HELP! I need to do a research paper on a poet of my choice, but i do not know many poets.?
suggestions? I am in an AP Literature class (college level class being taken in High School) so i am not allowed to do Dr. Seuss, here. Its going to be a long tedious project so i want to pick someone who has poems that aren’t too difficult to interpret (and explain connections to theme by explianing the author’s literary techniques), and are preferably funny. I like sarcasm. Please help me make a good choice!
If it can be someone still living, I highly advocate for Billy Collins. He was a US Poet Laureate so you’ll have no trouble finding lots of biographical info on him and critical info on his work.
Furthermore, his poems are characterized by their straightforward, conversational style, and should be easy for AP lit student to pick apart. For irony and sarcasm, start with this one, "Introduction to Poetry":
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/001.html
For something more poignant, but still tongue-in-cheek humor, try "Forgetfulness":
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=6482
And to really drive it home, read "The Names," which Collins wrote to commemorate the first anniversary of September 11:
http://www.divinestra.com/names.html
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:42 pm
sylvia plath
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March 2nd, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Try Robert Browning. His poem’s are very good and there is a lot to work with
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March 2nd, 2010 at 9:38 pm
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL5608698M/Famous_American_humorous_poets
Scroll to the bottom – they’re all mentioned there. Personally I’m not familiar with their work so I can’t recommend anyone in particular out of that bunch.
However, as far as anlysis goes I would choose E.E. Cummings for a research paper. He’s a brilliant poet, a lot had been written about him so research shouldn’t be too hard – and his technique is completely unusual. He’s kind of a punctuation bandit and his poems have this anti-structure, you’ll see what I mean when you read his poems. For example: he’ll have the word "crumbling" written like this –
crum
____bling
skipping down to the next line, so it looks like the word itself is crumbling – it’s brilliant.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Edgar Allen Poe. His poems poems are pretty popular and often studied in high schools and colleges. I think The Raven is the most popular of his poems.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 10:35 pm
The poetry of John Betjeman and Ogden Nash is quite humorous.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Shel Silverstein
His poems are short, simple, humorous, funny, yet reach the heart an always point indirectly to something a person is living in life. My favorite poems for him are: "Forgotten Language" and "The girl who never got out the garbage" His poems are really nice, I hope u get a good grade on your project or whatever you’re doing and I hope ull like this poet as much as I do! =D
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Me ;P
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:06 pm
If it can be someone still living, I highly advocate for Billy Collins. He was a US Poet Laureate so you’ll have no trouble finding lots of biographical info on him and critical info on his work.
Furthermore, his poems are characterized by their straightforward, conversational style, and should be easy for AP lit student to pick apart. For irony and sarcasm, start with this one, "Introduction to Poetry":
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/001.html
For something more poignant, but still tongue-in-cheek humor, try "Forgetfulness":
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=6482
And to really drive it home, read "The Names," which Collins wrote to commemorate the first anniversary of September 11:
http://www.divinestra.com/names.html
References :