20 Comments
Jun 23Liked by Zina Gomez-Liss

Zina, just beautifully done. Elegant, humane approach. Chris

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Excellent technique! I just read it out to my daughter and she loves the method. We will try this with our daily poems.

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Jun 21Liked by Zina Gomez-Liss

Love this!

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author

Thank you, David!

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This could have really expedited some college essays 😅 Thank you, Zina!

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author

Well, you can pick up any poem now and use this! This has made my poetry studies significantly easier!

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I love it! What a very helpful mnemonic and technique. Definitely printing this out to share with my own students.

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author

Thank you! This was hastily written so I was thinking that I could elaborate on it a bit and use a poem or two (probably something in the public domain) to illustrate the points. I wonder what would be a good free verse poem that is open to the public?

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Jun 21Liked by Zina Gomez-Liss

Probably any of Whitman’s short poems would work. For example, this one is like a very short story, with a gut punch at the end. Free verse, yet he goosed it with prosodic effects. I like the dramatic sense of inevitability in the trochaic stretch about the blankets. And how he changes the blankets’ color from brown to gray. But for the color, this could be snow he’s describing, like he’s alluding to a common metaphor rather than using it outright.

https://poets.org/poem/sight-camp-daybreak-gray-and-dim

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author

Oh, this is a great one. Thanks!

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Jun 21Liked by Zina Gomez-Liss

Please do!!! I would love to see what you have been up to.

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author

I will see what I can do!

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Jun 21Liked by Zina Gomez-Liss

Thank you for always being willing to teach and share :)

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Jun 20Liked by Zina Gomez-Liss

I love this Zina!!! I will use every bit of this well stated advice (and well learned) when I read poetry. I miss reading yours. Hope school is going well!

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author

I was thinking of updating our WAG document. What do you think? I miss you and Emily!

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Jun 20Liked by Zina Gomez-Liss

I think this is helpful! I read tonight’s poem once earlier today, and this helped bring a few things to the surface even just from that cursory reading.

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author

I am so glad you found this helpful. Wasn’t “Blackberry-Picking” delightful?

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Jun 21Liked by Zina Gomez-Liss

I wasn’t able to join the conversation last night, but I’ve really enjoyed the few of Heaney’s poems that I’ve read (including the Beowulf translation) ❤️

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Jun 20Liked by Zina Gomez-Liss

Thank you Zina! A very helpful technique!

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author

Thank you so much, Diane! (BTW - I need to hear your takeaways from the writers institute at UST!)

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