Self-Assessment: Mood In Poetry
Completion requirements
Self-Assessment Mood In Poetry
Read the following poems and determine the mood. Explain the effect of poet's choice of a particular image and what effect it has on the poem's main idea.
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Deserted Farm Mark Vinz (1942- ) Where the barn stood the empty milking stalls rise up like the skeleton of an ancient sea beast, exiled forever on shores of a prairie. Decaying timber moans softly in twilight the house collapses like a broken prayer. Tomorrow the heavy lilac blossoms will open, higher than the roof beams, reeling in wind. |
- Old barns are often picturesque; however they might create a mood of emptiness, abandonment, and loneliness. For example in "Deserted Farm", the sound of the moaning wind or the sight of the barn reeling in the wind makes one feel isolated.
When it is snowing
the blue jay
is the only piece of
sky
in my backyard
Sive Cedering (1939-2007)When it is snowing
the blue jay
is the only piece of
sky
in my backyard
- In "When it is Snowing", the poet creates a hopeful mood, perhaps, with the burst of blue colour on a snowy canvas of the backyard. The mood could be depressing because everything is winter white, making the blue bird seem lonely.
Spring Storm
the screen door a thunderclap behind him.
Jim Wayne Miller (1936-1996)He comes gusting out of the house,
the screen door a thunderclap behind him.
He moves like a black cloud
over the lawn and---stops.
A hand in his mind grabs
a purple crayon of anger
and messes the clean sky.
He sits on the steps, his eye drawing
a mustache on the face in the tree.
As his weather clears,
his rage dripping away,
wisecracks and wonderment
spring up like dandelions.
- In "Spring Storm", initially the mood is dark and violent. “He comes gusting out of the house, the screen door a thunderclap behind him.” If this was a comic book, imagine a tornado following him. “He moves like a black cloud.” At the end, the mood becomes peaceful and full of laughter: “wisecracks and wonderment”.
Foul Shot
Edwin A. Hoey (1930-2015) |
- In "Foul Shot", the mood in this poem is tense, suspenseful, or anxious: "and then, and then, and then". Consider how long the poet makes the reader wait or expect the basket before he tells whether the player makes the shot.