Poems in the Center

Master List

© 2008 Delia M. Turner, Ph.D.

This list is a work in progress, organized by themes, annotated to show possible elements of poetry, grammatical aspects, and writing prompts for each poem. The writing prompts are meant to be simple and easy, and serve as starters for a daily five-minute writing time. Poems with an asterisk (*) are my students’ favorites.

Author	Title	Theme	Elements of Poetry	Grammar	Writing prompts
Ciardi, John	The Shark*	Animals	Rhyme Repetition	Predicate and attributive adjectives	- List all the adjectives - Use 2 lines of the poem as a pattern to write about something else - Write a rhyming poem warning someone about something.
McLeod, Irene Rutherford	Lone Dog	Animals	Rhyme Rhythm Repetition	Attributive adjectives	- List all the adjectives and whether they are predicate or attributive - Write a poem from the point of view of an unhappy animal.
Nash, Ogden	The Tale of Custard the Dragon	Animals	Ballad Refrain	Compound sentences.	- Write a rhyming poem in which the end-words have been changed in order to rhyme. - Write a poem in which each stanza is a sentence.
Hughes, Ted	Mooses	Animals	Personification	Different types of adjectives	- Identify five different parts of speech used as adjectives - Write a poem about being lost.
Dunbar, Paul Laurence	Sympathy	Animals	Repetition Rhyme scheme	Adjectives	- Write about someone whose inside is different from his outside.
Phillips, Robert	The Panic Bird*	Animals	Diction Metaphor	Concrete nouns	- List ten concrete nouns from this poem. - Describe an emotion as if it were an animal or other thing.
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord	The Kraken*	Animals	Imagery	Adjectives	- Choose five of Tennyson’s adjectives to describe some everyday event. - Create your own monster in poem, story, or list form
Dickinson, Emily	XXIV (“A Narrow Fellow”)	Animals	Ballad form	Abstract and concrete nouns. Mass nouns. Verbals	- Write about a time you encountered something unexpected.
Roethke, Theodore	The Heron	Animals	Imagery, Diction	Nouns Prepositional phrases	- Observe something closely and write about it as if it were the most important thing in the world.
Hughes, Ted	Hawk Roosting*	Animals	Voice (Mask)	Abstract and concrete nouns	- Name four concrete nouns and four abstract nouns in this poem. - Write a poem or story about some animal or thing as if it were speaking.
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord	The Eagle (a fragment)	Animals	Metaphor and simile	Verbs	- Describe a wild animal using verbs that normally are used for human beings.
Hoban, Russell	The Sparrow Hawk	Animals	Metaphor	Nouns	- Write a list of metaphors for something, either using the pattern “x is y” or using verbs to show the comparison.
Coleman, Mary Ann	If I Were a Hawk	Animals	Voice	Past subjunctive verb mood	- Write an “If I Were” poem. - Write a series of comparisons like “an umbrella of stars” in the form “a ---- of -----”
Stevens, Wallace	Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird	Animals	Variations	Verb person (1^st and 3^rd)	- List 13 words connected with some common thing, animal, person, place, or idea - Write as many stanzas as you can about ways to look at a pencil or other common object.
Angelou, Maya	I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings	Animals	Line length Diction (short words) (Compare with “Sympathy” by Dunbar)	Sentence subject (“bird”) Conjunctions	- write about any topic using only one-syllable or only two-syllable words. - Argue in favor of or against keeping animals in captivity. - Use the poem as a pattern to compare two different things.
Hopkins, Gerard Manley	The Windhover	Animals	Alliteration	Sentence fragments	- Choose a letter of the alphabet and describe something (waking up, walking the dog, going to school) with as many words starting with that letter as possible.
Oliver, Mary	The Summer Day	Animals	Prayer (invocation)	Pronouns	- Which two lines of this poem do not have any pronouns in them? - If you were going to write a prayer, what would it be and why would you write it?
Yeats, William Butler	The Cat and the Moon	Animals	Diction Metaphor	Nouns	- Compare something non-living to an animal. - Use ten nouns from this poem to write a different poem.
Hughes, Ted	Crow’s Fall	Animals	Denotation and connotation (Compare to “The Cat and the Moon” by Yeats)	Personal pronouns	- Write a list of connotations for the words “white” and “black” - Create a legend about the way something first happened.
Poe, Edgar Allan	The Raven	Animals	Meter (trochaic octameter)	Verbals (participles)	- Write a poem in which all the lines end in “-ing.”
Belloc, Hilaire	Jim Who Ran Away from His Nurse and Was Eaten by a Lion	Animals	Ballad Tetrameter	Capitalization	- “My parents always warned me . . . “ - Write a sentence that uses the rules of capitalization backwards.
Giovanni, Nikki	Possum Crossing	Animals	(Compare with “A Metaphor Crosses the Road” by McFerren and “Traveling through the Dark” by Stafford)	Adjectives Ellipsis Commas (there are non)	- “out of the corner of his eye, he saw . . .” - write a poem or song about road kill. - should animals have the same right to live as humans? Explain.
Dickey, James	The Heaven of Animals*	Animals	Stanza length	Varying sentence structure Adverbs	- describe your own heaven or the heaven of some other thing or person. - use the words “forever,” “desperately,” “silently,” and “again” in a sentence.
Field, Rachel	Something Told the Wild Geese	Animals	Personification	Indefinite pronouns	- Use the pattern “Something told . . .” as the base for a poem. Make it clear what the “something” is without saying so.
Anonymous	I Saw a Peacock	Animals	Enjambment	Capitalization Personal pronouns – first person singular subjective	- Write a four-line puzzle poem like this one, in which the poem reads differently depending on where you start in the line.
Revere, Jonathan	Gull Skeleton	Animals	Form, repetition, rhyme	Verb tense – simple present, present perfect, simple past	- In a poem, rewrite reality to suit you.
Cisneros, Sandra	Abuelito Who*	Family & Childhood	Metaphor and simile	Relative pronouns Complex sentences	- Write a poem about a father or other male relative. - Write as long a sentence as you can, using relative pronouns to create subordinate clauses
Eady, Cornelius	One Kind Favor	Family & Childhood	(Compare with “Abuelito Who” by Cisneros)	Personal and indefinite pronouns	- What things would you want to fix if you only had a little while to live? - Find the two indefinite pronouns in this poem
Collins, Billy	On Turning Ten	Family & Childhood	Irony (Compare with “Flash Cards” by Dove)	Pronouns – demonstrative, relative, indefinite	- Find one example each of four types of pronouns in this poem - What did you believe when you were younger that you don’t believe now?
Thiel, Diane	Memento Mori in Middle School*	Family & Childhood	Metaphor Terza rima	Verb tense – use of simple past, past perfect	- Compare school to heaven, a factory, the Olympics, a shopping mall, or any other complicated place.
Dove, Rita	Flash Cards	Family & Childhood	Imagery (Compare with “On Turning Ten” by Collins)	Prepositional phrases, personal pronouns	- Write a poem about something a parent makes you do.
Wright, Judith	Legend*	Family & Childhood	Myth Ballad (Compare with “I started early, took my dog” by Dickinson)	Comparative adjectives Personal and indefinite pronouns	- Why doesn’t the author use quotation marks to show when someone is speaking? - Write your own legend—what great feat did someone achieve?
Roethke, Theodore	My Papa’s Waltz*	Family & Childhood	Iambic trimester	Pronoun antecedents Irregular verbs	- Describe an peaceful event or scene as if it were violent, or a violent event as if it were calm. Use verbs to achieve the effect.
Kunitz, Stanley	The Portrait*	Family & Childhood	Metaphor Imagery	Verb tense	- Write about a painful memory and how it makes you feel right now.
Hayden, Robert	Those Winter Sundays*	Family & Childhood	Enjambment	Verbs – irregular verbs, tense, modals	- Find one of each type of pronoun in this poem: personal, interrogative, relative, indefinite - Make a list of things people in your family do that aren’t appreciated.
Brooks, Gwendolyn	We Real Cool: Seven at the Golden Shovel	Family & Childhood	Enjambment Rhyme and rhythm	Personal pronouns: first person plural subjective	- write a poem in which each line ends with the subject of the next.
Hayden, Robert	The Whipping	Family & Childhood	Perspective shift	Pronouns – shift from third person to first person Punctuation: colon and ellipsis	- Describe together something that is happening now, and something that happened in the past. - Should children be spanked? Why or why not?
Flynn, Nick	Cartoon Physics, Part I*	Family & Childhood	Enjambment	Pronoun choice	- What facts about the world did your parents hide from you? - Should parents hide things from children?
Hales, Corinne	Power	Family & Childhood		Pronoun antecedents Verb tense	- Describe a prank you or someone you know played on someone. - “Everything had gone terribly wrong . . . “
Stevenson, Robert Louis	Bed in Summer*	Family & Childhood	Iambic pentameter	Verb infinitives	- find an example of a first, second, and third person pronoun in this poem.
Ondaatje, Michael	Bearhug	Family & Childhood	Enjambment Simile	Questions	- Give an emotion an animal’s name
Nesbitt, Kenn	Brandon Branson’s Backpack	Family & Childhood	Rhyme scheme List poem Doggerel	Pronoun antecedents	- What do you have in your backpack, and why?
Hemans, Felicia	Casabianca*	Family & Childhood	Parody Rhyme scheme	Irregular verbs	- Write a parody of “Casabianca” – “The boy stood on the burning deck . . . “
Walters, Ricky	Children’s Story*	Family & Childhood	Feminine rhyme Rap as poetry Use of slang	Pronoun antecedents	- Tell a story about an event in your life starting, “Once upon a time . .”
Graves, Robert	Warning to Children	Family & Childhood	Recursive structures	Punctuation – ending marks Nouns of address Suffixes	- “I untied the string . . . “ - Write a warning to children.
Duhamel, Denise	When You Forget to Feed Your Gerbil*	Family & Childhood	Similes	Pronouns – reflexive case	- How might a child have to take care of a mother? List the possible ways.
Orr, Gregory	Father’s Song	Family & Childhood		Punctuation – semicolons, colons, periods, commas	- Write a poem about trying to teach someone caution.
Irwin, Mark	My Father’s Hat	Family & Childhood	Compare to “The Whipping” Imagery	Verbs: Tense shift, modals, participles, passive	- Write a poem about someone’s possession so as to describe the person who owned it. Use sensory images.
Hughes, Langston	Mother to Son	Family & Childhood	Voice Metaphor	Spelling, apostrophes	- Write a poem of metaphors, starting with “Life for me ain’t been no . . . “
Kooser, Ted	Student	Family & Childhood	Metaphor Relate to “Brandon Branson’s Backpack” by Nesbitt	Verb tense, personal pronouns	- Make a list of things that a backpack could represent. - Describe some people you know (without using names) as if they were animals.
Merwin, W.S.	Yesterday	Family & Childhood	Enjambment Relate to “Abuelito Who” by Cisneros and “The Portrait” by Kunitz	Quotation marks Personal pronouns Adverbs	- Find four adverbs in this poem - Write about a time you missed a chance. What did you lose? What did you gain?
Heaney, Seamus	Digging	Family & Childhood	Metaphor Diction Compare to “Budapest” by Billy Collins Enjambment	Adverbs Prepositional phrases Phrasal verbs	- Write about a relative and his or her tools - Choose five prepositional phrases from the poem and put them into your own poem. - Identify five phrasal verbs in the poem
Gildner, Gary	First Practice	Family & Childhood	Narrative	Verb tense	- How are sports different from the rest of life? What is the same? Make a poem or list or write a paragraph.
Herrick, Steven	Seeing the World	Family & Childhood	Typography Repetition	First person narrator	- “Every _________ or so, when ________ and I are bored with _______” - Describe what you see from an unusual place.
FitzPatrick, Kevin	Bicycle Spring	Family & Childhood	Narrative	Second person narrator Present tense	- Tell a story in the second person, using the present tense.
cummings, e.e.	anyone lived in a pretty how town	Family & Childhood	Meter	Indefinite pronouns	- Identify the protagonists in this poem and describe their lives. - write a story in which “someone” or “no one” or “everybody” is the protagonist
Frost, Robert	“Out, Out--”	Family & Childhood	Narrative	Personal pronouns	- Look in the news for a story of an accident, and write a poem about it.
Riley, James Whitcomb	Nine Little Goblins*	Halloween	Rhyme scheme	Conjunctions Contractions Pronouns	- List the pronouns in the fourth stanza of this poem - Riley only describes four of the Goblins. What do the other five look like?
De La Mare, Walter	The Listeners	Halloween	Narrative Ambiguity	Irregular verbs Conjunctions	- Write a story or poem about a conversation in which one person does not speak. - Who are the “listeners” in this poem?
Kipling, Rudyard	The Way Through the Woods	Halloween	Rhythm Compare to “The Road Not Taken” by Frost and “The Listeners” by De La Mare	Second person narration Conjunctions	- What is the antecedent of “thy,” “it,” and “his” in this poem? - Write a poem in the second person, starting “ If you . . .”
Dunbar, Paul Laurence	We Wear the Mask*	Halloween	Metaphor	First person plural	- What if, on Halloween, the trick-or-treaters were really hiding their true selves? - How do people in the world wear metaphorical masks?
Stevenson, Robert Louis	Shadow March	Halloween	Personification Anapestic rhythm	Verb participles	- Make a list of things the night does, and then write a poem based on your list.
Bryan, Sharon	Sweater Weather: A Love Song to Language	Language	Nonsense poetry, cliché, simile, alliteration, Tercets, Tetrameter, Internal rhyme	Phrases and clauses (only three clauses in the poem)	- Find one of the six similes in this poem - List as many clichés, slang phrases, advertising slogans, and overused sports phrases as you can and make a poem out of them. - Find one complete clause in this poem
Updike, John	Player Piano	Language	Alliteration and assonance Mask Personification Quatrains	Sentence structure	- How many sentences are there in this poem? - Write a short poem speaking from the point of view of an object. Use alliteration.
Grennan, Eamon	Cat Scat	Language	Rhyme (exact and slant) Line length/Enjambment	Questions Prepositional phrases Present participles	- Find three prepositional phrases in this poem - What does listening (or smelling or touching or tasting or seeing) look like?
Collins, Billy	Budapest	Language	Metaphor Simile Personification Compare to “Digging” by Heaney	Verbs Prepositional phrases	- Which poem is better, this one or “Digging”? Why? - My ______ moves like the _______ of a __________.
Collins, Billy	Winter Syntax	Language	Personification Similes and Metaphors	Sentences Prepositional phrases	- See how many prepositional phrases you can find in this poem (there are 30 of them) - Are they functioning as adverbs or as adjectives?
Hirsch, Edward	Fast Break*	Language	Elegy	Sentence structure Prepositional phrases	- How many sentences are in this poem? (Answer: one) - Write the longest sentence you can, using conjunctions and prepositional phrases - Write a story using metaphors from a game
Kowit, Steve	The Grammar Lesson*	Language	Villanelle	Parts of speech	- Write a sentence using the same word as an adjective, a noun, and a verb. - Find three lines that play with words.
Pereira, Peter	Anagrammer	Language	Diction	“If” conditional	- How many words can you make from the letters in the word “anagrammer”? (+40) -What would the poem mean if you changed (or removed) the conjunction “if”?
McKenzie, Duncan	“I” Before “E” Except After “C”	Language	Doggerel	Spelling – shows that the rule as given is not correct for many English words	- List five words that do work for the rule “I before e except after c”
Scannell, Vernon	The Sentence	Language	Analogy Metaphor	Sentences Imperative Mood	- Write “A sentence is . . .” and list as many nouns as you can think of that a sentence resembles.
Nesbitt, Kenn	I Have to Write a Poem	Language	Poem writing	Verb tense – simple future Infinitive phrases	- “I have to write a poem, but . . . “ - using a rhyming dictionary, find four sets of rhyming words and write a poem using them.
Carroll, Lewis (Dodgson, Charles)	Jabberwocky*	Language	Nonsense poetry	Parts of speech Sentence structure	- Act out the nouns and verbs in this poem. How do you know which part of speech is which?
Simpson, Louis	American Poetry	Language	Metaphor Poem writing	Pronouns and prepositional phrases	- What’s going on with this poem? What does it mean? Why does the author choose those things? What is he comparing poetry to?
Herbert, Zbigniew	The Pebble	Language	Metaphor Simile	Adverb “not” Prepositional phrases	- The poet says the pebble can’t be compared to anything else, but he is comparing it to something. What is it?
Krysl, Marilyn	Saying Things	Language	Sound	Nouns	- Open a book, any book, from the shelves, and copy out twenty nouns. Arrange them into a poem.
Francis, Robert	Silent Poem	Language	Diction Rhythm Alliteration Assonance	Nouns	- Is this a silent poem? Why or why not? Why does it have this title?
Fields, Kenneth	Passive Voice	Language	Enjambment	Passive voice	- Find three examples of the passive voice in this poem. - Write a poem about something in the news. - Why does the author use the passive voice in this poem?
Donne, John	Death Be Not Proud*	Death	Personification Apostrophe Sonnet	Case - 2^nd person singular personal pronoun (archaic thou/thee/thy)	- Write out this poem in modern English - Write a poem of your own using Donne’s spelling (poore, sleepe, doe, goe, poison, etc.)
Millay, Edna St. Vincent	Dirge without Music	Death	Synecdoche Repetition	Adverb “not” Effect of starting sentences with “but” or “and”	- Write a poem or list of things you are not or things you will not do.
Dickinson, Emily	XXVII (Because I could not stop for Death)*	Death	Personification	Adverbs	- In the first two lines of the poem, find the adverb. - Write a poem or story in which something (school, hatred, homework, boredom, or any other such thing) is personified.
Thomas, Dylan	Do not go gentle into that good night.*	Death	Villanelle	Imperative mood	- Tell someone not to do something (you can use the adverb “never” and contractions if you want to)
Hughes, Langston	Life is Fine	Death	Repetition Refrain	Adverbs	- Write a song or a rap about something you decided not to do.
MacNeice, Louis	Prayer before Birth	Death	Internal rhyme	Imperative mood	- Who is the speaker? To whom is he speaking? Why do you think so?
Swenson, May	Question	Death	Metaphor Rhyme	Punctuation (question mark)	- Where should the missing punctuation marks go in this poem, and what kind are they? Why did the author leave most of them out?
Merwin, A.S.	For the Anniversary of my Death	Death	Simile Metaphor	Appositives Participles	- In the first stanza, what are the three subjects and the three verbs in the three clauses? - What anniversaries do you celebrate in the cycle of the year?
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord	Charge of the Light Brigade*	War and Heroes	Narrative poetry	Sentence structure Word order	- What are the subject and the verb of the first stanza? - Into the (noun) of (abstract noun) rode the (number) . . .
Whitman, Walt	O Captain! My Captain!	Heroes & War	Apostrophe Typography	Interjections Imperative mood Punctuation	- Find a line in which the poet uses the imperative mood. - Write a poem about the death of a famous figure.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth	Excelsior	Heroes & War	Refrain Ballad Form	Word order	- What is the subject and verb of “From his lips escaped a groan.”? Put the sentence in normal order. - We heard a cry from outside . . .
Nye, Naomi Shihab	Famous	Heroes & War	Refrain and variation Linking Verbs	Sentence structure pattern Passive voice	- How many things are famous in the poem? - Write a poem in the pattern (noun) is (adjective) to the (noun)
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth	The Village Blacksmith*	Heroes & War	Eulogy	Sentence Structure Word order	- Choose a sentence from the poem and list its simple subject and simple verb - Write a eulogy about someone in a hard job
Dickinson, Emily	XXVII (I’m Nobody! Who are you?)	Heroes & War	Iambic trimester	Pronouns (personal, indefinite, interrogative)	- Write a story or poem from the point of view of Nobody
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth	Christmas Bells	Heroes & War	Refrain	Sentence structure	- Find a clause in this poem and list the subject and predicate. - Write a poem (anti-war, pro-war, or other) using a common phrase as a refrain.
Arnold, Matthew	Dover Beach	Heroes & War	Stanza length Tone (melancholy)	Subject-verb pattern Intransitive verbs Linking verbs Correlative conjunction neither/nor	- Compare a sound in nature to a sound made by human beings, or vice versa
Owen, Wilfred	Dulce et Decorum Est*	Heroes & War	Imagery Iambic pentameter	Compound predicate Pronouns	- “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” was a truism Owen rejected. Think of a modern-day truistm and give a strong example of a reason to reject (or accept) it.
Neruda, Pablo	Keeping Quiet	Heroes & War	Imagery	Verb tense: simple future, future conditional (would be), simple present	- Why twelve? What comes in twelve? Make a list of ten things that come in twelves. - How many different kinds of silence are there? - If you had the power, what would you make the world do?
Reed, Henry	Naming of Parts	Heroes & War	Voice	Verbals – gerunds and participles Adverbs Indefinite pronoun “this”	- Name the parts of some complex object – a machine, a room, a group, a sport. – and make it into a poem. - What do you think about when other people are talking?
Hall, Jim	Maybe Dats Youwr Pwoblem Too	Heroes & War	Persona Voice Dialect Compare to “Jabberwocky” by Caroll.	Diction	- Write about the downside of being a hero. - What parts of speech ar”extwa,” “evwybody,” “booglar,” and “acwoss?” How do you know?
H.D. (Doolittle, Hilda)	Helen	Heroes & War	Rhyme Scheme Metonymy or Synecdoche (Compare to “The face that launch’d a thousand ships” by Marlowe)	Sentence structure	- What is the subject of the sentence in each stanza? - Write a poem describing someone famous who is hated.
Marlowe, Christopher	The face that launch’d a thousand ships	Heroes & War	Hyperbole Simile (Compare to “Helen” by H.D.)	Interrogative, imperative, and declarative (or indicative) sentences. Verb tense	- In the poem, identify an indicative sentence, a question, and an imperative sentence in this poem - Write a poem speaking to someone in hyperbolic statements (for instance, to a teacher trying to convince him or her to give you a better grade)
Millay, Edna St. Vincent	An Ancient Gesture	Heroes & War	Classical allusion	First and second person narrator Punctuation – colon, semicolon, comma, period, dash	- Compare yourself to a famous Trojan War character in some way. How are you alike? How are you different?
Daniells, Roy	Noah	Heroes & War	Italian sonnet “turn” or “verso”	Coordinating conjunction “and” Compound sentences Personal pronoun antecedents	- Tell the story of the end of the world from the point of view of the only survivor - Write two compound sentences ending with the same rhyme - “They gathered around and told him . . . “
Merwin, A.S.	Odysseus	Heroes & War	Mythic Allusions (Compare to “Ulysses” by Tennyson)	Expletive “there” Subjects of sentences	- What is the subject of the sentence “There were the islands”? - What is the subject of the sentence “Always the setting forth was the same? - He couldn’t remember . . .
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord	Ulysses	Heroes & War	Mythic Allusions Dramatic monologue (Compare to “Odysseus” by Merwin)	Prepositional phrases	- “How dull it is to pause, to make an end,/To rust unburnishe’d, not to shine in use!” Do you agree or disagree? Why?
Thayer, Ernest Lawrence	Casey at the Bat*	Heroes & War	Hubris	Expletive “there” Verb tense	- Write the description of a famous recent sports loss, or the failure of an athlete. - What qualities of Casey were heroic, and what qualities weren’t?
Browning, Robert	How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix	Heroes & War	Ballad Anapestic tetrameter (same as “Star Spangled Banner” and “The Night Before Christmas”)	Verb tense – simple past	- “I was the only one who knew—I had to tell them before it was too late . . .”
Sandburg, Carl	Grass	Heroes & War	Mask (Compare to “At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border” by Stafford)	Verb mood – imperative, indicative, interrogative	- What do Austerlitz, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Ypres, and Verdun have in common? - What is the “work” some other common thing has to do in war?
Stafford, William	At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border-	Heroes & War	Rhyme scheme	Relative adverb “where”	- Write three sentences in the pattern: “This is the _____ where the _________ did not _________.”
Lowell, Amy	The Wind	Weather	Personification Refrain (Compare to “Wind” by Ted Hughes)	Repeating clause structure Active voice	- What is the tone of this poem? - Rewrite a stanza of the poem to make it gloomy, angry, or impatient
Hughes, Ted	Wind	Weather	Metaphor Simile	Compound-Complex sentence structure	- Use ten of the specific words in this poem in a poem of your own. - Is this poem better or worse than Lowell’s “The Wind”? Why?
Christopher, Nicholas	Through the Window of the All-Night Restaurant	Weather	Narrative	Prepositional phrases	- List three verbs in this poem that have direct objects and three verbs in this poem that do not have direct objects. - Describe a common setting in a mysterious way.
Frost, Robert	Bereft	Weather	Rhyme scheme Metaphor Tone Diction	Noun clauses Transitive and intransitive verbs	- Imagine the weather intends you harm, and tell a story about it
Lampman, Archibald	A Thunderstorm	Weather	Sonnet Simile Metaphor	Sentence structure	- Write two sentences in which the verb comes before the subject - Describe the moment when everything changed.
Frost, Robert	Desert Places	Weather	Rhyme scheme Tetrameter Personification	Sentence structure	- How do you scare yourself? In what way?
Wilbur, Richard	Boy at the Window	Weather	(Compare to “The Snowman” by William Carlos Williams)	Verbals (gerund)	- What is the fear surrounding the child? Is it the same fear as in Frost’s “Desert Places”?
Williams, William Carlos	The Snowman	Weather	Imagery (Compare to “Boy at the Window” by Richard Wilbur)	Impersonal pronoun “one” Sentence structure	- How many sentences are in this poem? (one) - Who is the person in the poem?
McGough, Roger	The Trouble with Snowmen	Weather	Rhyme scheme (compare to “Boy at the Window” by Wilbur and “The Snowman” by Williams)	Punctuation (single quotation marks)	- Which poem is the best—“Boy at the Window,” “The Snowman,” or “The Trouble with Snowmen”? Why?
Berman, David	Snow	Weather	Simile Metaphor	Verb tense	- Tell about a time when you tried to frighten another person
Bridges, Robert	London Snow	Weather	Metaphor Rhyme scheme Imagery	Present participles Adverbs	- Describe a war you have waged with something not human
Frost, Robert	Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening*	Weather	Iambic tetrameter Rhyme scheme End-stopped lines	Nested clauses Infinitives Indirect object	- Write a poem in aaba rhyme scheme - Use ten different infinitives in a rhythmic poem
cummings, e.e.	In Just-	Weather	Repetition Typography Classical allusions	Conjunctions Independent clauses	- Write a poem or story with unusual capitalization, punctuation, spacing, and indentation. Have a reason for doing it.
Hughes, Langston	Dream Deferred	Dreams	Rhyme Scheme (Compare to “A Dream Lies Dead” by Parker)	Auxiliary verb “to do” for question construction.	- Use this poem as a pattern – “What happens to . . . .”
Parker, Dorothy	A Dream Lies Dead	Dreams	Italian sonnet Metaphor (conceit)	Modal verbs may, can, and must Verb tense (present)	- What is the difference between “may” “must” and “can”? - Describe a dream you have surrendered or one you refuse to surrender.
Hughes, Langston	Dream Variations	Dreams	Rhyme Variations	Verb infinitives Fragments	- List 4 infinitives and 2 present tense verbs in this poem. - Start a poem with an infinitive – “To ____”
Poe, Edgar Allan	A Dream Within a Dream	Dreams	Metaphor Repetition	Verb tense (present and present perfect)	- Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? Why or why not?
Hughes, Langston	Dreams	Dreams	Metaphor Quatrains Dimeter Rhyme scheme	Verb tense (simple present) Conjunctions Compound sentences	- How many clauses are in the first stanza of this poem? - Make a list of ten metaphors starting “Life is . . . .”
Norman, Peter	Awake	Dreams	Quatrains ABBA rhyme scheme	Verb tense (simple past)	- Where does this poem change verb tense, and why? - Use familiar machines as metaphors in a story about vacations, holidays, accidents, injuries, or family arguments.
Meredith, William	The Fear of Beasts	Dreams	Sonnetina	Verb tense (simple present, simple present, simple future) Modal verb must Imperative mood	- Write a story in which a dream or nightmare comes alive. - Name two verb tenses in this poem.
Pinsky, Robert	Vessel	Dreams	Slant rhyme Rhyme scheme Couplets Metaphor	Verb tenses Present participles Rhetorical questions	- Make a list of metaphors for your body when it is asleep. Write a poem extending one of those metaphors. - Make a list of rhetorical questions.
Noyes, Alfred	The Highwayman	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Alliteration and assonance Rhyme scheme Simile	Verb tense change	- Tell a very short story (ghost story, adventure, or mystery) in the past tense and then switch to the present tense at the end.
Masefield, John	A Ballad of John Silver	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Trochaic octometer (Compare to Poe’s “Raven”) Rhyme scheme Quatrains Alliteration End-stopped	Passive voice (“She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank”)	- Describe something bad that you or someone else did, but use the passive voice. (“Mistakes were made!”)
Lee, Dennis	Bloody Bill	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Iambic trimester Rhyme scheme ABAB Internal Rhyme Light verse	Verb tense: simple past for narrative, present imperative to address the reader	- Choose a public figure (an athlete, a politician, an actor, a celebrity) and imagine that person talking the way the narrator does in this poem. Write what he or she says.
Masefield, John	Cargoes	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Diction Alliteration Rhyme scheme	Verbals – no actual verbs in this poem, only participial phrases	- Describe lunch, recess, class change, or class using only participial phrases.
Nesbitt, Kenn	My Excuse	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Doggerel Monotonous meter and rhyme	Verbs – past progressive, simple past, present, passive Compound and complex sentences	- Write an outrageous excuse for forgetting your homework, missing a test, or goofing off during class.
Smith, Stevie	Not Waving but Drowning*	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Metaphor or analogy Slant rhyme	Third person and first person shift Omission of quotation marks – showing speech Indefinite pronouns	- How do you know who is speaking in this poem? - “He was waving, and I thought . . . “
Stevenson, Robert Louis	Pirate Story	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Quatrains Trimester	Prepositional phrases Present participles “Shall” and “will” auxiliary verbs	- Did you pretend when you were young? Describe what you did as if it was real. - List the verbs in this poem that are in the present progressive tense.
Masefield, John	Sea-Fever	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Falling and rising rhymes Alliteration	Lists Conjunctions Compound object of preposition	- Find the gerund in this poem. - The poet says “All I ask” but he asks for a lot. How many things does he ask for? - Write a poem asking for what you want.
Wylie, Elinor	Sea Lullaby	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Conceit (sea as murderer) Quatrains 2-syllable and 1-syllable rhyme	Appositves Verb tense – shift from present to past to present	- Find the passive voice verb in this poem. - Why is this poem creepy?
Parker, Dorothy	Song of Perfect Propriety	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Octets Rhyme scheme Alternating meter (tetrameter and trimester) Refrain	Repetitive structure Infinitives Modal verbs should and would	- List eight infinitives in this poem. - Why does the narrator describe herself as a “little lady”? What is the tone of the poem?
Meigs, Mildred Plew	The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Refrain Light verse Ballad Alliteration and repetation	Prepositional phrases	- Use one of the stanzas in this poem as a pattern for a funny poem about a person, real or imaginary.
Dickinson, Emily	XIX (I Started early, took my dog)	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Extended metaphor Simile Quatrains in ballad stanza	Simple past tense	- Choose a stanza, and identify the subject and the verb. - “I started early, took my _____ . . .
Poe, Edgar Allan	Annabel Lee	Outlaws, Pirates, & the Sea	Rhythm Tone Repetition Rhyme (internal and end)	Relative clause Compound sentences	- Choose a sentence from this poem. How many clauses does it have?
McFerren, Martha	A Metaphor Crosses the Road	Decisions	Metaphor (Compare to “Traveling through the Dark” by Stafford and “Possum Crossing” by Giovanni)	Compound verbs, compound objects Verb tense and mood	- What is the metaphor in this poem? - Describe a time you or someone you know hit something with a car.
Stafford, William	Traveling through the Dark	Decisions	(Compare to “A Metaphor Crosses the Road” by McFerren and “Possum Crossing” by Giovanni)	Verbals Verb tense	- Of the six present participles (“-ing”) in this poem, which two are gerunds?
Henley, William Ernest	Invictus*	Decisions	Metaphor Simile Tetrameter	Prepositional phrases (starting sentences)	- Choose a sentence in this poem and identify the subjects and verbs. - You are a mass murderer condemned to death. What poem do you choose to give to the newspapers as your statement?
Frost, Robert	The Road Not Taken*	Decisions	Iambic tetrameter	Sentence structure	- Find a gerund in this poem - Write a poem set in the future, talking about a decision you made in the past and how it affected your life. - How many lines long is the first sentence in this poem?
Collins, Billy	Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House	Decisions	Analogy	Modal verbs Verb tense	- Find a verb in: simple future, present progressive, simple present, past perfect, simple past. - “The _____ will not stop _________ing . . .”
Frost, Robert	The Armful	Decisions	Iambic pentameter	Verb tense Infinitives Pronouns (personal and indefinite)	- List five infinitives in this poem and identify whether they are used as adverbs or nouns. - Describe a situation in which you are juggling a metaphorical armful.
Atwood, Margaret	Provisions	Decisions	Line length Enjambment	Modal verbs (“should, could”) Sentence structure	- When did the decision in the poem take place? - What would you take with you? - How many sentences long is this poem?
Pinsky, Robert	Shirt	Justice	Triplets Enjambment Imagery	Sentence fragments	- Choose a common object—a paper clip, a pencil, a phone, a dollar bill—and write a poem about it. (Note: This poem is worth a week)
Nye, Naomi Shihab	For Mohammed Zeid, Age 15	Justice	Word play	Expletive “there” Verb tense	- Write a poem about a victim - To whom is the writer speaking in this poem? - Does it make a difference to you that this poem is about an Israeli army officer being convicted in the killing of a Palestinian boy?
Angelou, Maya	Still I Rise	Justice	Simile Metaphor Rhyme & Repetition	Suffix –ness Verb tense	- Make five adjectives into nouns using the suffixes –ness, -itude, -ity, -ance, -ence, -ship, or –hood. Use them to make a poem. - Write a chant poem in which you are declaring something.
Du Bois, W.E.B.	The Song of the Smoke	Justice	Repetition (anaphora) Rhyme scheme	Verb tense	- Write three sentences in the present progressive with the same subject. Use them as the start of a poem. - Declare all the things you are, using this poem as a pattern.
Angelou, Maya	Alone	Justice	Metaphor Rhyme Rhythm	Different ways of indicating future using verb tense	- “Lying, thinking/Last night . . . “
Brooks, Gwendolyn	The Bean Eaters	Justice	Variation	Capitalization Aspectual verb “to keep"