Bliss English Club

<Recap of “Love Cake and Poems” by Annie on 6/17>

Date: June 17, 2017

Topic: “Love Cake and Poems”

Hostess: Annie

Participants: Annie (hostess), Hector, Anita, Kami, Ellen Huang, Joanne Yang, Nania, Joe

Meeting photo: https://goo.gl/photos/P6DhvkKL48Sm4DLS9

New Blisser – Joanne Yang https://photos.google.com/u/1/share/AF1QipOUp339hfdwpSnWdr4iXuFkhe5OhceQ3eJOhsD1BValtM_GfoOiXJ05a8M_CVmsRA/photo/AF1QipNV9T5h-M2j4eH4wUCo1snDAgIZRx2mPgpmdvml?key=bkpINXdkUWdVZXZ0aHBjeFZEWVAxS3djck5MZHd3

The rain poured…

That afternoon, but we still had 7 poem lovers coming to join such small study group showing how persistent our Blissers are!!!  Punctually and emotionally Annie introduced us how to understand, enjoy and know more the English poems.

Ⅰ. Basics of Poem Appreciation

a. Who is the speaker? And to whom he (she) is speaking?

b. Theme: what is the poem mainly about?

c. Images: What pictures (images) does the speaker choose to be consistent with the theme?

d. Sound: What sound system does the speaker use to convey the theme?

e. Are the images and sound systems applied appropriately?

II. Sound Systems

a.     No end rhymes (1. Blank verse still with internal rhymes 2. Free verse has neither of these)

b.     Rhymed Poems (most of them are end-rhymed)

III. Stanzas: a poetic term as a “paragraph” in prose

a.     Couplet: 2-line stanza

b.     Tercet: 3-line stanza

c.      Quatrain: 4-line stanza

d.     Sestet: 6-line stanza

e.     Octave: 8-line stanza

IV. Scan (Scansion): To identify “stressed and unstressed” in each line of a poem

V. Stress variations:

A. iamb (adj. iambic): unstressed + stressed  ex. Obey, about,…oh, NO.

                                                                                x /    x/              x  /

b.     trochee(adj. trochaic): stressed +unstressed  ex. Pattern

                                                                                             / x 

c.      anapest(adj. anapestic): unstressed+ unstressed+stressed  ex. Understand

                                                                                                                     x  x    /

V. iambic variations:

a. iambic trimeter: 3-iamb line ex. “The on/ly news I know 

                                                           x  /   x  /   x  /

d.     iambic tetrameter: 4-iamb line  (ex. “I wan/dered, lone/ly as /a cloud )

                                                                       x /     x          /    x     /    x  /

e.     Iambic pentameter: 5-iamb line  (ex. When I do count the clock that tells the time)

                                                                        × /  ×  /          ×    /         ×   /       ×      /

VI. Sonnets—meaning “a little song” in Italian; 14-line poems scanned with iambic pentameter, a popular poetic form of expressing love in renaissance.

a.     Italian (Petrarchan ) Sonnet: firstly invented by Petrarch, the first 8 lines(namely Octave)of which are rhymed abba abba, but the last 6 lines(namely Sestet) of which are flexible forms as /cde cde /c d c d c d /c d d c d c/c d e c d e/c d e c e d/c d c e d c

b.     English (Shakespearian) Sonnet: based on Italian sonnet and then invented by Shakespeare, the first 3 quatrains rhymed as /abab cdcd efef /, followedly by 1 couplet rhymed as /gg/.

c.      Mixed forms: others can be as varied or identifiable as possible

VII.Heartfelt Poems:

1.     “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]” BY e. e. Cummings

2.     “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop, 1911 – 1979 ~movie “Still Grace”

3.     The Guitarist Tunes Up by Frances Cornford (1886-1960)

VIII. Italian Sonnets

1.     Italian Sonnets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

  Sonnet 14 “If thou must love me, let it be for nought”

Sonnet 28 “My letters all dead paper, “

Sonnet 43 “How do I love thee?”

IX. English Sonnets by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

1.         Sonnet 18 “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day”

2.         Sonnet 116 “ Let me not to the marriage of true minds”

3.         Sonnet 138 “When my love swears that she is made of truth”

d.      Sonnet 30 “Love is not all” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

X. Blissers’ poems:

1.“The River” by Hector

Must be somewhere, must be sometime,

Must at some point, you left my love behind.

I’d love to ask,

I’d ask to the river,

The river aren’t like you; the river doesn’t fake

The river is made by tears; the river is rolled with memory;

That hasn’t bent over.

2.“My Children” by Ellen Huang

My children are not mine;

They are the creatures of lives

They are the arrows

While I’m the bow.

I can give them Love

But not my thought.

Let the arrows fly

Till they are out of my sight.

3.“No More..” by Joe

No more, my dear, no more, kid smiles;

O, give my passions leave to run and jump.

Let for eat togeher and go to the picnic,

Let say “happy birthday”, carry your heart with me.

4.“I love to hear her song, yet well I know…” by Nania

I love to hear her song, yet well I know

Thy voice hath a far more pleasing music

I grant I never saw a goddess go

My Muse, when she dances,

Treads on the Galaxy

5.“The Only Surprising Thing I Know” by Anita

The only surprising thing I know

Is you miss me all the time

The only annoying thing I feel

Is you always care about me

What’s a bit but sweet person you are

I feel peace in my mind for anything

Because you are always staying around me

XI. Reflections

Not surprisingly, most of participants got something to say about “love” either by “writing” or “recitation”. During the break, Kami opened her self-introduction by reciting “I carry it in my heart”; Nania and Hector hoped to have “drama” or “poem recitation” classes without number restriction of participants. Their voices were heard and will be carried out soon.  Let’s look forward to next Bliss “Literature” meeting in the near future!!!

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