Project instructions:

clearer copy of instructions but here is a cut and paste version.

Final Poetry Assessment Instructions
Writer Instructions: Please be specialised within this field. Please be familiar with the techniques, language and critical processes used in writing poetry. This

assessment is worth 50% and it’s imperative that it’s well written, answers all the dot points and has excellent grammar, spelling and punctuation. This assessment can

be written in first person; for example, “For poem number 1, I used Imagery because ….. “.
? Use the 4 poems written below
? 1500 word max critical essay (minimum 1200 words)
? The assessment consists of four poems and a critical essay about the creative and critical processes involved in writing these poems.
? The 4 poems MUST be based on themes and content of your own choosing. They can employ any style of poetic language and any poetic techniques that you choose.

Students are to identify and discuss these.
? The critical essay MUST reflect critically upon
? The creative processes
? The poetic techniques
? Influences
? Content
? Language and form used in writing your poems
? Insightful and original reflections on your own writing
? The critical essay MUST reference at least 3 of the poets and at least 3 of the critical pieces listed below. You should draw comparisons between your own poems and

what you have learned from the techniques, ideas and approaches to writing demonstrated in the 3 poets and 3 critic pieces of your choosing and make insightful and

innovative arguments.
? TIP: Pay special attention to grammar, spelling, syntax and punctuation!
? APA Referencing

The 3 poets are
o Horse Calligram by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)
o China by Bob Perelman (b.1947)
o The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
o Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith
o This Compost by Walt Withman

The 3 critical pieces are
o Visual Performance of the Poetic Text by Johanna Drucker
o I’m Given to Write Poems by Robert Creeley
o The Rejection of Closure by Lyn Hejinian
o After Free Verse: the New Non-Linear Poetries by Marjorie Perloff
o A Pebble, A Camera, A Man Who Turns into a Telegraph Pole by John Frow

The four poems are

1. This poems theme is ‘imagery’

The semicolon
The semicolon!
The binary punctuation.
How round and faultless
and how majestic your head
that hovers in the air. So fearless
yet so foolish, used by youth in
virtual reality to display affections.
Semicolon dash parenthesis, alias
the wink. Contempt for dialect,
grave scorn on grammar bestow;
your head hangs here alone:
a bleak moon that
never shone.

The semicolon!
Two-storied punctuation.
Your light heartedness is better
explained by your adamant root
that while thin and highly agile
and with enticing curves plentiful,
unnecessary but gracefully poised
against the emoticon force that
has given you a hard hold.
So while your head
lives in the clouds
your firm foot
is planted in
the ground.
Though very
proud is the
moon that
shone and
though very
strong roots
have grown,
you still
have no
back-
bone.

———————————————————

2. This poems theme is ‘free verse’

Summer
eyes closed deep breaths
ears open to sounds of the night
of summer sounds of summer time
chaperoning all that nature is
of pageantry and melody alike
summer time hush

chimes of soft winds across the glittering water
trickling din of soft river streams snaking through brush
sounds of that moment and season
summer time echo so sweet
it rings the sounds of summer chimes
with rays of sunlight filter on

summer chimes with summer wines
interlude of summer times
there in natures world
full of bloom and hidden places

why?

with the summer chimes
invites the freedom of natures soul
the buzz of the cicadas emitting their sombre drone of summers sweltering oppression
the aroma of summer heat
the calm before the storm
the smell of magnolia filling the heavy summer air
sizzling asphalt turning to liquid in the lazy afternoon heat

if only the hot summer days
and cool summer nights
could persevere all year long
those gentle showers and flowing summer clothes
why can’t summer last
whoosh – there it goes
———————————————————

3. This poems theme is ‘who or what is speaking? ‘I’ and its abandonments

Once Upon A Time
a flicker out the corner of my eye
what was it

was there anything even there

like the haze off hot asphalt is summer
I couldn’t be sure

trust my mind

or not?

the glint of the sun off the tumbling waves ease my pain
for my mind flashes of memories like a strobe
a time when I was carefree
like the children frolicking through the glittering sand

once upon a time I lived at the beach
no shoes
no shirts
no worries

I turn my head searching like eagles search for prey
for that glimmer
that shape

the one that got away

———————————————————

4. This poem theme is ‘humour and irony’

Idioms or Idiots, that is the question
actions speak louder than words they say
so I asked my actions
in whispered tones
how loudly they could speak.
I received no reply.

all roads lead home they say
getting into a taxi,
the driver asked where to go.
home I said
but roads don’t travel overseas.

beggars can’t be choosers they say
she begged him to stay
then chose someone else.
she was a beggar, she chose.
what more can I say.
boys will be boys they say
does that make it all okay
to lie, to cheat and throw women away
why can’t girls be girls
because some are built that way