Monday, April 4, 2011

Poetry Madness: Round 2, Game 1

Now that you have read through all of the poems and chosen a winner to advance to the Elite 8, the pressure has mounted. For the remainder of the posts, your explanation for choosing a winner must include new, original thought and attention to the poet's craft.

As a reminder, when choosing a poem based on poet's craft, you must pay attention to: rhyme scheme, line breaks (when a poet ends a line), punctuation, word choice, simile/metaphor (comparing one thing to another), and repetition.

Original Thought could include a personal connection or the ability to visualize the poem.

Your post must include the following as to why you chose a winner:
*Poet's craft
*New, original thought

36 comments:

GS said...

I like Mother to Son better because it has discriptive language examples= splinters,boards torn up, and tacks. I also like how they talk differently because you can infer that they are African Americans.

PF said...

I am voting for "Mother to Son" because it makes me think of my mom talking to me. In the poem, it sounds like the mother is an African American because of the kind of slang the poet uses throughout the poem.I loved how the poet used different words to describe how life is hard, like "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair".

EGT said...

In Mother To Son the mother has had a bad life so far and is also having to take care of her son while. I can connect to that because I have had a hard time And have had to take care of someone and I can visualize Mother To Son by when they said "It has tacks in it, and splinters,and boards torn up." That made me think of how bad that would be to live a life like that.

The Eagle sounded like it was a brave eagle and he stands up for anyone and is brave, strong, and tough.I can visualize that because it says, "Ringed with the azure world, he stands." That just made me think about how he stands for us and guards us.

I choose The Eagle Because I stand and have courage just like anyone else can and does have.

ALB said...

I chose Mother to Son because of the word choice and punctuation. The word choice was different from other poems because it was more country style. The punctuation connects to the word choice in a way because the counrty has punctuation on it. There are a lot of commas after the words so that also makes the poem different.

I think that the poet brought new ideas to the meaning of poetry because of the slavery accent. This poem tells you you should keep going like right now I'm struggling because of the bible test, it is hard to study while I have a lot of sports, but I have to keep going. The way the poet wrote is like a diary, telling her son that life is tough and you'll want to quit but never stop.

cs said...

Out of these two poems, I have to choose “Mother to Son” as my favorite. I have to choose this because it has a good lesson and I like the line brakes because the poem says something then it moves on and starts a new line and explains something new. Also, I can visualize what is going on and the hard moments this mother/ slave is having in life, I like how the author is describing how hard life is in a different way, and this story represents an important moment in history.

The reason why I didn’t choose “ The Eagle” is because it isn’t very important to me in life and it was not as interesting, but I did like the rhyming words, descriptive language, good similes, and I could visualize everything that was going on.

HCF said...

I read The Eagle, and the poet's craft is a basic ryhme. It also enters at every, well most, commas.
What I would hae done different is maybe tell where this bird is and why. I guess she or he didn't do it because they wanted to keep a rhyme.

Next,I read Mother to Son. I thought the poet's craft was fun, but obviously he or she didn't want it to be. I thought about the craft for a while,I noticed the poet meant to do I'se, landin's,a-climbin', and more and more of that kind of stuff.
I think that it really relates to life and how our parents try and try to keep climbing for us even on a bad day.

I choose Mother to son because I personaly love how it relates to life, our parents, and everything and everyone around us. It truly has a wonderful meaning.

ms said...

The poem I chose is Mother to Son because I love the meaning of it.

In Mother to Son I really like how the author did the line breaks. The meaning is much deeper than The Eagle. The meaning of Mother to Son is that life isn't easy, but you should still keep on going. In The Eagle the author did a great job of putting in rhyming words. I also like how he would do a paragraph with rhyming word on the end of the sentence.

I personally don't think that the meaning of The Eagle was important. In Mother to Son I think that a slave mother is talking to her son saying don't give up and keep trying.

HJF said...

The two poems I read were Mother to Son and The Eagle. The Eagle is about a eagle falling from the sky (dieing is what my mom says). The second one Mother to Son is about a mom speaking to her son.

ES said...

I chose the poem, The Eagle, because it has really great poet’s craft such as: rhyme scheme (hand, land, stands) also it had really good simile (like a lightning bolt he falls.) This poem is also one of my favorites because it makes you think, and think again about what the poem is really about. I can connect (t-s) to the eagle how he looks over the sea, when I’m at the beach I look out over the ocean and see how HUGE it is!!

KS said...

I vote Mother to Son, because

POET'S CRAFT: I liked the rhyme scheme because not all of it was together, it had a few lines between the rhyme. I also liked the punctuation because after almost every line break there was a type of punctuation. I think the poet did a great job with the punctuation, it showed to slow down, stop, pause, or go on.

ORIGINAL THOUGHT: I thought that the poem really showed a relation between mother and son. How the mother told the son how life is and that you must keep going on. I also think this poem is one of the easier poems to visualize, I can just see the mother talking with her son, so solum, so serious.

BT said...

The first poem, Mother to Son, has great poet's craft such as discritive language and show not tell. some notes I took while I read...

-life is hard
-slave mother
-trying to be free
-and no place to go

It showed the reader no matter what don't give up.

The second poem, The Eagle, has good word choice and rhyme scheme. It also is a great way to describe something as small a thing as an eagle falling.

I thought that the poem Mother to Son was better because, it's simile/metaphor is something I think most people can relate or connect to, and it's line breaks really make the poem stand out.

AEC said...

I like Mother To Son, because I like how the mother is talking to her son and telling him to never give up on his life. I like how she compares life to crystal stairs and places with no carpet on the floor to her life.I feel bad for her that life has been hard. When I read the poem it makes me sad and I hope her son's life is better. I meant to send this one instead of the other one. Sorry!!!

CB said...

The eagle is how the eagle is one of a kind and the author tries to tell you that it is kind of a speical eagle and it has a lots of rhyming and it has some dicriptive launguge like a thundeer bolt he falls.

Mother to son is about how Life is no easy task, you have to work and give it your all because a good life does not just come to you, you have to work for it.

I like mother to son better because it is inspiring and it has tons of discriptive launguge.

JS said...

A connection I made to "The Eagle" is watching animal planet on T.V. and the way they describe the eagle. I like the way he uses the eagle in a metephoric way.

A connection I made to "Mother to Son" is when my mom and dad always lecture me on things I did right and wrong. I like the way the poet used line space in his poem.

LA said...

I vote for the poem Mother to Son over The Eagle because Mother to Son had better writen witing than The Eagle even though it had the words workin' and stuff like that. Mother to sone had more of a meaning and it was a lot more interesting.

willp said...

In "mother to son" I really liked the way the poet described the the conversation and his word choice. The idea of it was great too.


I choose mother to son.

PB said...

I vote "Mother to Son" to win because it reminds me of all the hard times in slavery and the Civil War. My original thought is that this poem is very well organized. The poet's craft is a great word choice in this poem, Langston Hughes did a great job with that.

Olivia said...

I chose “Mother to Son” because the poem remands me of when my mother says to me “Do not give up, keep pushing on and follow your dreams.” I also can visualize this mother talking to her son and telling him never to give up.
I like how the poet uses “slang” words to show that the women had a hard life probably because she was uneducated and she does not want her boy to give up. I also like how she uses different words to show how her life was hard like “It’s had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up…”

HS said...

I choose "The Eagle" Because...

"The Eagle" I thought the poet did a great job with the rhyme scheme because every rhyme matched the topic and rhymed.I loved the description of the story.

Jackson said...

I chose "Mother to Son" because, I liked how the mom was teaching the son about life, and how life has been for her, and how it sounded like the mother was an African American saying things to her son like,"Life for me ain't been no crystal stair."

TH said...

I pick "Mother to Son" because I have noticed that life isn't,and I like how the poet uses slang in the poem.

mh said...

I liked "Mother to Son" better than "The Eagle" because "Mother to Son" is pretty meaningfull to me and I loved the line breakes. One of my favorite ways the line break is used is: "And places with no carpet on the floor-/Bare.I also liked how you could tell where the mother was from by her slang (I think she's from Africa).

GS said...

I picked "Mother to Son" because...


POET'S CRAFT= I liked how in the story the auther used descriptive language and I also liked how the auther wrote slang talk because you can infer that the mother and her son are African Americans.


ORIGINAL THOUGHT= I can see in my head the mother telling her son life for me isn't easy at all. So probably life for you is going to be the same.
It reminds me of a book I read called Addy and she had a really hard life in slavery.
I think it would be hard to tell your child how hard their future will be. I predict the mother would want her son to have a great life but she has to tell him it's not going to be a great life for him because the mother didn't have such a good life.

SMD said...

I choose "The Eagle" because...

ORIGANAL THOUGHT: I think this poem was very soothing and peaceful. I liked in the last paragraph it just sooths it by saying," And like a thunderbolt it falls." That is my favorite part of the poem. I can visualize this poem very well because of the poet’s word choice. “The Eagle” is definitely one of my favorite poems of the tournament.

POET'S CRAFT: The rhyming is very good in this poem. It has three rhymes and then ends the poem with three other poems; I like that about this poem. The words in this poem make it soothing. I like the word choice in the poem. He could have just said the eagle fell, but he made it better by saying," And like thunderbolt he falls.

BW said...

Mother to Son wins this one for me.
I liked the simile comlife to a crystal stair and I can see the conversation between the son and the mother. My origanal thought is that The Eagle doesn't have very good visualisation.

eb said...

ORIGANAL THOUGHT:I like mother to son more because it makes me have hope. it feels like a black person is explaining to me how hard it is to be a slave.

POETS CRAFT: I like poems that rhyme more than ones that dont rhyme but this is one of the few poems i like without rhyming. I also like how it dosn't just say "life is hard"instead it says " life aint no crystal stair"life is not easy son it says life

LL said...

I choose the eagle because it has more rhiming and it was a lot better in my opinion.

LA said...

I chose the poem Mother to son:
ORIGINAL THOUGHT:
I think that Mother to Son has more of a meaning to me than The Eagle. I had a really good picture in my mind when I read that poem, and I could feel the feeling the mother had inside of her when she was tell her son to stay strong. Stay Strong was the name of my song in Ms. S's class basically the meaning of stay strong is that you can take on harder levels of life if you just well, stay strong.
POET'S CRAFT:
The poet of Mother to Son had a great job of telling you what is going on in show not tell. It was amazing to see how hard it was to be a slave at that time. I hope the boy who was getting told to stay strong was as touched as I am right now just to hear about it through writing. It also had great similes, line breaks, punctuation, and defenatly great wordc choice.

OO said...

I vote for The Eagle because of the great word choice in the line, “he clasps the crag with crooked hands;” I think of boney talons. I loved the rhyming, too.
I think of a mighty eagle swooping down from above with its' great power.

ALBnew said...

I chose Mother to Son because of the word choice and punctuation. The word choice was different from other poems because it was more country style. The punctuation connects to the word choice in a way because the country has punctuation on it. There are a lot of commas after the words so that also makes the poem different.

I think that the poet brought new ideas to the meaning of poetry because of the slavery accent. This poem tells you should keep going like right now I'm struggling because of the bible test; it is hard to study while I have a lot of sports, but I have to keep going. The way the poet wrote is like a diary, telling her son that life is tough and you'll want to quit but never stop.

HJF said...

Mother to Son
I picked Mother to Son because a lot
of people can have text-to-self in
this and one thing I thought they
could do better is add a little more rhyme.You can innfer that in Mother to son you can kind of tell she isn't a real rich but she isn't real poor she is just saying to keep going like in this sentence stood out to me
"For I'se still goin, For I'se still climbin"
in that sentence you can tell that the mom is saying to just keep going.

KP said...

I am picking, The Eagle, because I think the author is giving so much description and the wording. When I read this poem I think of a lonly or forgotten animal that has been found and is loved again.

HC said...

I chose the poem Mother to Son.

POET'S CRAFT: The word choice and the comparing made me visualize better and the was very peaceful words.

ORIGINAL THOUGHT: When I read the poem it made me always think of my dad telling me to keep my head up.
:);)

eb said...

The first poem "How to Eat a Poem" is about a person telling you to just dig in and enjoy poems when you read them dont try to consentrate on one thing just enjoy it.

The second poem " The New Suit" is about a man telling you how perfect his suit is and the things to stay away from to keep it perfect. In the end he says well this is to diffecult to be perfect so i am going to be normal next year.

I vote for "How to Eat a poem" because It is like a whole new thing to think about that you dont need try and do one thing you just need to relax.

JH said...

I chose Mother to Son.

I chose Mother to Son.

The I reason chose this poem is because it is about a mother that comes up to her son and says life isn't easy and to never quit.

The author used words that described toughness that she faced in her life.

I have a connection to try my hardest and never give up no matter what.

HC said...

I chose The Falling Star because...

POET'S CRAFT: The rhyming made it easier to visualize. For Example: I saw a star slide down the sky, Blinding the north as it went by.

ORIGINAL THOUGHT: When I read the poem it made me think of when I went to Florida and saw my first shooting star, so fast I couldn't stop to wish.
:) <3