Day Eight: Ode Revision and Tritina Introduction

Earlier this week, we started with having time to revise our odes. Other than my introduction of the idea of researching as a form of revision, either for additional information or just to improve word choice, we used the revision guidelines posted on Day Seven. Then I introduced the "tritina" as a poetry form. While we perused the form and saw some examples, in hindsight I think it would have been useful to build a simple collaborative tritina using a color like "red" with three keywords like "stop, anger, and embarrassment." Since I didn't suggest doing that, I have no evidence as to how helpful that might have been. No data driven evidence here to evaluate teacher effectiveness!

Tritina:

• Tritina comes from the Latin for "three"
• Contains three stanzas plus an envoy
• Each stanza has three lines ending with one of three words
• The envoy contains all three words 
• These three words are important!
• Some suggest that the line length should be similar, while others dismiss this requirement
• Subject of a tritina is often a person or memory

Form:

Stanza one:     ends in word 1

                        ends in word 2

                        ends in word 3

Stanza two:     ends in word 3

                        ends in word 1

                        ends in word 2

Stanza three    ends in word 2

                        ends in word 3

                        ends in word 1

Envoy:     one line using all three words in any order

Strategies:

I have seen several strategies for getting started, both prewriting and drafting strategies. Feel free to try any or all of them:

• Brainstorm a number of words or phrases about the person or memory (web or list)
• Choose the three important words and identify or label them as 1, 2, & 3
• Create a template for yourself by jotting the "formula" in a column down the left side of your paper: 1, 2, 3 skip a line 3, 1, 2 skip a line 2, 3, 1 skip a line & envoy
• Instead, start by drafting a first three line stanza and making sure the ending words of each line are "important." Then label those words and continue with the form

Homework:

Try drafting a tritina. Type up either your ode or tritina to share with the group. Type it up in the word processing application of your choice. If you have that open on your desktop, it is easy to share it on Zoom with the rest of us. I will take us through how to do that on Tuesday.

Moving Forward:

We reached a consensus to take a break from our poetry workshop as we enter the gardening season. So, the publishing party/poetry slam on Tuesday the 30th will be our last meeting of this session. At least several of us will be willing to resume at some point in the future!

Day Seven: Writing an Ode

Yesterday, after consulting our notes from Smell-a-Rama and looking at some odes, we tried drafting one of our own. Smell-a-Rama and links to Pablo Neruda were posted here on March 10.We started with a pre-writing strategy. Then I provided some guidelines and we all had some writing time. After that we decided that we would wait a bit before tackling revision. I will include some guidelines for revision in this post.

Prewriting guidelines:

• Choose one of the objects from your notes (lemon, thyme, etc.)
• Consider and possibly jot down notes or turn and talk with a partner:

1. Why did you choose this object?
2. What do you like about it?
3. Where did it come from; what has it experienced?
4. Does it remind you of anything; what memory does it spark? 
5. What does it mean to you?

Drafting guidelines:

• Odes are poems of address and celebration; talk to what you are celebrating -- Oh, you, you are like, without you, etc. (These can be made into a template.)
• Tap all five senses
• Describe inside and out
• Balance feelings and emotions with description
• Exaggerate its admirable qualities

Revision considerations:

• Not happy; nothing you like: try a macro revision. Choose a different subject, beyond the Smell-a-Rama.
• Add simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or personification
• Keep it "skinny," 2-5 words per line
• Choose vivid words; language that is packed with meaning
• Editing: punctuate like you would for sentences

Reading related to our discussions:

https://www.wired.com/2014/11/whats-up-with-that-smells-language/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ode

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/oct/13/poem-of-the-week

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44477/ode-on-a-grecian-urn

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-to-ode-on-a-grecian-urn-time-mortality-and-beauty#

Day Six: Sharing (Publishing) Poems and Smell-a-Rama

 Yesterday we shared the poems we had revised. Most of us shared "Where I am From" poems, but Renee took the macro revision strategy of saving one line from a draft and building a new poem from it. I will be starting a new page soon (the tabs at the top of the blog) for the poems we have published.

We also held a "Smell-a-Rama," an activity that a former co-teacher and I used to do with our middle-school students to prep for writing odes. In our case the writing partners smelled various items, such as lemon zest, thyme, freshly ground coffee, garlic, and mentholatum while jotting down the answers to the following prompts:

Thanks Anne!

We will use these notes of associations or memories to write odes next meeting which will be on Tuesday, March 16, as we are going to once a week. 

Homework: Read some of Pablo Neruda's odes to common things:

1. Here is a link to an introduction to Neruda's work with odes including a couple examples and a template for writing an ode:https://cap.ucla.edu/data/dfs/download/20_Ode_to_Ordinary_Things-_Poetry_ActivitypdfvTVT.pdf
   
   
2. Here is another link from a teacher (in Kenya?) that has links to several of Neruda's poems: (He also discusses translating poetry in this post.)  https://medium.com/dead-poets-society/prompt-ode-to-common-things-e5cd2a0a1777                                                                                                                
3. Here is another link: https://www.theexaminedlife.org/library/odes-to-common-things/

Day Five: Revision Strategies

 Yesterday we looked at several revision strategies. The first ones, that I refer to as "macro" revision strategies, are specific to poetry:

• Start at the end -- Rewrite, starting with the last line of your draft. Use as much or as little of the original draft as you want, working backwards or not. 

• Chose one to three of the lines from a poem you are not happy with and start over incorporating those lines.

• If you are totally frustrated with what you have and flummoxed as to what to do, go back to the post on Image poems. Chose one of the alternative topics and create a new draft in order to move forward with the assignment. 

Then we practiced some general micro revision strategies by working through some examples. The techniques that we practiced included:

• Adding similes, but avoiding cliches
• Replacing "weak" words with more specific words
• Attempting to replace "to be" verbs
• Showing rather than telling
• Remembering the tone you are attempting to create

Returning to revision specific to poetry, I suggested considering the draft's line breaks with the following checklist of possible considerations:

• Use // to show new line breaks

• Use your mind, eyes, ears, and lungs: Consider your intentions, the look or form of the poem, what sounds right, and where you need to pause when reading aloud. 

• Stop on strong words: words that are important, significant, or evocative.

• Don't slice on weak or lazy words. Don't slice on conjunctions, prepositions, interjections, or adverbs unless you are attempting a specific effect such as suspense, surprise, or humor. 

• Remember that line breaks and stanzas are your poem's form, both in sound and meaning.

• Editing considerations: Generally in free-verse poetry, the writer punctuates like she would for sentences; no need exists for capitalization at the beginning of every line or commas at the end of every line. 

Homework for March 9: chose one draft from what you have done so far (Chain poems, Image poems, and Where I'm From poems) to revise, edit, and publish as a draft by typing it up in Word to share. We will share typed drafts on Tuesday by screen sharing. A Word document open on your desktop, can be easily shared on Zoom. I will review the process on Tuesday. 

To Prep for March 9's Smell-a-Rama: Each set of writing partners will need:

• Small paper plates
• A lemon and a zester
• An aromatic herb, fresh or dried (i. e. rosemary, thyme, oregano, etc.)
• Freshly ground coffee or opened pod
• Vick's VaporRub or mentholatum rub or ointment (popsicle stick or stirrer if needed)
• Freshly crushed or pressed garlic

Day Four: Drafting a Where I'm From Poem

Yesterday we worked on writing our own Where I'm From Poems. We started by looking at a template and a couple of student examples from this PDF: https://www.sps186.org/downloads/attachments/44633/Where%20I%20am%20From.pdf

Then we reread our own lists from the last session and broke into writing partners for a "turn and talk." I provided the following prompts if partners wanted to use them. 

• What are three things from your list that you want to include? Why?
• What from the list might lead to its own piece of writing?
• What from your list do you think might be most important to where you are from?

I didn't suggest marking the items to include, but probably should have. Neither my partner or I were ready to tackle the third question. I set the timer for six minutes and that seemed about the right amount of time for both partners to share for everyone. 

After going over the guidelines below we each drafted our own poems. 

• Multi stanza and free verse
• Each stanza starts with "I am from . . ."
• Rearrange and/or extend from your list
• Use sensory imagery
• An idea for pulling it all together at the end?

I put the template from the PDF up again on the screen during writing time, and some of the writers found it useful and others found it too much like a Mad Libs with only nouns as an option. I found it helpful as a framework to get started writing, but didn't follow it exactly. I didn't like that the template includes lines directly from George Ella Lyon's original poem. 

We had the longest drafting/writing time during the workshop, and while the participants had a variety of degrees of satisfaction with their results, everyone seemed to spend the time writing. 

Our next session will be focused on revision. 

As homework please watch "Simile School" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT6_PXXjU94

Also, in addition to the student examples on the PDF linked above, several video examples are on George Ella's web page: http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html

Day Three: Where I'm From Intro and Lists

Remember, we are moving to 5:30 as a start time!

Today we were Introduced to Georg Ella Lyon's "Where I'm From." She has a webpage at http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html that includes the poem written out, a sound file of her reading the poem, a video with her reading the poem, information about using the lists as writing prompts, and how others have used the poem as a jumping off spot for writing. 

Even though I set us up to pick any time from our lives, we all came up with substantial lists mostly about our childhood using the following prompts. The more I think about it, focusing on our childhood is key to this model. In general, childhood is where we are from.

The next time we meet, we will have writing time to "extend, rearrange, edit," and revise our Where I'm From lists into poems. We will also be exposed to some revision strategies so we can choose at least one of our poems to revise and publish. 

Day Two: Image Poem

Today, we started by reading "Beehive," by Jean Toomer which can be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148499/beehive. His poem is a great example of the use of imagery, as well as having some examples of alliteration and onomatopoeia used in a poem. 

Here is one definition of imagery:

While somewhat formulaic, this image poem form pushes writers to use sensory imagery. We started by collaborating with each of us contributing one image to create a "Quiet Poem" using this outline:

        

    

Then we each wrote an image poem, following that model with the following suggested topics from which to choose:

• Quiet Poem
• Loud Poem
• Silent Poem
• Winter Poem
• Summer Poem
• Morning Poem 
• Night Poem
• Waiting Poem
• Calm Poem
• Anxious Poem

After about 10-15 minutes of writing time, we all shared our image poems or poem sketches.

Ina pointed out today that her cousin had some of his poems featured on the "Writer's Almanac." Here are the links to three poems and a short biography:

https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2003%252F12%252F29.html

https://www.writersalmanac.org/episodes/20161031/

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-january-27-2020/

https://hannahtest.com/perlberg/writing.html