Our latest unit in Humanities 10 was poetry. I attempted a wordplay in the title in reference to my favorite poet Edgar Allen Poe. (I had to include my favorite poem by him below, it’s just too good of an opportunity).

 One of first assignments was a reflection on wether or not we were fans of poetry. I can tell you that I most definitely am. I already quite enjoyed poetry but I have gained a new sense of appreciation for it because of this unit. Did you know that songs can be considered poetry? Just a fun fact. 

The ultimate goal of this project was to present a collection of poems on a topic of our choice. My group members were Amelia R., Lucy and Lennart. Our topic was: “How our understanding of poetry has helped us understand changing views on addiction.” You can watch a video of our presentation below: 

Our Presentation: Addiction Through Poetry

Before we could present we needed to understand the mechanics of poetry. To do that we learnt the different terms of poetry and were each assigned a couple to make posters for. You can see those right here. 

My terms were assonance and tone. Tone was a very confusing one because it is similar to a lot of other poetry terms. Ultimately the tone is the message of the author and the mood in which they convey the message. 

After we learnt what those terms meant, we had a *little* test. I won’t disclose my grade but I didn’t fail. It was very helpful to learn this terms because it helped me achieve a deeper understanding of how to structure poems, what rhyme schemes were and all of that. 

Once we had learnt the technical side of poetry we were grouped and chose our topics, as you know my group chose addiction (props to Lennart it was his idea). We had to collect a variety of poems from different sources and different time periods. I have assembled a short slideshow below with the poems we chose. 

Before presenting we decided to choose very specific outfits, we all wore black with one article of clothing that was colorful, this represent Lennart’s poem called “Sunshine After the Rain”. It was to represent a rainbow that would occur after the rain, to symbolize recovery. 

But before we could present, we had to write our own poem as a group. Lucy and myself wrote a poem where each stanza represented a different stage of addiction and how society has changed its view on addiction. 

I would say I am quite proud of this poem, because I have never really put that much of my own thoughts in a poem before. In this unit, not only did I learn how to write poetry and the different components, I learnt how to express my thoughts in poetry. I have known people who were suffering from addiction and I am proud that I can help share their message through poetry. 

This experience proved to me that poetry is indeed a powerful tool and can be a unifying language.