Poetry Notes: West Indies USA by Stewart Brown

This poem is written in Free Verse and speaks to the presence of the United States in the West Indies as seen in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The poem is written from a first-person point of view and tells of the travelers`experience of different countries in the West Indies through their airports (stanza two). Nature is a major theme in the poem. Other themes include poverty and imperialism. Literary devices include similes (line 2), metaphors (line 9) and allusion (line 18).

Line 2: `baize`is the soft velvet like green material used on pool and card tables
Line 3: `pot` short for jackpot, reefrs to the most outstanding amount to be won in a casion game
Line 4-6: `Dallas...maverick`s gold ring` refers to the basketball team in the USA which would have been and possibly still is one of the most valuable and high earning basketball teams. Championship rings received by the winning team are made of the highest quality gold and worth thousands of dollars.
Line 8: `Calling card` literally identifies the bearer and istraditionally presented for introduction when making a social visit.
Line 10: `Piarco`is Trinidad`s national airport
Line 14: `Drawl`the lengthening and slowing down of speech
Line 17: `Uncle Sam` is a national personification affectionately used to refer to the United States
Line 18: `Re-enslave...island of the free`is an allusion to the Spanish conquest and colonization of the island.
Line 20-21:`America`s backyard...give me your poor`. America`s backyard is a direct reference to countries like Puerto Rico, Guam and the Phillipines who were under US rule in some way. `Give me your tired and poor` is an allusion to Emma Lazarus`famous poem about the Statue of Liberty. It also symbolizes a time in the decades after US occupation (1898) where Puerto Ricans were allowed to seek refuge in New York City after being hit by a series of natural disasters and the Great Depression.
Line 22: Introduces a series of contrasts visible in Puerto Rico as a result of the US presence. It is symbolic of the partial nature of the benefits from Puerto Rico`s affiliation with the US.
Line 29: `fools glitter`...Expresses the author`s cynical tone towards the relationship between the US and Puerto Rico. It is an allusion to the saying `All that glitters is not gold.`

Fences by August Wilson

Plot Summary

Fences is divided into two acts. Act One is comprised of four scenes and Act Two has five. The play begins on a Friday, Troy and Bono's payday. Troy and Bono go to Troy's house for their weekly ritual of drinking and talking. Troy has asked Mr. Rand, their boss, why the black employees aren't allowed to drive the garbage trucks, only to lift the garbage. Bono thinks Troy is cheating on his wife, Rose. Troy and Rose's son, Cory, has been recruited by a college football team. Troy was in the Negro Leagues but never got a chance to play in the Major Leagues because he got too old to play just as the Major Leagues began accepting black players. Troy goes into a long epic story about his struggle in July of 1943 with death. Lyons shows up at the house because he knows it is Troy's payday. Rose reminds Troy about the fence she's asked him to finish building.

Cory and Troy work on the fence. Cory breaks the news to Troy that he has given away his job at the local grocery store, the A&P, during the football season. Cory begs Troy to let him play because a coach from North Carolina is coming all the way to Pittsburgh to see Cory play. Troy refuses and demands Cory to get his job back.

Act One, scene four takes place on Friday and mirrors scene one. Troy has won his case and has been assigned as the first colored garbage truck driver in the city. Bono and Troy remember their fathers and their childhood experiences of leaving home in the south and moving north. Cory comes home enraged after finding out that Troy told the football coach that Cory may not play on the team. Troy warns Cory that his insubordinance is "strike one," against him.

Troy bails his brother Gabriel out of jail. Bono and Troy work on the fence. Bono explains to Troy and Cory that Rose wants the fence because she loves her family and wants to keep close to her love. Troy admits to Bono that he is having an affair with Alberta. Bono bets Troy that if he finishes building the fence for Rose, Bono will buy his wife, Lucille the refrigerator he has promised her for a long time. Troy tells Rose about a hearing in three weeks to determine whether or not Gabriel should be recommitted to an asylum. Troy tells Rose about his affair. Rose accuses Troy of taking and not giving. Troy grabs Rose's arm. Cory grabs Troy from behind. They fight and Troy wins. Troy calls "strike two" on Cory.

Six months later, Troy says he is going over to the hospital to see Alberta who went into labor early. Rose tells Troy that Gabriel has been taken away to the asylum because Troy couldn't read the papers and signed him away. Alberta had a baby girl but died during childbirth. Troy challenges Death to come and get him after he builds a fence. Troy brings home his baby, Raynell. Rose takes in Raynell as her own child, but refuses to be dutiful as Troy's wife.

On Troy's payday, Bono shows up unexpectedly. Troy and Bono acknowledge how each man made good on his bet about the fence and the refrigerator. Troy insists that Cory leave the house and provide for himself. Cory brings up Troy's recent failings with Rose. Cory points out that the house and property, from which Troy is throwing Cory out, should actually be owned by Gabriel whose government checks paid for most of the mortgage payments. Troy physically attacks Cory. Troy kicks Cory out of the house for good. Cory leaves. Troy swings the baseball bat in the air, taunting Death.

Eight years later, Raynell plays in her newly planted garden. Troy has died from a heart attack. Cory returns home from the Marines to attend Troy's funeral. Lyons and Bono join Rose too. Cory refuses to attend. Rose teaches Cory that not attending Troy's funeral does not make Cory a man. Raynell and Cory sing one of Troy's father's blues songs. Gabriel turns up, released or escaped from the mental hospital. Gabe blows his trumpet but no sound comes out. He tries again but the trumpet will not play. Disappointed and hurt, Gabriel dances. He makes a cry and the Heavens open wide. He says, "That's the way that goes," and the play ends.

What is a Theme?

A Theme is...

•The controlling idea of a poem

•It is rarely stated explicitly by the poet

•Is used to name the particular subject matter of the poem in relationship to 
the readers previous observation of the life about and within them. 

•Broad generalizations dealing with common experiences of life.

Notes on the Poem 'The Lynching': Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet

Themes: Race & Gender, Death, Hatred

The poet indicates that a man has been cruelly hanged and burnt at night, then describes the unpitying crowds that come in the morning to look at the spectacle.

This is a sonnet and specifically an Italian/Petrarchan Sonnet. This type of sonnet has:

•an Octave (eight lines) and Sestet (six lines)

•Presents some contrast of setting/theme (For example night vs. day)

•Transition occurs in the 9th line

The poem 'The Lynching' has 14 lines, 10 syllables per line) with the rhyme scheme abba cddc (octave) effe gg (sestet). Contrast may be found between the octave (for e.g pity, night) and the sestet (for e,g no pity, day). 

Religious references (Allusions) may be found to things like the Nativity scene in the Bible, the Crucifixion and the curse of Ham (and his well-known link to African people). Other aspects of style to be noted include contrast, descriptive detail and symbolism.

Themes such as racism, violence, cruelty, for example for children, pity, injustice and sacrifice underline the outrage felt by the poet at the racist cruelty being perpetuated in parts of the USA in the early 20^th century.

                         The Lynching
His spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven.
His father, by the cruelest way of pain,
Had bidden him to his bosom once again;
The awful sin remained still unforgiven.
All night a bright and solitary star
(Perchance the one that ever guided him,
Yet gave him up at last to Fate’s wild whim)
Hung pitifully o’er the swinging char.
Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view
The ghastly body swaying in the sun:
The women thronged to look, but never a one
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue;
And little lads, lynchers that were to be,
Danced around the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.
                  

                    

Types of Poetry

Types of Poetry

1.      Acrostic

A poem in which certain letters of the lines, usually the first letters, form a word or message relating to the subject:

Curled up in a corner

At peace

Taking a nap

2.      Ballad

A poem that tells a story, usually about a hero that can be passed down through generations.  Most are suitable for singing.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Keats, as shown on Bob's Byway Glossary of Poetic Terms Site

3.      Blank Verse

Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter

The qua / lity / of mer / cy is / not strain'd,

It drop / peth as / the gen / tle rain / from heaven

Upon / the place / beneath; / it is / twice blessed:

It bles / seth him / that gives / and him / that takes;

From the Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare 

4.      Cinquain

5 lined unrhyming poem (1-2-3-4-1)- 1 word on the top row, 2 on the second, 3 on the third, 4 on the fourth and one on the last- another version is in form of syllabic meter- two syllables on the first line, four on the second, six on the third and two on the last.

Sun

Bright shining

Orb of gold

Warming the whole world

Star

5.      Diamante

7 lined unrhyming poem (1-2-3-4-3-2-1)- 1 word on the top line, 2 adjectives describing the first word on the second line, 3 words ending in "ing" about the first word on the third line, 4 words on the fourth line: 2 about the first word and 2 about the very last word, 3 words ending in "ing" on the fifth line about the last word, 2 adjectives describing the last word on the sixth row, and a word opposite of the word on the first line on the seventh row

Earth

brown, soft

growing, living, hiding

tunnels, holes, waves, foam

moving, sinking, flooding

blue-green, smooth

Sea

6.      Elegy

This type of poem alternates hexameter and pentameter lines, is usually about the death of someone and has a sad tone :

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray, as shown on Bob's Byway Glossary of Poetic Terms Site

7.      Epic

This is a long narrative poem usually about the adventures and bravery of a hero.

For Example:

The Illiad by Homer, as shown on the Internet Classics Archive

8.      Free Verse

Also called open form poetry, free verse refers to poems characterized by their nonconformity to established patterns of meter, rhyme, and stanza.

For Example:

leaves falling, soaring,

trying to defy gravity, dancing with the wind

short-lived flight

9.      Haiku

This type has three unrhymed lines in a 5-7-5 syllabic meter- the first line has 5 syllables, the second seven, and the last 5.

For Example:

            majestic mountain

                                                                        towering up above me

                                                                        insignificance

10.  Heroic Couplet

This poem has lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme in pairs (aa, bb, cc)

For Example:

          Roses are red

Violets are blue

(you didn't know you were making

 heroic couplets, did you?!)

11.  Limerick

5 lines with a rhyme scheme of (aa, bb, a). The first line explains the situation, the second tells what happened, the third and fourth tell what went wrong, and the fifth tells the significance (the so what?!) These poems were popularized by Edward Lear.

For Example:

There was a young lady of Niger

Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.

  They returned from the ride

  With the lady inside

And the smile on the face of the tiger.

  -- Anonymous

12.  Ode

This is a relatively lengthy lyric poem that often expresses lofty emotions in a dignified style. Odes are characterized by a serious topic, such as truth, art, freedom, justice, or the meaning of life; their tone tends to be formal.

Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats, as shown on Bob's Byway Glossary of Poetic Terms Site

13.  Sonnet

14 lined poem in iambic pentameter that usually deals with love, religion or some other serious concern. The Italian sonnet rhyme scheme is (abbaabba-cdecde-aa or abbaabba-cdccdc-aa). The English (Shakespearian) has 3 quatrains w/ a concluding couplet.

Sonnet XVIII by Shakespeare

“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest, Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

14.  Quatrain

A poem, or part of a poem, with 4 lines; usually rhyming alternately. It is the most common stanzaic form.

Once there was a cat

Being chased by a dog

But they came across a mat

Where there was a log

15.  Villanelle

6 stanzas, 5 three line stanzas, and ending with one four line stanza. There are only two rhymes in the usual villanelle, placed stratgetically in the poem

The House on the Hill by Edwin Robinson, as shown on Bob's Byway Glossary of Poetic Terms Site