Where are you finding your samples of Cornelius Eady’s fantastic writing? Let’s crowdsource the effort and share what we’ve found by commenting on this post. Just click above where it says how many replies there are, and add yours.
Month: March 2014
Tonight’s the night!
Your wishes were granted: the Writing Competition deadline was extended until today! Just an hour remains for you to submit your work. Be sure to follow the instructions and submit your best work in the appropriate category. Best of luck!
Writing competitors beware: the deadline approaches!
Are you a City Tech student, faculty member, or staff member interested in submitting your work for the Literary Arts Festival? If so, please consider submitting your work for the Writing Competition–you can win fame and fortune if yours fares well with the judges. The catch? the deadline is TODAY! Mere hours remain in the competition!
For more information, refer back to this earlier post about the competition, or check out this poster:
Spring 2014 Literature Roundtable–Save the Date!
Thinking about and working with Cornelius Eady’s poetry
From Prof. Robert Ostrom in the English Department, here are a series of assignments instructors might use with students to bring Cornelius Eady’s work into the classroom. Students might use these to interact with Eady’s writing outside of class. Some of these assignments involve critical writing, and others involve creative writing. Refer to this earlier post linking out to some of Eady’s writing to have poems to work with. If you have further suggestions, want to offer feedback, or want to share how a particular assignment worked for you, please feel free to reply to this post with a comment.
I. Poetry Explication Assignment
1. Response
Read and respond to one of Cornelius Eady’s poems. How does the poem make you feel? Does it remind you of a personal experience you’ve had or a story you’ve heard?
2. Answer the following questions.
A.    Voice
- Who is speaking?
- How would you characterize the speaker?
- To whom is he or she speaking?
- For what purpose is he or she speaking?
- How would you describe the speaker’s tone?
- Is the poem a lyric or a narrative or other?
B.    Form and Word Choice
- How many stanzas is the poem?
- How many lines are in each stanza?
- Does the poem contain an obvious meter or rhythm?
- Is there a rhyme scheme?
- Are there any internal or end rhymes? Give examples.
- Can you find any examples of slant rhymes, alliteration, assonance or onomatopoeia?
- Choose one line and explain why you think Eady chooses to break the line where he does?
- How does the poet’s word choice and/or word order affect the meaning and tone of the poem?
- List any literary devices you notice in the poem (simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, allusion).
- Choose two of these literary devices and briefly explore the implications.
C.    Imagery
- What images do you notice in the poem?
- Do you see any descriptive moments in the poem?
- Â Â Â Â Â Â Which of the senses does Eady appeal to in this poem?
- Â Â Â Â Â Â What is the relationship of the descriptive images to the speaker’s state of mind?
- Â Â Â Â Â Â Do the images create a sense of time of day? Season of year? Atmosphere? Mood?
D.   Theme
- What do you think is the point of the poem?
- What ideas are being communicated by the speaker?
- How are the ideas being reinforced by the formal elements of the poem?
3. Response
Revisit your initial response to this poem. Write a paragraph explaining how your understanding and feelings about the poem have changed.
II. Narration Description Assignment
 Write a short personal narrative using one of Cornelius Eady’s lines as a title or epigraph. Be sure to incorporate narrative elements such as setting, plot, point of view and pacing. In addition, use descriptive (sensory) details to paint a vivid picture for your reader.
III. Compare and Contrast Assignment
 Write an essay comparing and contrasting Cornelius Eady’s “The Gardenia” and Langston Hughes’ “Song for Billie Holiday.” Be sure to include a discussion of form and content. You may also include your own response to these poems.
Song for Billie Holiday
by Langston Hughes
What can purge my heart
Of the song
And the sadness?
What can purge my heart
But the song
Of the sadness?
What can purge my heart
Of the sadness
Of the song?
Do not speak of sorrow
With dust in her hair,
Or bits of dust in eyes
A chance wind blows there.
The sorrow that I speak of
Is dusted with despair.
Voice of muted trumpet,
Cold brass in warm air.
Bitter television blurred
By sound that shimmers–
Where?
IV. Negative Image Poetry Activity
- Choose one of the attached poems by Cornelius Eady.
- Create a Negative Image of that poem, which is to say, write a new poem that negates or otherwise alters the original—word by word, line by line, idea by idea. (This idea is based on experiments devised by the Oulipo: School of French Experimental Writers.)
How can you “negate” or otherwise alter a poem?
Quite literally, you may take the opposite or antonym of each word you come across, keeping in mind that some words, which seem to have no opposite, have dozens of opposites. For example, the opposite of potato is clearly …pineapple, or kudzu, or sweetheart…
- When you have finished negating the poem, go back and revise, rearrange, change words, whatever you need to do to polish it and connect lines and ideas. Your final poem should maintain (more or less) the structure of the original.
- Pay close attention to sonic elements of words that may plant a seed for words that follow in subsequent lines and stanzas. Allow slant rhymes, consonance, assonance, alliteration, internal rhymes, etc. to guide you as you bring the poem together.
- Create a title that helps direct the reader.
V. Scaffolding Poetry Activity
 After reading Cornelius Eady’s “Crows in a Strong Wind,” go through the poem and cross out all nouns, adjectives and main verbs. You may leave the pronouns and helping verbs. Next, rewrite the poem using your own nouns, adjectives and verbs.
2014 Poster! Hot off the presses!
Check out the beautiful poster for the 2014 Literary Arts Festival, designed by City Tech student Mandy Mei! Download a copy of the 2014 Literary Arts Festival poster for yourself, or to share with others!
Reading Cornelius Eady
Want to get acquainted with Cornelius Eady’s writing before the Literary Arts Festival on April 10th? Check out some of his poems online!
From Poets.org
The Gardenia
From the Poetry Foundation
Charlie Chaplin Impersonates a Poet
A Small Moment
Crows in a Strong Wind
The Empty Dance Shoes
From Poetry Out Loud
I’m a Fool to Love You
These are also great sites to explore to satisfy all of your poetry needs. Don’t be shy–browse around!