A poem by Tupac Shakur

This is a poem by Tupac Shakur. You have to do two activities with it.

1. Search who Tupac Shakur was. Are you surprised he is the author of this poem? Why/why not?

2. What makes this text poetry? Are there any literary devices?

Did you hear about the rose that grew

from a crack in the concrete?

Proving nature's law is wrong it

learned to walk with out having feet.

Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,

it learned to breathe fresh air.

Long live the rose that grew from concrete

when no one else ever cared.

A poem by Rudyard Kipling

Read this poem by Rudyard Kipling. What is it about? Is it written in iambic pentametres?

If

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Late XXth century poetry: Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright born in 1955. Duffy uses simple words in her poems, which are easily accessible. That has made them immensely popular and widely studied at schools. A lot of her love poems reflect her experiences as a lesbian. 

Two popular poem titles of hers are Warming her pearls and Valentine.

Activity: Read both poems mentioned and write a paragraph saying what the poems are about and giving examples of their literary devices (metaphors, etc). It will be checked as homework and discussed in class as soon as classes restart.

Late XXth century narrative: Edna O'Brien and Ian McEwan

Edna O'Brien

Edna O'Brien is an Irish writer born in 1930.

O'Brien's works often revolve around the inner feelings of women, and their problems in relating to men, and to society as a whole. Her first novel, The Country Girls (1960), is often credited with breaking silence on sexual matters and social issues during a repressive period in Ireland following World War II. The book was banned for some time, and in some cases burned.

Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan is an English novelist and screenwriter born in 1948.

Lots of his novels have been made into films, the most popular being perhaps Atonement and Enduring Love.

No assignment for this part.

A poem by Shakespeare

We are going to read one of William Shakespeare's sonnets. In class we will be looking at its foot structure and meaning. Can you make some guesses?

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.