Our Previous Samples

Break, Break, Break

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Break, break, break,

         On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

         The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,

         That he shouts with his sister at play!

O, well for the sailor lad,

         That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

         To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,

         And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break

         At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

         Will never come back to me.

How would you tie the poetic elements to ideas about the theme of the poem? How does the poet use those elements to get across the essence of what he might be trying to express?

Post a response of about 150 words.

For each poem, post a response of about 150 words. 

As part of your responses, I am asking you explain how "fixed form," "meter," "rhyme scheme," and "tone" apply to this poem.

My Papa’s Waltz

BY THEODORE ROETHKE

The whiskey on your breath   

Could make a small boy dizzy;   

But I hung on like death:   

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans   

Slid from the kitchen shelf;   

My mother’s countenance   

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist   

Was battered on one knuckle;   

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head   

With a palm caked hard by dirt,   

Then waltzed me off to bed   

Still clinging to your shirt.

Theodore Roethke, "My Papa's Waltz" from Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke.  Copyright 1942 by Heast Magazines, Inc.  Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Source: The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke (1961)

How would you tie the poetic elements (the terms you are looking up) to ideas about the theme of the poem? In other words, how does the poet use those elements to get across the essence of what she might be trying to express?

Choose at least two of these words to connect to the poem:

word choice, euphony, cacophony, simile, metaphor, free verse, theme, personification, imagery, and speaker

Use the concepts behind these terms to help you suggest an interpretation. In about 150 words, explain your interpretation in the post.

To be of use

BY MARGE PIERCY

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy, "To be of use" from Circles on the Water. Copyright © 1982 by Marge Piercy. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Source: Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982)

• Related

1. DRAMA PAPER TOPIC, CHECKLIST, AND GUIDELINES

Topic assignment: Discuss a character (or characters) from The Glass Menagerie. Use ideas from our discussion posts to help you write an essay that addresses a character's desire to escape and/or deny reality. Your essay should explain how their illusions and dreams impinge upon and affect the family unit and address the idea of what it means to be obligated and committed to family. Be sure that your paper has a clear structure and focus, even if you choose to address more than one character. Papers that include relevant literary devices (such as symbolism, word choice, imagery) that clearly support and explain these ideas may earn higher grades.

Peer-reviewed sources: This paper requires at least two peer-reviewed sources.

Other requirements are included in the checklist posted here:

Drama Paper Checklist

The thesis statement is included at the end of the introductory

paragraph and addresses the prompt above.                                                Yes __ No __

Your specific sub-points (body paragraphs) explain and support the

thesis in a meaningful and relevant way.                                                    Yes __ No __

You develop your points with specific evidence from the play.                Yes __ No __

After the first mention of the author of your sources, you refer to

the author by last name only.                                                                      Yes __ No __

Your paper includes at least two quotes per paragraph from the

play and does not include block quotes.                                                   Yes __ No__

These quotes from the story are pared down so that they provide

relevant support for your claims and ideas.                                                 Yes __ No __

You develop your points with specific evidence from your secondary

peer-reviewed sources. (Two are required. See info below.)                                 Yes __ No __

Your paper includes at least four quotes total from those scholarly

sources and does not include block quotes.                                                Yes __ No __

Whether you quote from primary or secondary sources, your quotes

are incorporated smoothly into your own sentences or you introduce

them effectively with signal phrases (tags).                                               Yes __ No __

Page numbers and author’s name (when appropriate) follow in

parentheses following MLA format. The period is placed appropriately.     Yes __ No __

You include an introduction and a conclusion.                                               Yes __ No __

The paper is relatively free from grammatical and mechanical

problems.                                                                                                       Yes __ No __

The paper is at least four pages long.                                                             Yes __ No __

The paper is prepared using MLA format, which includes pagination

and a Works Cited page.                                                                                Yes __ No __

The Works Cited page is alphabetized, not numbered or bulleted,

and is formatted with hanging indents.                                                         Yes __ No__

The paper includes a title.                                                                              Yes __ No __

2. ADDING SCHOLARSHIP (including peer-reviewed sources): (This section is vitally important for your drama paper grade.)

Please note: You must find a relevant article for this paper. Your paper will be assessed for the relevancy of your peer-reviewed article.

3. CITING SECONDARY SOURCES (both in-text citations and the citation for the Works Cited page):

For in-text citations, the process is the same as it was with your short fiction. You will use the last name of the author and the page number of the article.

The Works Cited citation, however, will be different. To create citations for these sources, you should use the format for an article from a database. Don't forget that you will need more than just the author and the title of the article for your citation. You also need the journal title and the database you used, along with the other regular elements.

Lisa Parker (b. 1972)

Snapping Beans 1998

For Fay Whitt

I snapped beans into the silver bowl

that sat on the splintering slats

of the porchswing between my grandma and me.

I was home for the weekend,

from school, from the North,

Grandma hummed “What A Friend We Have In Jesus”

as the sun rose, pushing its pink spikes

through the slant of cornstalks,

through the fly-eyed mesh of the screen.

We didn’t speak until the sun overcame

the feathered tips of the cornfield

and Grandma stopped humming. I could feel

the soft gray of her stare

against the side of my face

when she asked, How’s school a-goin’?

I wanted to tell her about my classes,

the revelations by book and lecture,

as real as any shout of faith

and potent as a swig of strychnine.

She reached the leather of her hand

over the bowl and cupped

my quivering chin; the slick smooth of her palm

held my face the way she held tomatoes

under the spigot, careful not to drop them,

and I wanted to tell her

about the nights I cried into the familiar

heartsick panels of the quilt she made me,

wishing myself home on the evening star.

I wanted to tell her

the evening star was a planet,

that my friends wore noserings and wrote poetry

about sex, about alcoholism, about Buddha.

I wanted to tell her how my stomach burned

acidic holes at the thought of speaking in class,

speaking in an accent, speaking out of turn,

how I was tearing, splitting myself apart

with the slow-simmering guilt of being happy

despite it all.

I said, School’s fine.

We snapped beans into the silver bowl between us

and when a hickory leaf, still summer green,

skidded onto the porchfront,

Grandma said,

It’s funny how things blow loose like that.

1. Outline an unresolved conflict in this scene.  Discuss why the conflict is unresolved. 

2. The scene ends with Amanda making a telephone call to sell magazine subscriptions. Briefly explain why you think the scene ends this way.

1. An intense argument develops between Amanda and Tom in this scene. To what extent does each character have justifiable grievances? 

2. The symbol of the glass menagerie continues in this scene. Comment on its significance

1. In Scene 1, Tom says that he will give the audience "truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion." In Scene 2, Amanda and Laura are victims of their own illusions. Discuss their respective self deceptions.
 

2. The scene introduces an important symbol to the play: the glass menagerie. Describe and explain how this collection of glass animals could become symbolic as the play progresses.