Poetry challenge
For those, who want to improve memory and English pronunciation.
The best way to learn something is to be consistent. We offer you to learn a small piece of poetry each day to accomplish your first 48 lines. Read the instruction til the end to know all the information.
Concept is simple:
- During the challenge, you have to learn 48 lines (1 - 3 poems). It depends on the length of each poem.
- Challenge duration is 14 days (+-1 day, depends on the length of your set).
- Each day you need to learn the new 4 lines of a poem.
- You can skip 2 days. On the 3rd day skip moderator notifies you that you failed the challenge. You are the one to manage your skips. Notifications about the challenge will be posted on Instagram page of the Speech Club. Consider subscribing.
- Challenge starts in the morning on the 25th of June 2020. Before this time you need to choose the poem and write to the Speech Club support (instruction how to enroll is below).
It is not the rule, but we highly recommend to revise all the previous poem lines each day apart from posting a story with new 4 lines to Instagram.
If you finish the challenge, we will send you 3 cool e-books about public speaking and share your achievement on our media sources.
How to start?
- Choose a set of poems below, or construct your own. The set must contain at least 48 lines in one or three poems.
- Write to the @speech club bot or to the personal messages on Instagram till the midnight 24th of June 2020 and tell what poems you choose for the challenge.
- Challenge starts in the morning on the 25th of June.
- Post the story on Instagram with you telling by heart 4 lines of a poem each day before midnight (24:00). If you post later or do not post at all - this day is considered as a skip.
- The day you learn the last 4 lines of a poem - you need to post the story with you telling full poem by heart. If you learn 2 or 3 small poems, you need to tell 3 poems in a row, the day you learn last 4 lines of the last poem.
Look through the sets we have created for you. There are poems and links to the sources. Also, you can listen to the poem by clicking "Listen here". Before each poem, there is a small story about it. We highly recommend reading the background of a poem before you learn it.
SET 1
STILL I RISE (36 lines)
Author: Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was an African American writer who is most famous for her poems and seven autobiographies. She was a prolific poet who explored numerous themes in her poems including those of women, love, loss, music, struggle, discrimination and racism. Still I Rise directly addresses the white oppressors of black people and responds to centuries of oppression and mistreatment they have suffered. It is the most famous poem of Maya Angelou and it was also her favorite. In 1994, Nelson Mandela recited this poem at his presidential inauguration. Still I Rise is a poem, which recalls the social issues nowadays.
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.
TREES (12 lines)
Author: Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.
SET 2
*This set is 4 lines longer than the average
THE TYGER (24 lines)
Author: William Blake
William Blake is considered a highly influential figure in the history of poetry and one of the greatest British artists. The Tyger is a poem in Blake’s Songs of Experience. It serves as a counterpart to his poem in Songs of Innocence, The Lamb. In The Tyger, the speaker focuses on the subject of creation asking who could have made such a terrifying beast as the tiger. The speaker talks about the fearful features of the tiger and wonders “did he who made the Lamb make thee?“ before he ends the poem with the question with which he began, “What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”. The Tyger, with its strikingly powerful words, serves as a counter to the innocence and tenderness of The Lamb. It is one of the most analysed poems and Cambridge calls it the “the most anthologized poem in English”.
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
JABBERWOCKY (28 lines)
Author: Lewis Carroll
This poem was first published in Through the Looking Glass, an 1871 novel written by Lewis Carroll which was a sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Jabberwocky is a nonsense poem, i.e. a verse which is not supposed to make sense and which is usually whimsical and humorous in tone. Jabberwocky is a masterpiece of linguistic inventiveness with its every stanza containing neologisms or new words. Several of these words coined by Carroll have entered common usage like “chortle” (a blend of chuckle and snort) and “galumph” (meaning to move in a clumsy way). Jabberwocky remains a hugely popular poem and it is perhaps the most famous nonsense poem in English literature.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand; Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
SET 3
PHENOMENAL WOMAN (32 lines)
Author: Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is one of the most influential women of our time. Her writing pulls on the hearts of many readers. In addition to her proliferous writing career, Maya Angelou has been a civil rights activist. This poem shows how even though someone is not beautiful on the outside compared to society's standards, there is an inner beauty that makes a woman even more beautiful.
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies.
I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.
I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees.
I say, It's the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.
Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can't touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them They say they still can't see.
I say, It's in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.
Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud.
I say, It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.
WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS (16 lines)
Author: Shel Silverstein
This actually not a small poem, this is a bestseller book for children by Shel Silverstein. You can check out this book in depth. It is available on amazon.
There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends.
Conclusion
There are lots of poems in English. 3 sets above are not obligatory for the challenge. You can make your own set of 48 lines for the challenge and discuss it with moderators. Here are some links that will help you throughout the process:
http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/top_poems.html
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/guides
Instruction how to mention in Instagram stories https://help.instagram.com/218520165235356
Have a question? We will probably make an online Q&A stream on Instagram on the 24th of June. It will be announced later.
Write to us to take part in the challenge:
Our telegram channel - https://t.me/speech_clubSupport bot - https://t.me/speech_club_bot
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