Brainstorming for Your Weekly E-mail Essays (for printing out) 343 home
Browse through some of these web essays by Roger Ebert – I like the way he writes comments on the films he reviews. Notice how he treats a different aspect of the movie in each paragraph. His writing seems clear and crisp to me – and fun to read. Read a few and you may be inspired to try new things: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/
When sitting down to write, try these jump-starters, including both preliminaries and “illuminators.” Simply start with the obvious PRELIMINARIES of looking up words you don’t know (great way to build your vocab!) and taking a fresh look at the grammar puzzle of the poem.
Then work through each of the ILLUMINATORS, spending more time on those you enjoy the most. Start with #1 and describe what you experience in the poem, then #2 and so on. Once you have explored several of these ILLUMINATORS (make it an adventure!) you have the workings of a good essay.
ANNOTATIONS. Go ahead – write in your book. Or if you must, find a good copy of the poem on the internet (just google the first line (use quotation marks) and print our a fresh copy of the poem. But I do write in my book always. I treasure my annotations and feel that they make books much more valuable to me! Sometimes I use a different color pen each time I explore a poem. You will find an example of annotations I made on a short poem by Rilke here.
CHECKLIST OF ACTIVITIES before writing about a poem.
The shorter version does not include the more detailed descriptions you find here.
PRELIMINARIES
Print and
fill out one of these sheets each time you want to really understand
a poem.
In the space provided on the right of each item, please indicate the
amount of time you spent at each task.
___ minutes A. WÖRTERBUCH! Have you looked up all the words you don’t know? Note: The wonderful online dictionary at http://dict.leo.org/ or a large hardcover dictionary (about 200,000 words) are necessary for this level of working in a modern language. If you use the online LEO, I recommend you add this web address to the top of your FAVORITES so that you can get call it up easily and frequently. If you are not fond of working at the computer or don’t have easy access, DO invest in an excellent dictionary. Here is a good one at an excellent price. I actually jot all the meanings of new words right into the text -- or often write my own translation of the poem before I continue with the next steps.
___ minutes B. GRAMMATIK. See if you can outfox the poet’s grammar puzzles!
___ minutes. Your first annotations should have to do with verbs and their subjects. Put a box around each verb or verb particle and draw an arrow to the verb’s subject. Poetry loves to trick you when it comes to finding the subject of each verb!
___ minutes. Next, prepositional phrases are easy to spot: bis, durch, für, gegen, ohne, um – these prepositions require the accusative case. aus außer, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu – these prepositions require the dative case. an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen – these prepositions go either way. statt, trotz, während, wegen, diesseits, jenseits, etc. – these repositions need the genitive. You may find it helpful to put a squiggly line under each prepositional phrase, guessing whether it is accusative, dative or genitive. This will help you get a much better feel of each sentence.
___ minutes. Then Indirect Objects and Direct Objects. Mark these with DO and IO. Do you have to do this? Well, sometimes poetic language is so much like a puzzle (2000 pieces?) that it’s the only way to get to second base. Don’t worry; homeruns are frequent in this game. They simply take a little passion and time on your part. Try this S-IO-DO (subject / indirect object/ direct object) Grammar Practice
BELEUCHTUNGEN – (ILLUMINATORS)
___ min. 1. HANDLUNG (plot or storyline). What’s the story of the poem? What’s going on? Use colorful jazzy language to describe the story to make this part enjoyable.
___ min. 2. PERSONEN (characters in the poem including narrator and addressee). Can you compare and contrast all the persons present in the poem – including the “poetic voice” and the implied listener or addressee? How many persons are there in all? Which person do you identify most with? Which person is the most wicked (in the good sense)?
___ min. 3. BILDER (images). Now sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch in the images of the poem. Which two or three images are your favorites? Are there any surprise images that seem unique to this poem? Can you find contrasts in the images (e.g. visual vs. aural vs. tactile)?
___ min. 4. DIE MUSIK DES GEDICHTS (music of the poem, individual words, rhymes, alliterations, assonance, cold and warmth). What about the music of the poem? (A) What word-sounds in the poem capture the essence of the poem most surprisingly? What are the most beautiful or unique word-sounds in the poem? (B) What’s the rhyme scheme – and do you like it? How does the rhyme scheme add to the meanings of the poem? Do the rhymes help us see the divisions in the poem? For example, a rhyme scheme like ab ab c can lead us to see the poem in three parts. The poem I have annotated below seems to fall into two parts, rhyme-wise: abba ccd. Can you compare and contrast the parts of the poem you are reading based on rhyme? (C) Can you find some internal rhymes or alliterations? Which words have the coldest and harshest sounds? Which words feel warmest and most soothing? How do these observations fit with the meanings of the poem at that point?
___ min. 5. KONTRASTE (contrasts in the poem). What elements in the poem can be contrasted? Characters (narrator-addressee-protagonists)? Images (sight-sounds-smells-touches-tastes that are described)? Time-frames (present-past-future-three months later)? Spacial references (inside-ouside-mountaintop-valley-seashore-city)?
___ min. 6. FRAGE UND ANTWORT (Questions and answers). What questions arise as you read the poem? (e.g., who is speaking, anyway? Is it a feminine or masculine voice? Why such an unusual word here? Why the change of tense here? Awareness of these elements will help you enjoy the suspense that is building in the poem, especially during your first reading of it. But it means you are reading very s l o w l y – in order to feel the questions and suspense as you go!
These above illuminators will take you a long way in your enjoyment of poetry. After some practice, these will become second nature to you. When you are ready try a few more:
__ min. 7. BIOGRAPHIE DES DICHTERS (poet’s life). Is there anything about the life of the poet that can shed light on what these words mean to her or him? Is he or she in love with someone? Just broken up? Poets are some pretty fascinating characters. Milk their lives for some juicy details that connect in some way with the imagery or messages of the poem.
___ min. 8. HINWEISE + WELT + LITERATURSTÜCKE (references to events and other poems). How does the poem refer to actual events in the outside world? Does the poem refer to other poems or pieces of literature that you are familiar with?
___ min. 9. CONCLUSION. After you have gotten all sorts of ideas and written them down in some interesting, organic, creative way, it’s time to bring your essay to a climax. If you can, make a passionate statement about why the author’s message is important for our world and for you personally. I am intrigued with how you fit into the picture – but only after you have listened and worked with the poem at some length. Hold on to your personal and global applications to the end of your essays at first. Once this becomes routine, you can experiment with other formats.
Do this: For your own awareness, -- and mine! -- please print this page out as a worksheet and record the number of minutes you have spent on each item in the brainstorming part of your work with the poem -- before you write the formal essay. 343 home