English II—CCP—

Unit: Poetry Everywhere!

Date: November 9, 2009
Essential Question: What is the TP-CASTT Strategy, and how can it be
helpful to me?

Objective: SWBAT:
Analyze the stylistic elements (figurative language, imagery, tone, word
choice) in a text that communicate the author’s purpose

Warm-Up: Complete your sentence combining activity

HW/Agenda:
Work on projects
Read up to chapter 5—discussion tomorrow
 Poetry Everywhere!—Young
TP-CASTT Method
T-Title—”Aunties”

P-Paraphrase

C-Connotation

A-Attitude

S-Shifts

T-Tone

T-Theme
 TP-CASTT
What is TP-CASTT??
•TPCASTT is an acronym of steps used to analyze poetry.
•The results of TPCASTT can be used to write an essay.

Strategy:

TITLE—Examine the title before reading the poem. Consider all

possible meanings or connotations; write down synonyms for key
words.
PARAPHRASE—Translate the poem line by line into your own words
(literal/denotation). Stop at sentences rather than just the ends of lines
(some authors use enjambment vs. end-stopped lines). Resist the urge
to jump to interpretation; just write what happens literally at this
point.
 TP-CASTT
CONNOTATION—Examine the poem for meaning beyond the literal level.

Look for: Diction (formal/informal, positive/negative word choices)

Imagery
Figurative language (symbols, metaphor, simile, personification)
Irony—paradox, understatement, hyperbole (exaggeration), oxymoron
Effect of sound devices (alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhythm, rhyme)

ATTITUDE—tone; Examine both the speaker’s and the poet’s attitudes. Remember, don’t
confuse the author with the person that he or she creates in the poem.

Look for: Speaker’s attitude toward self, other characters, and the subject of the poem
Attitudes of characters other than the poem’s speaker
Poet’s attitude toward speaker, other characters, subject, and finally, toward
the reader
 TP-CASTT
SHIFTS—Note shifts in speaker (or point of view), attitudes (tone), or mood

Look for: Occasion of poem (time and place)

Key words (e.g. but, yet, although, for)
Punctuation (dashes, periods, colons. . .)
Stanza divisions
Changes in line and/or stanza length

TITLE—Examine the title again, this time on an interpretative level. What does
it mean and how does it relate to or deepen your understanding of the poem's
content?

THEME—First list what the poem is about (subject or subjects); then determine
what the poet is saying about each of those subjects (theme). Remember, the
theme must be expressed as a complete sentence.
 Yusef Komunyakaa
1947-present
 Komunyakaa was born James Willie Brown Jr.,
the oldest of five children and son of a
carpenter, in 1947.
 He later reclaimed the name Komunyakaa that
his great grandparents, stowaways in a ship
from Trinidad, had abandoned. He grew up in
the small town of Bogalusa, Louisiana, before
and during the Civil Rights Era, and served in
the army from 1965 to 1967, doing a tour of
duty in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
 Komunyakaa acted as an information
specialist and editor for the military paper,
Southern Cross, covering major actions,
interviewing fellow soldiers, and publishing
articles on Vietnamese history and literature,
which earned him a Bronze Star.
 He began writing poetry in 1973 and obtained
his B.A. from the University of Colorado,
Colorado Springs in 1975, his M.A. in Creative
Writing from Colorado State University in
1978, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from
the University of California, Irvine in 1980.
 Yusef Komunyakaa

 Yusef Komunyakaa is
currently a professor in
the Creative Writing
Program at New York
University.
 Yusef Komunyakaa’s
Works
 Dedications and Other Darkhorses, R.M.C.A.J.
Books ,1977
 Lost in the Bone Wheel Factory, Lynx House,
1979
 Copacetic,Wesleyan, 1984
 I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head, Wesleyan,
1986
 Toys in a Field, Black River Press, 1986
 Dien Cai Dau, (“Crazy” used by Vietnamese
Soldiers to describe American soldiers fighting
in Vietnam) Wesleyan, 1988
 Magic City, Wesleyan, 1992
 Neon Vernacular, Wesleyan, 1993
 Thieves of Paradise,Wesleyan, 1998
 Pleasure Dome, Wesleyan, 2001
 Talking Dirty to the Gods, Farrar Straus Giraux,
2001
 Taboo, Farrar Straus Giraux, 2004
 Gilgamesh,Wesleyan University Press, 2006

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90yxqlVrLP8 (link for

Komunyakaa)
 Poetry Everywhere!—Komunyakaa
TP-CASTT Method
T-Title—“Facing It” implies that the speaker must face something difficult, but readers
soon find out that he would rather turn his face away from or avoid his past.
P-Paraphrase –The speaker visits the Vietnam Memorial with the hopes of facing his
experiences in the war and mourning the deaths and darkness that he has experienced.
The speaker hopes to be brave and face his past; however, he struggles and has a hard
time moving on with his life.
C-Connotation—”the light”—a bright source that contrasts with dark stone—also refers to
Komunyakaa’s symbolization of the dependence blacks had on the whites in power
during the Vietnam War and Civil Rights Era
A-Attitude—avoidance and frustration–to remembrance—back to avoidance

S-Shifts—lines (observe how the speaker becomes a doppelganger– “A ghostly double of

a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshly counterpart”—note these shifts)

T-Tone—frustration (also see “attitude”—”I turn this way—the stone lets me go. I turn
that way—I’m inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light to
make a difference.”
T-Theme—. How can we incorporate painful memories into our lives without letting those
memories destroy us??? How do we face our pasts so we can move on with our futures?
 Literary Devices
Allusion: Andrew Johnson—not a fellow soldier, this is a direct historical
allusion to the impact of Post-Civil War President Andrew Johnson.
Johnson did little to aid freed African-Americans and installed black
government officials who were intimidated by supremacist and terrorist
groups. This frustration is again emphasized in “Facing It” as African-
Americans faced inequalities at the time of the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
Imagery: light and dark/black and white—stark contrasts
“Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse” (as if they erase the
names from the granite)
“black mirror”—granite memorial—speaker can see his own face
Juxtaposition: “the profile of night slanted against morning”
Metaphors: “I’m a window” “I’m stone”
Personification: “—the stone lets me go”
Simile: “My clouded reflection eyes me/like a bird of prey”
Alliteration: “face fades”
 Kevin Young
1970--present
 Kevin Young (born 8 November 1970) is
an American poet who is heavily
influenced by the poet Langston Hughes
and the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
 Young graduated from Harvard College
in 1992, was a Stegner Fellow at
Stanford University (1992-1994), and
received his M.F.A from Brown
University. While in Boston and
Providence, he was part of the African-
American poetry group, The Dark Room
Collective.
 Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Young is the
author of Most Way Home, To Repel
Ghosts, Jelly Roll, Black Maria, For The
Confederate Dead, Dear Darkness, and
editor of Giant Steps: The New Generation
of African American Writers, Blues Poems,
Jazz Poems, and John Berryman's
Selected Poems.
 Kevin Young
 His 2003 book of poems, Jelly
Roll, was a finalist for the
National Book Award.
 After stints at the University
of Georgia and Indiana
University, Young now
teaches writing at Emory
University, where he is the
Atticus Haygood Professor of
English and Creative Writing,
as well as the curator of the
Raymond Danowski Poetry
Library, a large collection of
first and rare editions of
poetry in English.
 Kevin Young’s Works
 Most Way Home: Poems. Zoland Books,
1998.
 To Repel Ghosts: Five Sides in B Minor.
Zoland Books, 2002.
 Jelly Roll: A Blues. Knopf, 2003.
 Blues Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket
Poets). Everyman's Library, 2003. (Editor)
 John Berryman: Selected Poems. Library of
America, 2004. (Editor)
 Black Maria: Poems Produced and Directed
by. Knopf, 2005.
 Jazz Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket
Poets. Everyman's Library, 2006. (Editor)
 For the Confederate Dead. Knopf, 2007.
 Dear Darkness: Poems. Knopf, 2008.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBIDW
RVdJWc (link for Young)
 Works Cited

www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komunyakaa/biog
raphy.php
www.washburn.edu/reference/cks/mapping/yo
ung/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90yxqlVrLP
8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBIDWRVdJW
c