Diction, Tone, Voice in Poetry; Portfolio - week 3

After our poetry exercise, please note the following:

• Diction: word choice. (see notes below)
• Tone: the overall effect of the diction in a piece of writing, including the choice of subject, imagery, and design or structure (humorous, pedantic, suspenseful, mysterious, melancholy, pleasant, happy, etc.)
• Voice: the agent speaking in the poem or story
• Persona: the voice or speaker of a poem
• Connotation: the attached or assumed meaning of a word, apart from its dictionary or literal meaning 
• Denotation: the literal meaning of a word 
• Negative Capability: a poet should be open with or empathetic to his/her subject.
• Lyric poem: a short, emotive poem (60 lines or fewer)
• Narrative poem: a poem that tells a story (may have fictional/narrative qualities, such as dialogue, chapter headings, etc.)
• Long poem: lengthy poems that have a central idea, digressions, and multiple perspective (longer than 60 lines)
• Prose poem: often blocky or written as a paragraph or two, this is a short, short story that has poetic language and careful word choice (diction) to create an effect
• Poetic diction: tired, stale language often found in bad poetry (ex. rhyming unnecessarily, using elision, cliché, or inversion, etc.) 
• The cliche: Overused or common idioms used instead of creative writing
• Inversion: Reversing word order in a line of poetry (ex. Yoda speak: "A poem you are reading; Inversion it is.")
• Formal or informational language: overly technical language unsuitable to poetry; usually has a cold, dispassionate, or distant tone
• Syntax: word order in a sentence. May also refer to grammar and punctuation use. In English word order is usually NOUN + VERB + DIRECT OBJECT.

In the lab:

• Type up your poem draft.
• Continue your "Class Notes" story or "Things I Did" draft (see post below for details!)
• Continue writing work you have not yet completed.

At the end of class today, please print ALL new pages you wrote since last week. Check your portfolios if you are not sure what you have already printed out!

Portfolios are due at the end of class today!

HOMEWORK: Read the next few stories in Sudden Fiction: pg. 164-185. Read the handout from Mary Oliver on "Diction, Tone, and Voice"