Sun Is Burning
“The Sun is Burning Gases (Loss of a Friend)”
Cathleen McFarland
I was young when
17 was a number
Too high to count
The Sun was the miracle
Spinning sorcerer
That melted my crayons
Into bright wax rivers.
A golden-skinned princess lived there
Nightly in my mind,
When stars and moon
Were marginal; connect-the-dots,
Different everytime-
Beyond the realms of man.
Now I’m 17
And even infinity is
A place I can define.
Man has touched the moon –
Now stretching to the stars.
I know the sun is burning gases
My princess long since turned to ashes.
The lyric poem is a poem that captures a moment of joy or sorrow or longing or some other keen emotion. These poems contain four elements: 1) express a single thought or mood 2) are intensely personal, revealing the poet’s own emotions 3) is brief and very compact, a closely knit structure 4) is essentially musical in rhythm and sound
JUXTAPOSITION: in poetry, the act of placing two images side by side that are in contrast to one another.
Theme of “The Sun is Burning Gases’: by appealing to the imagination, this poem symbolically _________________________________.
What ate some of the symbols used in the poem to illustrate this theme?
What images are juxtaposed? Give examples and explain how this is effective in emphasizing the theme of the poem.
“120 Miles North of Winnipeg” by Dale Zieroth
My grandfather came here years ago, family of eight. In the village, nine miles away, they knew him as the German and they were suspicious, being already settled. Later he was somewhat likes, still later forgotten. In winter everything went white as buffalo bones and the underwear froze on the line like corpses. Often the youngest was sick. Still he never thought of leaving. Spring was always greener than he’d known and summer had kid-high grass with sunsets big as God. The wheat was thick, the log house chinked and warm.
The little English he spoke
Cathleen McFarland
I was young when
17 was a number
Too high to count
The Sun was the miracle
Spinning sorcerer
That melted my crayons
Into bright wax rivers.
A golden-skinned princess lived there
Nightly in my mind,
When stars and moon
Were marginal; connect-the-dots,
Different everytime-
Beyond the realms of man.
Now I’m 17
And even infinity is
A place I can define.
Man has touched the moon –
Now stretching to the stars.
I know the sun is burning gases
My princess long since turned to ashes.
The lyric poem is a poem that captures a moment of joy or sorrow or longing or some other keen emotion. These poems contain four elements: 1) express a single thought or mood 2) are intensely personal, revealing the poet’s own emotions 3) is brief and very compact, a closely knit structure 4) is essentially musical in rhythm and sound
JUXTAPOSITION: in poetry, the act of placing two images side by side that are in contrast to one another.
Theme of “The Sun is Burning Gases’: by appealing to the imagination, this poem symbolically _________________________________.
What ate some of the symbols used in the poem to illustrate this theme?
What images are juxtaposed? Give examples and explain how this is effective in emphasizing the theme of the poem.
“120 Miles North of Winnipeg” by Dale Zieroth
My grandfather came here years ago, family of eight. In the village, nine miles away, they knew him as the German and they were suspicious, being already settled. Later he was somewhat likes, still later forgotten. In winter everything went white as buffalo bones and the underwear froze on the line like corpses. Often the youngest was sick. Still he never thought of leaving. Spring was always greener than he’d known and summer had kid-high grass with sunsets big as God. The wheat was thick, the log house chinked and warm.
The little English he spoke