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Chris Carstens's avatar

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

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Classical Wisdom's avatar

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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David Nash's avatar

Love this!

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Zina Gomez-Liss's avatar

Thank you, David!

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Angela Sealana's avatar

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

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Zina Gomez-Liss's avatar

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

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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

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

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Zina Gomez-Liss's avatar

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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Frank Dent's avatar

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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Zina Gomez-Liss's avatar

Oh, this is a great one. Thanks!

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Peggy Earnest's avatar

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

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Zina Gomez-Liss's avatar

I will see what I can do!

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Natalie Curro's avatar

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

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Peggy Earnest's avatar

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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Zina Gomez-Liss's avatar

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

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Jennifer Ulrich's avatar

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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Zina Gomez-Liss's avatar

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

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Jennifer Ulrich's avatar

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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Diane Casavant's avatar

Thank you Zina! A very helpful technique!

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Zina Gomez-Liss's avatar

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

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