Vacation assignment

Read the first story from The Interpreter of Maladies ("A Temporary Matter"). You needn't write anything, but be prepared to discuss, especially in terms of the themes of this course.

Poetry Explication

In 400 - 600 words, write an explication of your assigned poem. What is Walcott saying and how is he saying it? You needn't include all of the elements on your chart, but you do need to discuss:
*occasion for the poem/content genre
*mood, tone, diction --> how do words Walcott uses create feeling and/or meaning
*images, metaphors
*specific lines
*structure --> how does the poem differ from beginning to middle to end?
Link all of these to larger themes of the poem. Meaning includes the complex of feelings and ideas.

Group 4: The Season of Phantasmal Peace

Discuss this poem using terms from the Poetry Primer handout. You needn't write about the entire poem, but choose an image or a rhythm device, et al. that catches your interest. Maybe find a challenging line or stanza and propose interpretations. Look up unfamiliar references and words. Be sure to read other students' responses to avoid repetition.

Group 2: The Sea is History

Discuss this poem using terms from the Poetry Primer handout. You needn't write about the entire poem, but choose an image or a rhythm device, et al. that catches your interest. Maybe find a challenging line or stanza and propose interpretations. Look up unfamiliar references and words. Be sure to read other students' responses to avoid repetition.

Group 3: The Gulf

Discuss this poem using terms from the Poetry Primer handout. You needn't write about the entire poem, but choose an image or a rhythm device, et al. that catches your interest. Maybe find a challenging line or stanza and propose interpretations. Look up unfamiliar references and words. Be sure to read other students' responses to avoid repetition.

Group 1: Ruins of a Great House

Discuss this poem using terms from the Poetry Primer handout. You needn't write about the entire poem, but choose an image or a rhythm device, et al. that catches your interest. Maybe find a challenging line or stanza and propose interpretations. Look up unfamiliar references and words. Be sure to read other students' responses to avoid repetition.

Here is the Donne reference: John Donne, poet 1572 - 1631

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this begging of misery or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it and made fit for God by that affliction.

From Donne's Meditations: "Devotion"