That being said, your assignment, due December 1 INSTEAD OF AN ESSAY (don't cry too hard over that lost chance to write another of my fun and exciting essays tests) is to write 100+ lines of poetry in the style of the poet you have chosen to read. This means that if you are reading Practical Cats, you will create 2 or 3 traditional verse, light-hearted poems about some other animal (small and dainty poodles, perhaps) -- or see me if you can think of something better than animals -- that can be personified the way the cats are in Eliot's poems. If you choose Munchausen, you will create 2 or 3 tall-tale episodes in free verse featuring either Munchausen having adventures somewhere besides Europe (put him in the deserts of Utah? Let him fight Maoris in New Zealand?) or else a different adventurer of your own creation. If you read "Ossian," you will create fragmented free verse in the style of MacPherson to show a battle scene from a different culture (perhaps using Native Americans? Or a clash in ancient Israel? Maybe some victims of Ghengis Khan?). If you choose either "Minstrel" or "Mariner," you will need to write one long narrative poem in traditional verse (keeping as close as possible to the meter and rhyme schemes of the originals) that includes supernatural elements and either a battle (for the former) or a journey (for the latter).
All poems should include strong imagery and plenty of simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification, alliteration, assonance, consonance, etc. In 100 lines, you can certainly work in some of everything. I don't expect you to be perfect, but you are all capable of creating your own unique poetry while leaning heavily upon the original poets for style, tone, theme, meter, and rhyme schemes.
PS. If you are wondering why I italicized some names and used quotes on others, it's because some of them are books and the others are individual poems.
