Week 62: College Reading and Writing: t’ai freedom ford
Week 62: College Reading and Writing: t’ai freedom ford
t’ai freedom ford: Annotating,
Summarizing, Analyzing, Imitating
to annotate: to make notes on something
to help you understand it better
to summarize: to put something in your
own words
to analyze: to consider a question on the
text, providing supporting examples from the text
to imitate: to create an original piece
of writing based on something you have read
Exercise: Read and annotate
1. Read the poem out loud and underline
any words you need to look up
2. Write any questions you have in the
margins or in your notebook
3. Put tricky parts into your own words
in notes in the margins or in your notebook
Exercise: Questions for comprehension of the poem
1. How does rhyme work in this poem?
2. What do you notice about the words?
3. How does the question/answer structure
work?
Exercise: Summarize the poem
Write a paragraph summarizing the poem
with quotations, in-text citation, and a Work Cited Page.
Example too-short summary, incorporating quotation and in-text
citation:
Brenda Hillman’s poem “The Family Sells the
Family Gun” tells the story of siblings getting rid of their father’s gun after
“his ashes...were lying” (87). The speaker questions what it means to own and
get rid of a gun in America, saying, “[w]e couldn’t take it to the cops even in
my handbag” (Hillman 88).
Work Cited Page (for today’s
poem)
freedom ford, t’ai. “Answers.”Poem-a-Day, Poets.org, 2019, https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/answers
Exercise: Analysis
Question for analysis: This poem is about
interrogation. ford says, this poem asks the reader to
“wrangle with
whether they are the question or the questioner or the questioned or the
answer.” Use the clues in
the poem to answer who you are, according to ford? Remember to use quotation and citation as you support your points.
Exercise: Imitation
Write
a question/answer poem about your neighborhood. It can be about your community,
your family, your streets and homes, the politics, cultural or social world.
You are the expert on you. Use elements
from ford’s poem that you admire to make your own story stronger.
Homework:
1. Summary of Poem
2. Analysis of Poem
3. Imitation of Poem
About this class:
Your notebooks belong to you; you can
write first drafts in them, and make notes for yourselves. To turn in homework, revise your work in a
blue book or sheets of paper you can get from your instructor. In this class,
you are welcome to submit homework for a grade. If it’s not strong enough to
earn an A, I’ll give you some comments to help you revise it, and let you do it
over again. You have as many chances as you want to complete and perfect the
work in this class, and you are welcome to do more than one week’s worksheet
for homework at a time; ask me for sheets you’ve missed. Students who complete
15 weeks of graded assignments and a longer paper can qualify for college
credit. When you get close to completing 15 weeks, I’ll help you get started on
your longer paper.
By: t’ai freedom ford
They ask what I believe in—
Sour milk: the curdle & butter of it
Baby’s breath ragged with phlegm
The green sheen clinging to her skin like algae
The bone & teeth of us mossy and alive with DNA
But what’s your religion, they’re after—
What gods do you pray to?
The frilly curtains of her laughter
remodeling alla my pain
Oh, how she adorns this house of mine
So god’s a woman? (hands on they hips)
How water ain’t a woman
the way she make your thirst
her temperamental breasts
& everywhere everything everyone everywhichway—water
Well, who your altars honor?
The ghosts that inhabit us
& all the evidence of them:
double vision—floaters flecking
our periphery when we look away
from the light—all the mouths
at the bottom of our stomach—
Ever wonder why we eat two plates
& still hungry? Or how our anger
multiplies in seconds like a kitchen
of negro roaches? Yes, even the roaches
have melanin black/brown with the spirits
of wayward witches I burn candles
& pour brown liquor out for my bitches
& they glorious golden auras
To what churches do you tithe?
Our Lady of Ladled Magnificence
God of Ghetto Grace Incorporated
Our Mother Who Art in Harlem
House of Regurgitated Resurrections
Have you ever been possessed?
We ain’t never not been owned
not with all that restless bone
sediment at the bottom of the Atlantic
wonder why we frantic with personalities
How we sing with three throats
bending notes weeping willow
What are trees if not spirits
weeping & dancing simultaneous?
How we dipped our nooses in gold
& hung crosses from them
& wore them like shiny portable altars
How is there not a church in our chests?
How our breasts leak gospel truth
How our teeth ache with the blood of Jesus
Who, then, is your muse?
(pointing) ain’t she a muse amusing
a maze amazing amazon
of our dreams prisms that fracture
into auras & auras that fragment dimensions
Isn’t mourning a religion, then?
Like how all these feelings grow
muscles & flex & jerk inside of me
Like how they can’t kill us even when
they hands scream bloody murder
Like how we show up wearing white
just to spite them—spit at the pulpit
of bullshit & Babylon How we eat
bibles for breakfast Leviticus & grits
Our souls sizzling in the skillet like gizzards
Sour milk: the curdle & butter of it
Baby’s breath ragged with phlegm
The green sheen clinging to her skin like algae
The bone & teeth of us mossy and alive with DNA
But what’s your religion, they’re after—
What gods do you pray to?
The frilly curtains of her laughter
remodeling alla my pain
Oh, how she adorns this house of mine
So god’s a woman? (hands on they hips)
How water ain’t a woman
the way she make your thirst
her temperamental breasts
& everywhere everything everyone everywhichway—water
Well, who your altars honor?
The ghosts that inhabit us
& all the evidence of them:
double vision—floaters flecking
our periphery when we look away
from the light—all the mouths
at the bottom of our stomach—
Ever wonder why we eat two plates
& still hungry? Or how our anger
multiplies in seconds like a kitchen
of negro roaches? Yes, even the roaches
have melanin black/brown with the spirits
of wayward witches I burn candles
& pour brown liquor out for my bitches
& they glorious golden auras
To what churches do you tithe?
Our Lady of Ladled Magnificence
God of Ghetto Grace Incorporated
Our Mother Who Art in Harlem
House of Regurgitated Resurrections
Have you ever been possessed?
We ain’t never not been owned
not with all that restless bone
sediment at the bottom of the Atlantic
wonder why we frantic with personalities
How we sing with three throats
bending notes weeping willow
What are trees if not spirits
weeping & dancing simultaneous?
How we dipped our nooses in gold
& hung crosses from them
& wore them like shiny portable altars
How is there not a church in our chests?
How our breasts leak gospel truth
How our teeth ache with the blood of Jesus
Who, then, is your muse?
(pointing) ain’t she a muse amusing
a maze amazing amazon
of our dreams prisms that fracture
into auras & auras that fragment dimensions
Isn’t mourning a religion, then?
Like how all these feelings grow
muscles & flex & jerk inside of me
Like how they can’t kill us even when
they hands scream bloody murder
Like how we show up wearing white
just to spite them—spit at the pulpit
of bullshit & Babylon How we eat
bibles for breakfast Leviticus & grits
Our souls sizzling in the skillet like gizzards
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