ELA A30

Canadian Poetry Student Handout

Major Themes in Canadian Poetry

1. Environment and Nature:

a. man in conflict with nature
b. romanticizing the beauty of nature

2. Patriotism:
a. a new country needed to establish a national pride and an identity

3. Religion:
a. the new land was a collecting society for various religions
b. conflict and learning takes place

4. Art:
a. Self expression through the visual arts

5. Personal Relationships:
a. Isolation created an appreciation for friendship

6. Love:
a. As in all cultures, Canadian poets write about love between men and women and the
emotions associated with this love

7. Death:
a. Death is dealt with in various ways in Canadian poetry
b. Death is sometimes personified
c. Some poets see death as a final event which makes us more aware of life
d. Death is often depicted as the Mother of Beauty
 Introduction to Poetry
Characteristics of Poems
*Concise - They are usually shorter than prose, so words must be carefully chosen and used.
*Express strong thoughts or emotions
*Are not bound by regular conventions of writing - Punctuation, capitalization, indentation, sentence
structure, etc.
*Some types of poems have rules of structure - sonnet, limerick, ballad, etc.
*A "paragraph" in a poem is called a "stanza".
*Often rely on figurative language to communicate thoughts and emotions - Figurative language is the
contrast to literal language.
*Often make use of rhythm and rhyme.

Understanding Poetry
Read Slowly. Drift with the flow of the poet’s pace.

Read Aloud. Let the poet speak to you with the inflection and tone of your own voice. Listen to
yourself.

Read Kindly. Try to get the words to rhyme, the meter to beat and the emotions to emerge. Read in
the way you would like that poet to read your work.

Read with an Open Mind. If you feel inclined to disagree with the poet, remember that you have to
understand exactly what you disagree with in order to refute it. Don’t “paddle upstream” trying to get
the poet to say what you would say or the way you would say it. Remember that this poem has already
been written. You can’t change it. If you disagree with it write your own poem. Remember that you
can appreciate the expression even when you disagree with the thought.

Reread, Several Times. Be patient.

LITERARY DEVICES and FIGURES OF SPEECH

Alliteration - the repetition of an initial (beginning) sound in a series of consecutive or neighbouring
words.  
EXAMPLE: The boy bounced the basketball backwards.

Allusion - a reference in literature to something the writer expects us to know (historical, biblical,

mythological, etc.)
EXAMPLE: Was the ticking package, wrapped with ribbon and bright paper, a Trojan gift?

Assonance – repetition of vowel sounds usually accompanied by unlike consonant sounds

EXAMPLE: Sounding like an overtone, from some lonely world unknown.

Euphemism - a term substituted for one which may be harsh or offensive, to make it less harsh.
EXAMPLE: Passed away – died

Hyperbole – an extreme or clearly intended exaggeration; a conscious overstatement to create a desired

effect.
EXAMPLE: His mind was a million miles away

Imagery - the use of descriptive, picture-making words to create mental pictures. - Visual – seeing,
Auditory – hearing, Gustatory – taste, Olfactory – smell, Tactile – touch, Kinesthetic – sensation of
movement, balance or muscular tension

Irony – a mode of expression in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is stated, often
implying ridicule or light sarcasm; when what happens is opposite to what is expected. EXAMPLE: Do
not weep maiden, as war is kind.

Metaphor - A direct comparison of two things without the use of “like” or “as”.
EXAMPLE: Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.

Onomatopoeia - a word that imitates a sound and suggests meaning. EXAMPLE: Bang, Pow, Swoosh
EXAMPLE: The car hissed by on the wet street.

Oxymoron – a term consisting of contradictory elements juxtaposed to create a paradoxical effect.

EXAMPLE: loud silence, jumbo shrimp

Personification – when concrete objects such as things, places or animals take on human characteristics
-- attributes of form, character, feelings, behavior, and so on. Ideas and abstractions can also be
personified. EXAMPLE: The wind whistled outside my door. OR The city was asleep as they drove
through the dark streets.

Pun – A humourous play on words, using similar sounding or identical words to suggest different
meanings. EXAMPLE: I just fille dup my car with gas – that’s what I call being tankful!
Repetition - duplication of words, lines, or stanzas to achieve an effect. EXAMPLE: Somewhere ages
and ages hence.

Satire – A style used to poke fun at, attack or ridicule an idea, vice, or foible, often for the purpose of
inducing change

Simile - a direct comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as". EXAMPLE: She ran like the
wind.

Symbol – a person, place or thing used to represent a greater truth. EXAMPLE: Dove – peace
 Poetic Terminology

Stanza – a group of lines of poetry arranged according to a fixed plan. Usually contain the same number
of lines, meter, and rhyme scheme. Simply put – it is a paragraph of poetry.

Common Stanza forms:

- Couplet – 2 lines

- Triplets or tercets – 3 lines

- Quatrains – four lines

- Sestet – six lines

- Octave – eight lines

Denotation: The literal meaning of a word—the meaning you would find in a dictionary.

Connotation: The emotional meaning of a word—the deeper meaning a word is being used to
represent. For example, “house” and “home” are literally very similar, but their connotations are very
different. A house is just a building, while a home is the place you belong and where your family is.
“Home” has a different emotional effect than “house” does.

Pathos: that element in literature that stimulates pity or sorrow

Tone: The author’s attitude toward the subject being written about. The tone is the characteristic
emotion that pervades a work or part of a work – the spirit or quality that is the work’s emotional
essence

Types of Poetry
Narrative Poetry – the poem tells a story (has setting, characters, plot, resolution, and a strong theme)

1) Ballad – a narrative poem with a song-like form that usually tells a love story, historical
event, or heroic tale. Lengthy. Usually told in third person. Discusses a single incident.
2) Legend – Long narrative poem used to explain the existence of something. Usually based
on real people or places. Has a mythical quality.

Lyrical Poetry – a form of poetry that expresses powerful emotions and personal feelings
1) Free Verse – a form of modern poem that does not follow a set rhythm
2) Sonnet – a fourteen line poem that usually follows a set rhyme scheme and rhythm. Two
popular forms
a. Shakespearean Sonnet – 14 lines made up of 3 quatrains and 1 couplet; thyme
scheme abab cdcd efef gg
b. Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet – 14 lines made up of 1 octave and 1 sestet
3) Ode – a poem dedicated to praising the value or virtue of something
4) Elegy – a poem that laments the loss of someone or something
 5) Haiku – Japanese poetic form that consists of three lines and a total of 17 syllables, 5 7 5.
Focuses on nature. Often captures a moment in time/nature.
6) Limerick – a kind of humourous verse of five lines, in which the first, second, and fifth lines
rhyme with each other, and the third and fourth lines, which are shorter, form a rhymed
couplet.
7) Concrete – a poem whose shape or visual appearance contributes to its meaning
8) Descriptive Poetry – uses memorable descriptions to appeal directly to our senses. These
poems engage our minds, hearts and imaginations
9) Villanelle – A French verse form calculated to appear simple and spontaneous but
consisting of nineteen lines and a prescribed pattern of rhymes
10) Light Verse – a variety of poetry meant to entertain or amuse, but sometimes with a
satirical thrust

Types of Rhyme
Rhyme – the repetition of the same sound in different words

Rhyme Scheme – the pattern of end rhymes used in a poem. Usually indicated by letters (eg. Abba,
bcbc, de,de)

End Rhyme – rhyme that occurs at the end of lines

Ex. A speak that would have been beneath my sight

On any but a paper sheet so white

Internal rhyme – the rhyming or two or more words within a single line of poetry

Ex. The deep cut, rough and angles seeped into his grin.

Exact rhyme — also called a full rhyme, perfect rhyme, or true rhyme — is when the later part of the
word or phrase is identical sounding to another

Imperfect rhyme - rhyme in which either the vowels or the consonants of stressed syllables are
identical, as in eyes, light; years, yours.

Also called half rhyme, slant rhyme, near rhyme

Rhyming couplet: Two successive lines of poetry that will rhyme and commonly have the same meter
(open – cannot stand alone; closed – can stand on its own)

Words to know about Rhythm

Rhythm – the pattern of beats (accented and unaccented, or stressed and unstressed syllables) in a line
of a poem. Rhythm is usually created through repetition of a particular pattern, and gives many poems a
musical quality.

Foot (plural feet) – a group of syllables forming a metrical unit; contains one stressed syllable and one
or two unstressed syllables; a long diagonal ( / ) is used to show the end of each foot
Poetic metre – the rhythmic structure of the poem – the way it sounds when read aloud. The
rhythmical pattern resulting from the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables; several syllables
are linked together in groups called feet; a line of poetry is usually made up of several feet.

Blank verse: Blank verse is a form of poetry that does not rhyme, but has a regular meter. Each line has
the same (or close to the same) rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables and words. A popular meter
used in blank verse is iambic pentameter.

Iambic pentameter: A specific poetic meter. A line of iambic pentameter has exactly ten syllables, and
the first syllable is unstressed. The line follows this pattern: unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed,
etc. Here is an example by Shakespeare, with the stressed syllables in bold: “Shall I compare thee to a
summer’s day?”

Common metres

Monometre – 1 foot/line Tetrametre – 4 feet/line Octametre – 8 feet/line

Dimetre – 2 feet/line Pentametre – 5 feet/line
Trimetre – 3 feet /line Hexametre – 6 feet/line

Common Rhythmical Patterns

Iamb (Iambic foot) u / - unstressed stresses pattern
u / u / u / u / u / u /
Ex. I can I’ll on / ly stop / to rake/ the leaves / away

Trochee (Trochaic Foot) / u – stressed unstressed pattern

/ u / u / u / u
Ex. Happy sing a / song of / six pence

Spondaic – all stressed

/ / / / / /
Ex. Slow Spon/dee stalks;/ strong foot
“I'm a Canadian “by Duke Redbird

I’m a lobster fisherman in Newfoundland

Pay attention to how
I’m a clambake in P.E.I. the lines are written.
I’m a picnic, I’m a banquet Take note of whether
I’m mother’s homemade pie or not words rhyme,
and think about the
over-all impressions
I’m a few drafts in a Legion hall in Fredericton you have while
I’m a kite-flyer in Moncton reading.
I’m a nap on the porch after a hard day’s work is done

I’m a snowball fight in Truro, Nova Scotia

I’m small kids playing jacks and skipping rope
I’m a mother who lost a son in the last Great War
And I’m a bride with a brand new ring
And a chest of hope

I’m an Easterner
I’m a Westerner
I’m from the North
And I’m from the South
I’ve swam in two big oceans
And I’ve loved them both.

I'm a clown in Quebec during carnival

I'm a mass in the cathedral of St. Paul
I'm a hockey game in the forum
I'm Rocket Richard and Jean Beliveau

I'm a coach for little league Expos

Do you pause during
I'm a babysitter for sleep defying rascals reading to visualize an
I'm a canoe trip down the Ottawa image from the poem?
I'm a holiday on the Trent
I'm a mortgage, I'm a loan
I’m last week’s unpaid rent

I’m Yorkville after dark

I’m a walk in the park
I’m a Winnipeg gold-eye
I’m a hand-made trout fly
I’m a wheat-field and a sunset
Under a prairie-sky

I’m Sir John A. MacDonald

I’m Alexander Graham Bell
I’m a pow-wow dancer
And I’m Louis Riel

I’m the Calgary Stampede

I’m a feathered Sarcee
I’m Edmonton at night
I’m a bar-room fight

I’m a rigger, I’m a cat

I’m a ten-gallon hat
And an unnamed mountain in the interior of B.C.
I’m a maple tree and a totem pole
I’m sunshine showers
And fresh-cut flowers

I’m a ferry boat ride to the IslandI’m the Yukon

I’m the Northwest Territories
I’m the Arctic Ocean and the Beaufort Sea
I’m the Prairies, I’m the Great Lakes
I’m the Rockies, I’m the Laurentians

I am French
I am English
And I'm Métis
But more than this
Above all this
I am Canadian and proud to be free.

Comprehension and Reflection

1. What is the poet attempting to do by repeating the phrase, I'm a.... ? What significance do these
words have?
2. Is this a complete and accurate view of Canada? Why or why not?

3. Duke Redbird is Ojibway and was born on the Saugeen Reserve near Owen Sound, Ontario. Why
does he then identify himself with other people and things in his poem?

4. What is the poet's overall message in the poem?

“The Lonely Land”

--A.J.M. Smith
  
Cedar and jagged fir
uplift sharp barbs
against the gray
and cloud-piled sky;
and in the bay
blown spume and windrift
and thin, bitter spray
snap
at the whirling sky;
and the pine trees
lean one way.
 
A wild duck calls
to her mate,
and ragged
and passionate tones
stagger and fall,
and recover,
and stagger and fall,
on these stones -
are lost
in the lapping of water
 
This is a beauty
of dissonance,
this resonance
of stony strand,
this smoky cry
curled over a black pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pines
and curdles the sky
from the north.
 
This is the beauty
of strength
broken by strength
and still strong

”The Lonely Land” – Smith Name: ________________________________

Poets use various literary techniques to convey their ideas and feelings. These techniques include the
choice of speaker (the poet or character or thing created by the poet which acts as the voice of the
poem), form (free verse, sonnet, ...), sound devices (rhythm, rhyme, onomatopoeia, alliteration,
consonance, assonance), imagery, and figurative language. Although images can appeal to any of the
five senses - sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch - the majority of images are visual, stimulating
pictures in the reader’s mind.

As you read the poem, record the images and your impressions on the poem.

Study Guide

1. What thoughts and feelings about Canada and the land does this poem elicit?

2. What is the predominant quality that Smith has presented in this ”lonely land”?

3. What mood of nature do the words of the poem describe?

4. How do the verbs and images in the first two stanzas contribute to the impression of strength?

5. What does Smith mean in the following lines:

There is the beauty

of strength
broken by strength

and still strong?

6. What does he mean by ”a beauty of dissonance”?

7. What qualities of ”human” character does the poem define in terms of the landscape? Is this truly
Canadian? To what extent, if at all, does the statement in the last stanza apply to Canada or the majority
of Canadians?

A Critical Response

1. Is Canada really a ”lonely land”?

2. What might be more successful in creating a statement on Canada?

3. Consider the use of imagery in the poem. How would the impact of this poem be different if the poet
directly stated his position on the subject?
“The Provinces” – A.M. Klein Name : _________________________________

Pre-Reading
Klein describes the physical feature of nine of the ten provinces of Canada. He then attempts to find the
ties that bind the province together as a nation. After describing the vigor, strength, and resources of six
of the ten provinces, the poet seeks for the ties that bind all the provinces together into one nation. He
wonders if they are to be found in the history, languages, geography, romantic association, and forest
wealth of our land.

As you read the poem, consider and answer the following:

1. What is Klein’s conclusion about how the provinces are bound?

2. In what order are the provinces described?

During Reading
As you read the poem, annotate the elements of poetry and the figurative language used by the poet,
A.M. Klein. Read the poem several times to ensure understanding and application of the TP-CASTT
method.

The Provinces A.M. Klein

First, the two older ones, the bunkhouse brawnymen,

Biceps and chest, lumbering over their legend;
scooping a river up in the palm of the hand,
a dangling fish, alive; kicking open a mine;
bashing a forest bald; spitting a country to crop;
for exercise before their boar breakfast,
building a city; racing, to keep in shape,
against the white-sweatered wind; and always
bragging comparisons, and reminiscing
about their father’s even more mythic prowess,
arguing always, like puffing champions rising
from wrestling on the green.
Then, the three flat-faced blond-haired husky ones.
And the little girl, so beautiful she was named –
to avert the evil of the evil eye –
after a prince, not princess. In crossed arms cradling her,
her brothers, tanned and long-limbed.
(Great fishermen, hauling out of Atlantic
their catch and their coal
and netting with appleblossom the shoals of their sky.)

And, last, as if of another birth,

the hunchback with the poet’s face ; and eyes
blue as the grass he looks upon; and fruit
his fragrant knuckles and joints; of iron marrow: --
affecting always a green habit, touched with white.

Nine of them not counting

the adopted boy of the golden complex, not
the proud collateral albino, -- nine,
a sorcery of numbers, a game’s stances.

But the heart seeks one, the heart, and also the mind
seeks single the thing that makes them one, if one.
Yet where shall one find it? In their history –
the cairn of cannonball on the public square?
Their talk, their jealous double-talk? Or in
the whim and weather of a geography
curling in drift about the forty-ninth?
Or find it in the repute of character:
romantic as mounties? Or discover it
in beliefs that say:
this is a country of Christmas trees?

Or hear it sing
from the house with towers, from whose towers ring
bells, and the carillon of laws?
Where shall one find it? What
to name it, that is sought?
The ladder the nine brothers hold by rungs?
The birds that shine on each other? The white water
that foams from the ivy entering their eaves?

Or find it, find it, find it commonplace

but effective, valid, real, the unity
in the family feature, the not unsimilar face?
A method of analyzing poetry is the TP-CASTT method of analysis. The following is a breakdown of this
method:

Ponder the title before reading the poem.

Title

Paraphrase
Paraphrase (Translate) the poem into your own words.

Connotativ Contemplate the poem for meaning beyond the literal level – connotative:
figurative language and devices.

 Address the meaning, the effect, or both of a poem. Consider: imagery,

figurative language (speech, sound, repetition, and metaplasmic)
symbolism, diction, point of view, rhythm, and rhyme)

Attitude Identify the subject. Note the author/poet tone and attitude.

Shift Note shifts in the speaker’s attitude.

Shift Hints
o Key words (but, yet, however, although)
o Punctuation (dashes, periods, colons, ellipsis) Is there a shift
o Stanza division in time, tone
o Changes in line or stanza length or both or speaker?
o Irony (sometimes irony hides shifts)
o Effect of structure on meaning
o Changes in sound (rhyme) may indicate changes in meaning
o Changes in diction (slang to formal language)

Title Examine the title again, this time on an interpretive level.

Theme Determine the overall theme.

After Reading
1. What are the dominant impressions of each province? Are these descriptions accurate?
Complete?

2. How does Klein use figurative language to help convey his message? Provide examples from the
poem.

3. Why does each of the following Canadian feature fail to become a dominate factor in the
Canadian Identity?
a) geography

b) history

c) bilingualism

d) the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

e) Christmas trees

f) the Federal Government

4. Why is the last stanza a fitting conclusion to the poem?

5. What is the theme of the poem?

“Between Two Furious Oceans”
Dick Diespecker

You have asked me an enormous question …

You have asked me, “What am I?”
Now I must tell you, the vast you
That straddles the vital earth between
Two furious oceans; you whose limbs
Are strong, whose blood is rich with power…
You are the quiet bays and the lonely shadows of the firs;
The vast green acres blanketing the wide Alberni hills,
Hemlock and cedar and spruce … proud with everlasting green;
Cold blue glaciers, spilling their life into roaring Atlin creeks;
Meadows in the clouds and valleys mute with solitude;
Sun-bright arbutus islands of the Gulf of Georgia; oaks
Golden broom and meadow larks; the mournful cry of gulls.
You are the Rocky Mountains, white with snow of centuries,
Eternal rocks that rise in columned ranks to meet the dawn,
The sunset and the frigid moon; you are the canyon walls,
Loud with ferocious rivers, and the still, imperious lakes,
Cobalt and sapphire, emerald and violet, and under the starlight, black
With the secrets of the western night; you are the mountain goat,
Poised, majestic and alone upon the barren crag,
And below, deep woods, blue grouse and grizzlies and the sombre moose.
You are the reckless foothills clambering down the eastern slopes;
The winding Bow, the dusty Badlands and the Sweetgrass buttes;
The flat immenseness of the prairies, blue with unbounded space.
You are the heaving lakes, the rolling, green-jacketed hills
Of Stormont and Dundas, roaring Niagra and the swift
Cold current of the Ottawa, hedged with silver birch;
The stately St.Lawrence and the rugged hills that stretch into the vast
And friendless wilderness of Porcupine and Kirkland Lake.
You are the dainty meadows and the lazy dappled streams
Of Joliette; the cool whisper of Laurentian breezes;
The river willows and the gracious elms; chipmunk and beaver
And the antlered deer; the green windswept curve of Gaspe’ loin,
It’s sanded coves, white capes and beaches, and their curling waves.
You are the maple groves that undulate, mile upon mile,
Over the wave-like hills of the Maritimes, mantling them
With rich green in the summer, kindling them with a million fires,
Blazing with consuming crimson golden lights with beacon flames
To proclaim the season’s death when crackling autumn days explode,
Leaving them black and naked in the waning year, tracing
Their lonely fingers against the leaden sky and the forbidding
ocean.
1. How appropriate is the poet’s description of each Canadian region?

2. Is the poet concerned with comparisons and contrasts in the Canadian landscape?

3. What are the differences in regions and their landscapes that the poet has chosen to
highlight?

4. Has the poet missed any regions?

5. What regions of Canada does the poet give specific detail?