LOWELL - 2 POEMS- GENERATIONS / NIGHT CLOUDS

 2. poetry:

Figurative Language

Amy Lowell  "Generations" and "Night Clouds"  (Think Figurative language )

Goal: Students will be able to identify Cycles presented in text

Students will identify imagery and supporting details from text

Students will make inferences and draw conclusions based on text

Students will identify and evaluate text organization

Terms: Figurative language, lyric poetry, imagery, simile and metaphor

Lyric Poetry- expresses a speaker's personal thoughts and feelings.  In acnient Greece, such poems were sung to the music of harp-like instruments called lyres.  This type of poetry takes its name and songlike quality from this instrument.

Students will be introduced to Amy Lowell

1874-1925

Popular at the end of the 19th century.
Brooklyn Massachusetts- Lived in the family mansion.
Spent years reading, studying and writing poetry before joining a group of                    radical poets called "imagists" led by Ezra Pound
She used precise, concrete images, free verse and suggestion.

Famous for her readings and lectures, as well as poetry.

1926- Won Pulitzer Prize after her death for her writing

A pioneer of the Imagist movement

Influenced by haiku poets, the Imagists focused on a single, precisely presented image.

Pre- Reading discussion

"Generations"  will discuss their families and the importance of generations

"Night Clouds" will discuss shapes of clouds

1. Students will read the poems by Lowell: "Generations" and "Night Clouds"

2. Students will pick out Figurative language, imagery, simile and metaphor and imagery,

3. Students will discuss both poems

4. Students will analyze the cycles presented in both poems.

5. Students will compare and contrast both poems

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"Night Clouds" typifies Imagist poetry, with its strong central image and its rhythmic but irregular lines.

Answer the following:

1. Describe the figurative and literal appearance of the clouds

2. Lowell uses an extended metaphor.  List ALL of the details that compare clouds to mares.  Include line numbers

3. Why are the horses "hoofs" golden?

4. What does the "milky dust of the stars" refer to figuratively and literally?

5. What is the effect of the "Tiger Sun"?

6. The speaker in the poem urges the white mares of the moon to exert themselves to the utmost.  What do you think is the implied message for the reader?

7. What poetic devices are used throughout the poem?  include line numbers

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