ESSAY #3: 90 MINUTE TIMED POETRY EXAM, WILL GO UP Wed,, APRIL 13TH AND STAY UP UNTIL Wed, APRIL 20TH. IT MUST BE TAKEN IN 90 MINUTES AND WILL BE IN UNIT THREE, CALLED “POETRY ESSAY EXAM”To prepare for essay #3, think about how you would address the following questions. The essay prompt will draw from one or more of the below questions.How do the speakers of these poems, Langston Hughes “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” stanza 1 and 6, and Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” handle the life/death cycle?How do they examine and reimagine death?What functions does nature serve in these poems?Can you describe the journeys each speaker takes?Do the speakers make peace with the reality of death? How so?What are the subjects of value to each speaker?Who are the speakers and how does their thoughts about the past shape who they are in the present?What concerns the speakers and how do they grapple with the issues they are concerned about?Elements of Poetryimageryrhymerhythmmetaphors, direct and impliedsimiles, direct and impliedsymbolism,personification Free versemeterline or stanza structure (verse or free form)ToneSound effectsAlliterationFigurative languageWrite about each speaker’s imagination. How have their imaginations shaped the poems?The Hughes speaker imagines his ancestors absorbed into himself, thus living in all time and space that they occupied from the beginning of time (when the dawns were young)The Dickinson speaker imagines death a gentleman coming for her as if on a date, and when taken to the grave, realizing she (her spirit) does not feel ready. She also imagines herself in an after-life experience.The Whitman speaker imagines all the things that a leaf of grass may be, from a flag, to a handkerchief to the hair of death people, to what happens to that death (which you will explain).ALL THREE SPEAKERS REINVENT THE LIFE/DEATH CYCLEWrite about how each speaker’s imagination is at play in their particular poem, helping shed light on the meaning of their poem.The imagination enables the speaker to live in all time and spaceThe imagination allows the Dickinson speaker to transform the experience of dying as going through stages before accepting death or at least calming down about itThe imagination enables each speaker to reinvent deathSubsume other subjects into your answer, exploring how they relate to the prompt you choose, and making connections between them. For instance,What topics does each speaker examine and how might these topics—life and death, past and present, nature and humankind, connect to one another or follow a sequential order? What are all 3 speakers struggling to make sense of?How does pain factor into what each speaker envisions?Each option may subsume the other meaningJUST AS YOU WOULD WITH ANY ESSAY, PROVIDE EVIDENCE FOR CLAIMS AND ANALYZE THE EVIDENCE OR DISCUSS THEIR CONSEQUENCESHAVE TOPIC SENTENCES AND PARAGRAPHSDISCUSS THE POEMS SEPARATELY BUT FEEL FREE TO LINK THEM IN A TOPIC SENTENCE IN YOUR INTRODUCTIONAFTER QUOTING, PUT THE POET’S LAST NAME ONLY IN PARENTHESIS.
