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Day 5 Regular Verse
Regular verse is poetry that has both rhythm
and rhyme, usually in a recognizable pattern that may indicate
a particular kind of regular verse -- ballad, sonnet, villanelle,
etc. Even when the verse form is unique to the poem, the regularity
of its pattern clearly distinguishes this traditional style poem.
The following poem, with its seven-line
stanzas, does not fall into a particular type, but its basic
rhyme pattern of a b a a b c c is repeated in each stanza. Each
stanza also opens and closes with the same line. Predominantly
iambic, it alternates lines of eight and ten syllables.
Effective metaphors resonate. The Carnegie
Canada Community Center had a website called “Surviving with Grace” that showcased cancer
survivors’ poems inspired by this one.
Just as this poem inspired Maya Angelou and is honored in the
title of her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,
she in turn influenced the song “Caged Bird” by Alicia
Keys.
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Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
 When the sun is
bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first
bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats its wing
Till its blood
is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still
throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is
bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that
he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings--
I know why the caged bird sings!
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Questions for Class Discussion
- Why is the caged bird unhappy?
- How does the scene depicted in the first
stanza contribute to the bird’s unhappiness?
- Even though each of the stanzas comments
on the same situation, there is a progression in the idea. What
is this progression? What effect does it have?
- The title of the poem, “Sympathy” indicates that the poet has some special bond with the bird and
that the plight of the bird is a metaphor used to express the
poet’s own feeling. Explain this relationship between the poet
and his subject.
Your Turn: In what ways are you a
caged bird? Write an original poem about your own efforts at
self-expression, using this metaphor or another one to unify
your piece.
Listen to a reading of this
poem.
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