After finishing the culminating assessment for our unit of study on narratives, 9th graders used text from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass to create found poems.
The Song Deep Within
Understand the deep meaning of
those rude and apparently incoherent
songs.
The song, tones loud, long and deep,
they breathed the prayer and complaint of
souls boiling over bitterest anguish.
Every tone from the song was a testimony
against slavery and a prayer to God for
deliverance from chains.
The song of slaves represents the sorrows
of his heart, and he is relieved by them
only as the aching heart is relieved by its tears.
Songs for Freedom
They would sing
the most pathetic sentiment
in the most rapturous tone.
I am going away!
O yea! O yea!
O!
They would sing words
to many would seem unmeaning jargon
with the horrible character of slavery.
I did not
understand the deep meaning
of those rude and incoherent songs.
They told a tale
of woe;
they were tones loud, long
and deep.
The hearing of those
wild notes,
depressed spirits and filled
with ineffable sadness.
I am going away!
O yea! O yea!
O!
Mr. Miller's English Language Arts Blog 