard to
ensure that the spiritual [was] felt.
Billy Collinsborn 1941
Poet for the People Billy Collins remembers publishing a poem in
his high school newspaper that was later confiscated. Rising to
national and popular prominence years later, Collins became U.S.
Poet Laureate (20012003) and launched the Poetry 180 program, which
aimed to get more high school students to read well-written,
understandable poetry each day during the 180-day school year.
Theodore Roethke19081963
Passion for Nature When I get alone under an open sky, wrote
Theodore Roethke, where man isnt too evidentthen Im tremendously
exalted. . . . A passion for nature pervades Roethkes poetry. His
poems also explore love, mortality, and the quest for spiritual
wholeness.
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The FishElizabeth Bishop
I caught a tremendous fishand held him beside the boathalf out
of water, with my hookfast in a corner of his mouth.He didnt
fight.He hadnt fought at all.He hung a grunting weight,battered and
venerableand homely. Here and there ahis brown skin hung in
stripslike ancient wallpaper,and its pattern of darker brownwas
like wallpaper:shapes like full-blown rosesstained and lost through
age.He was speckled with barnacles,fine rosettes of lime,and
infestedwith tiny white sea-lice,and underneath two or threerags of
green weed hung down.While his gills were breathing inthe terrible
oxygenthe frightening gills,fresh and crisp with blood,that can cut
so badlyI thought of the coarse white fleshpacked in like
feathers,the big bones and the little bones,the dramatic reds and
blacksof his shiny entrails,
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FREE VERSENotice the different lengths of the lines in this
poem. How do the short lines affect the poems rhythm?
Language CoachConnotations The images and feelings connected to
a word are its connotations. In line 18, infestedliterally means
overrun or permeated. What connotations do you associate with
infested? Would you want to eat an infested fish?
796 unit 7: the language of poetry
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and the pink swim-bladderlike a big peony.I looked into his
eyeswhich were far larger than minebut shallower, and yellowed,the
irises backed and packedwith tarnished tinfoilseen through the
lensesof old scratched isinglass.They shifted a little, but notto
return my stare.It was more like the tippingof an object toward the
light. bI admired his sullen face,the mechanism of his jaw,and then
I sawthat from his lower lipif you could call it a lipgrim, wet,
and weaponlike,hung five old pieces of fish-line,or four and a wire
leaderwith the swivel still attached,with all their five big
hooksgrown firmly in his mouth.A green line, frayed at the endwhere
he broke it, two heavier lines,and a fine black threadstill crimped
from the strain and snapwhen it broke and he got away.Like medals
with their ribbonsfrayed and wavering,a five-haired beard of
wisdomtrailing from his aching jaw. cI stared and staredand victory
filled upthe little rented boat,from the pool of bilgewhere oil had
spread a rainbowaround the rusted engineto the bailer rusted
orange,the sun-cracked thwarts,the oarlocks on their strings,the
gunnelsuntil everythingwas rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!And I let the
fish go.
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VISUALIZEReread lines 3444. What aspects of the fishs character
can you see in this description of its eyes?
c
IMAGERYWhat senses does this description of the fishs face
appeal to? What associations form in your mind about the fish?
the fish 797
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The first thing I heard this morningwas a rapid flapping sound,
soft, insistent
wings against glass as it turned outdownstairs when I saw the
small birdrioting in the frame of a high window,trying to hurl
itself throughthe enigma of glass into the spacious light. d
Then a noise in the throat of the catwho was hunkered on the
rugtold me how the bird had gotten inside,carried in the cold
nightthrough the flap of a basement door, and later released from
the soft grip of teeth.
On a chair, I trapped its pulsationsin a shirt and got it to the
door,so weightless it seemedto have vanished into the nest of
cloth.
But outside, when I uncupped my hands,it burst into its
element,dipping over the dormant gardenin a spasm of wingbeatsthen
disappeared over a row of tall hemlocks.
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Christmas SparrowBILLY COLLINS
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IMAGERYWhat images describe the bird in lines 17? What senses do
these images appeal to?
Language CoachSuffixes The word pulsation (line 14) is formed by
adding the suffix -ion, meaning the action of to the base word
pulsate, meaning to throb or beat. Restate the definition of
pulsation in your own words. Can you think of other words formed
from a base word and the suffix -ion?
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For the rest of the day,I could feel its wild thrummingagainst
my palms as I wondered aboutthe hours it must have spentpent in the
shadows of that room,hidden in the spiky branchesof our decorated
tree, breathing thereamong the metallic angels, ceramic apples,
stars of yarn,its eyes open, like mine as I lie in bed tonight
epicturing this rare, lucky sparrowtucked into a holly bush now,a
light snow tumbling through the windless dark.
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VISUALIZEWhat details help you imagine how the bird looks and
feels as it hides in the Christmas tree?
christmas sparrow 799
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In moving-slow he has no Peer.1
You ask him something in his Ear,He thinks about it for a
Year;
And, then, before he says a WordThere, upside down (unlike a
Bird),He will assume that you have Heard
A most Ex-as-per-at-ing Lug.But should you call his manner
Smug,Hell sigh and give his Branch a Hug; f
Then off again to Sleep he goes,Still swaying gently by his
Toes,And you just know he knows he knows. g
1. peer: equal.
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TheSlothoTheodore Roethke
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IMAGERYReread line 9. What does this image suggest about the
sloth?
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ELEMENTS OF POETRYPoets often use punctuation to help illustrate
their thoughts. In The Sloth, Roethke uses a dash at the end of one
line and hyphens in the middle of words to help bring to life the
subject of his poem. Reread lines 67. What effect does this
punctuation have on the way you read and interpret the poem?
TEKS 3
800 unit 7: the language of poetry
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After Reading
Comprehension 1. Recall How does the fish in Bishops poem react
when it is caught?
2. Recall How did the bird in Collinss poem get trapped inside
the house?
3. Summarize What is the sloths response when asked a
question?
Literary Analysis4. Visualize Describe in detail the mental
picture you form of each animal in the
poems.
5. Analyze Imagery Review the examples of imagery that you
recorded in your chart. Identify some images that appeal to your
sense of sight and others that appeal to your sense of touch. What
is the most striking image in each poem? Why?
6. Analyze Free Verse How is the experience of reading Bishops
and Collinss free verse poems different from that of reading
Roethkes more traditional poem?
7. Interpret Themes How are the three animals in these poems
like people? What does each poem suggest about the relationship
between human beings and animals?
8. Compare and Contrast Texts Compare and contrast The Fish and
Christmas Sparrow. In a chart like the one shown, consider the
similarities and differences in subject, mood, and theme.
The Fish Christmas Sparrow Similarities Differences
Subject
Mood
Theme
Literary Criticism 9. Critical Interpretations According to
Billy Collins, the best poems begin in
clarity and end in mystery. Would you say that this is true for
each of the three poems in this lesson? Why or why not?
What ANIMAL reminds you of yourself?What can animals teach us
about being human?
the fish / christmas sparrow / the sloth 801
READING 3 Understand the structure and elements of poetry. 7
Understand how an authors sensory language creates imagery in
literary text and provide evidence from text to support
understanding. RC-10(A) Reflect on understanding to monitor
comprehension.
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