Poetry Cafe

Imagine you are in a cafe, sipping a soothing beverage, in preparation for a presentation of one of the following poems: "Combing" by Gladys Cardiff, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth, "Harlem" by Langston Hughes, "'Hope' is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickinson, "Scars" by Daniel Halpern, "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, or "American Hero" by Essex Hemphill.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 9 Unit 4's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Poetry, poemcrazy, Nikki-Rosa, We Real Cool, Fast Break, Identity, Ego Tripping, Hanging Fire, odes, Sonnet 18, In Response to Executive Order 9066, Young, Poetry Cafe, poems by Nikki Giovanni
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. plait
    make by braiding or interlacing
    A simple act,
    Preparing hair. Something
    Women do for each other,
    Plaiting the generations.
  2. sprightly
    full of spirit and vitality
    Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
    Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
  3. jocund
    full of or showing high-spirited merriment
    A poet could not but be gay,
    In such a jocund company
  4. pensive
    deeply or seriously thoughtful
    For oft, when on my couch I lie
    In vacant or in pensive mood
  5. bliss
    a state of extreme happiness
    They flash upon that inward eye
    Which is the bliss of solitude
  6. defer
    hold back to a later time
    What happens to a dream deferred?
  7. fester
    generate pus
    Does it dry up
    like a raisin in the sun?
    Or fester like a sore--
    and then run?
  8. perch
    sit, as on a branch
    "Hope" is the thing with feathers--
    That perches in the soul
  9. gale
    a strong wind moving 34–40 knots
    And sweetest--in the Gale--is heard
  10. abash
    cause to be embarrassed
    And sore must be the storm--
    That could abash the little Bird
    That kept so many warm
  11. extremity
    a condition or state beyond the norm
    Yet, never, in Extremity,
    It asked a crumb--of me.
  12. evoke
    call to mind
    They are the short stories of the flesh,
    can evoke the entire event
  13. endure
    undergo or be subjected to
    They become part of the map marking
    the pain we've had to endure.
  14. ruthless
    without mercy or pity
    If only the heart were so ruthless,
    willing to document what it lived
  15. visage
    the human face
    Near them, on the sand,
    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies
  16. despair
    abandon hope; lose heart
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
  17. colossal
    so great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe
    Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away.
  18. surround
    extend on all sides of simultaneously; encircle
    All my men surround me, panting,
    as I spin the ball above our heads
  19. shimmer
    shine with a weak or fitful light
    It's a shimmering club light
    and I'm dancing, slick in my sweat.
  20. tension
    the physical condition of being stretched or strained
    I let the tension go.
Created on Fri Sep 26 15:22:44 EDT 2014 (updated Fri Sep 26 16:41:34 EDT 2014)

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