DEAD AMERICAN POETS' SOCIETY

Step one: Read examples of at least 5 different poets from the list.  Select one poet who you want to research.  No one in the group should have a duplicate poet. You might want to divide the list among all group members so that people are reading different poets.  That does not mean that you can only choose among the poets that you initially read.  Perhaps another group member was fortunate enough to find two or three possibilities.  You need to communicate to your group members who you liked and why. You may want to divide the list among your group members so that you can experience all the poets. 

Arna Bontemps         Stephen Vincent Benet  Gwendolyn Brooks    Stephen Crane

e. e. cummings           Emily Dickinson    James Dickey            Hilda Doolittle

T.S. Elliot           Ralph Waldo Emerson     Ferlinghetti               Phillips Freneau

Robert Frost        Allen Ginsberg          Langston Hughes           Denise Levertov

Vachel Lindsay      Henry Wadsworth Longfellow                  Amy Lowell

Edna St. Vincent Millay     Ogden Nash       Dorothy Parker       Sylvia Plath 

 Ezra Pound              Edwin Arlington Robinson         Theodore Roethke   

 Carl Sandberg         Anne Sexton          Henry David Thoreau  

   John Greenleaf Whittier      Walt Whitman          William Carlos Williams

Use the following general links to research most of poets above..  Examples of each individual poet's  poems can be found with the same links.   

http://americanpoems.com     http://encarta.msn.com

http://www.poets.org

 Step two: Interview this poet and record the interview in a question and answer format.  Since these poets are dead, you will be assuming that they are actually alive, answering for them, pretending you are the poet.  The challenge of this is to develop a specific “voice” for the poet…answering as they would, sounding as if they would. Have a nice conversation feel to the interview, do not merely regurgitate facts. Be careful of punctuation when writing poem titles like  “The Bells.”

 Provided below are 8 possible biographical questions that you might ask during the interview.  Include at least 7 of the following.

 ·        When and where were you born?

 ·        Where and when did you die?

·        Did anything that happened to you in your life become part of a poem?

·        Where did you live while you wrote your poetry?

·        What were some of the topics you wrote about in your poetry?

·        Did you incorporate an historical events or popular historical movements (ex. war, civil rights) in your poems? If  so, which ones?  If not, why not?

·        What did people think about your poems?

·        Did you like any other poets or writers?  Who?

 Step 3: Besides using at least 7 of the 8 above questions in your interview, you must add 4 of your own about specific poems concerning content, structure, style, or devices.

 Step 4: You must also construct an introductory paragraph that contains a description of where the interview took place and a short description about the poet’s appearance (when alive, of course!)

 Step 5: You must also have one question and answer completely unrelated to either poetry or biography.  

   THIS MAKES A TOTAL OF 12 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.   

 Step 6:  Copy 1- 2 representative pieces to include with your interview.  If the piece is particularly long, please feel free to use an excerpt of at least 20 –25 lines.

 Step 7:  Annotate each selection and place the short paragraph annotation at the bottom of the page where the poem is located.  In an annotation, you must briefly tell what the poem is about, note any particularly effective structural elements or poetic devices. Include why a young teenager might like this poem.  This annotation should be no more than 50 - 75 words.

 Step 8:  These interviews and examples of the poets’ work will be word-processed. Always stay in the same readable font within a group at either size 10/12/ or 14.  All group members will then compile their work in a chronological order, create a title page and table of contents and bind in some fashion.  Each student should use the same standards in font and font size in order to maintain continuity for a pleasing overall appearance of the anthology. 

Please see below for an example using Poe as the poet.  Note the different elements, introductory paragraph, biographical questions, style and structure questions, one imaginative question.

    Edgar Allen Poe (Example)

 (introductory paragraph)

 I had to chuckle when Mr. Poe asked me to meet him at the infamous Baltimore bar where he met his untimely demise in 1849.  He probably knew I had many questions about his death that I was hoping he could clear up.  The bar, which had doubled as a polling area for voting in Poe’s day, seemed rather calm, compared to the days when the Baltimore elections were notorious for corruption and violence.  Poe showed up, pallid and wane, in his typical black wool suit. He had obviously changed from the unusual outfit that he had been found in at the time of his death.

(questions and answers)

 Q:  Even though we are here in Baltimore, Maryland, where so much controversy surrounds your death, perhaps, you can give me a brief introduction on where and when you were born?

A:  Sure, if I can remember.  I never have had a birth certificate, so sometimes I find that the colorful history that I have created for myself gets in the way of the truth.  Actually, I did a lot of “history making” to create an image for myself in order to promote my writing.  And also, since I was orphaned at an early age, no one can really remember anything exactly.  Most people have concluded it was either 1809 or 1811 in Boston, Massachusetts.

 Q:  So, even if people can’t agree with where and when you were born, I take it that everyone is in agreement that you died here in Baltimore?

A:  Yes, but no one can agree on why.  There is a lot of talk about my alcoholism and how I died of a combination of that with my poor health, but some think I had been beaten.  This place used to be pretty wild back in the day!   It was an Election Day when they found me, and everything was in turmoil.

Q:  I know you moved around a lot during your life.  Where did you live when you wrote your poetry? 

A:  I lived in a lot of places, including England.  But most of my life was spent out east here in the Virginia and Maryland area. It seems as if I have always written poetry throughout my life no matter where I was.  I started very young.  Poetry has always been my first choice in writing.  I only turned to the short story genre because I needed something that would make me some money.

(example questions about some of Poe’s specific poems)  Remember, you need a total of 4 questions.  You may include questions on style, content, structure, devices, etc.

 Q:  Mr. Poe, everyone is intrigued about why you chose to write about what you did?  Some of your subject matter in your poetry is a little morbid.

A:  I have to disagree with you on that.  I would call my poems more melancholy than morbid.  People tend to confuse what I write in my poetry with my short stories.  I feel as if I mastered the art of the psychological thriller and detective story, but my poems were more experiments in music and sound.

 Q:  What do you think is your particular strength in writing when it comes to poetry?

A:  I love the sound words have the ability to make.  I want the sounds to make a musical impression on people.  These same lyrical sounds add to the meaning and mood of each poem. My poem, “The Bells” is a good example of this.  And by the way, it is not a morbid poem.

 Q: What are some of the tricks you use to create sound?

A:  I use a lot of repetition.  You may have noticed it in “The Raven.”  Also, I like to use alliteration and assonance where I repeat consonant and vowel sounds.

 Q:  I noticed you use rhyme too.

A:  Yes, end rhyme and internal rhyme can also help create a mood.

 Q:  Did you incorporate historical events or popular movements in your poems?

A:  No. My poems are more pensive and introspective.  I liked to deal with abstract feelings of loss, fear, love, etc. I like to create an overall mood.

 Q:  Even though you went to West Point, I notice you stayed away from writing about war themes.

A:  Yes, As I said before, I prefer to write about human reactions and abstract feelings.

 Q: What did people think about your poems?

A:  People liked them, but most preferred my short stories.  My fiction, especially the creation of the short story, really kept me financial solvent.  My poetry wasn’t very lucrative. I also did some literary criticism.

 Q:  Did you like any other poets or writers during the time you wrote?  Did you find inspiration in their works?

A:  As you already know, the short story was fairly new.  Many people consider me the father of short story, so no one before had written in that particular genre.  I did try my hand at being a critic, but most people who were writing back then were terrible.  I did like to read Dickens though.  He used a lot of good description.

 Q:  If you were alive today, which poets would you admire and why?

A:  The 60’s had some interesting poets, especially the beat poets because of their use of sound.  But during the new 21^st century, I find the new music particularly interesting, especially alternative because the sounds are so original.  They all seem to lead pretty bizarre lives too with bouts of drug use and excessive alcohol.  The new musical groups uses themes of love, loss, fear, alienation etc. I also tried to create these themes in my poetry.

Created by Stephanie Reinert       last updated 02/27/02