Tuesday, April 1, 2014

1. Prompt:  Write in response to any of these quotations about poetry:

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.
Robert Frost

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
Robert Frost

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
Khalil Gibran

I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.
Steven Wright

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
Gilbert K. Chesterton 

 "Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone."-Lawrence Ferlinghetti

 "Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings."  -W.H. Auden

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_poetry.html#5HUxpZAab5IxcTeR.99

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2. Listening to Poems and the story from 

Hormone Jungle: Coming of Age in Middle School

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3. Writing Poetry:  Tritinas

1. What is a tritina?  These are free verse poems, each with a particular format.
Tritina comes from the Latin word for three. The poet selects three words that can hold much meaning. Those most important words are placed at the ends of lines in a specified pattern.
There are three stanzas and an envoy.
Find instructions for writing a tritina athttp://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/tritina.htm

Example:   from http://awrungsponge.blogspot.com/2007/06/beach-tritina.html      

2. Read examples of  tritinas? 
Beach Tritina

(Rain, Sea, Sand)

Mist rises up the beach at the edge of rain.
Surf fingers draw long scrolls of foam from the sea.
Three friends come from the city to walk across the sand.

It’s no mystery why they want to bury their toes in the sand,
Why they will drive for hours in the rain,
Why they are drawn to the sea.

Eyes fixed on the curling edge of a bottle green sea,
These three walk toward the surf over the shell-strewn sand,
Believing the sky will lighten, believing the end of rain.

They stand on the sand in the rain, staring longingly at the sea.

-Andromeda Jazmon
June 2007
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A Tritina for Mom

(bedtime, worry, dinner)

You've always made time to check on me at bedtime
and to be there whenever I worry.
And I knew I could definitely count on a great dinner.

All right, so maybe I didn't always love the dinner.
And it's possible that you weren't there for every bedtime,
and there were plenty of times I made you worry.

But then, isn't it part of a mother's job to worry?
To always come through, breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
And then, at the end of a long day, to be rewarded with a hug at bedtime?

I'm sorry I made you worry and haunted your dreams at bedtime, but I love you (and dinner, too).

-- by Marica Conley Carter -- from Nancy Atwell -- Lessons That Change Writers

3. Collect Words for tritinas? 
Collect Words that have a lot of meaning 

or that may have more than one meaning.

Collecting Words to Use in Tritinas
circle down drop friend gate hate love pen puzzle	roll root run steal/steel voice wall wind/wind wound/wound	spring  light bug sky building walk dry stop	mean right left stone

4. Write your own tritina.

You will use this document to create your own tritina: My Tritina by.doc

Another site for tritinas. 

Another example:

Tritina

 Example

Early Evening Tritina

Stanza 1

The sun was low in the sky. We were going to watch for deer. (1)

It would be dark soon. (2)

We had only a little time, but I was with you. (3)

Stanza 2 

I climbed the ladder of your tree stand and glanced down at the pond. You (3)

followed and said, "We might not see a deer." (1)

I nodded.  "But if we're going to, it will be soon. (2)

Stanza 3

Your words were magic.  Soon  (2)

was an understatement.  I gazed down at the clover-covered field.  So did you. (3)

As if on cue, out of the woods stepped two majestic deer. (1)

Envoy

They ate and left, too soon. (2)  That evening, you (3) gave me a miracle in the shape of  the deer. (1)

                                                                             from Nancy Atwell -- Lessons That Change Writers

And one by Ms. Dorsey:

Tritina

At The Nerd

Last night in the play

those junior high students really knew how to act,

and my daughter and I were in the audience.

But there were those in the audience

at that entertaining play

who didn't know how to act.

Some were putting on their own act,

showing off and irritating the rest of the audience.

They made it less enjoyable to be at the play.

Audience members need to act well their part

while the actors in the play act theirs.

My Tritina  by _____________________________________________________

Title:

Stanza 1

Word to Repeat	Line
#1:
#2:
#3:

Stanza 1

Word to Repeat	Line
#3:
#1:
#2:

Stanza 1

Word to Repeat	Line
#2:
#3:
#1:

Envoy

Uses all three words in one line, any order: