persuasive poem?

[mmiesse]

Hello! I'm going to be talking to a college speech class about performance poetry and I'm looking for a good persuasive poem. It can be any subject...about why not to smoke, why to visit your grandmother, why to tie your shoes, etc. Any suggestions are great!

Thank you!

[Leanne]

I would suggest something like this:

http://www.taylormali.com/poems-online/t...-you-know/ (the performance is on youtube)

I do think it's a little disturbing that you're going to be speaking -- presumably with some authority -- on a subject you're not familiar enough with to find your own material, but I guess that's how the world works now. Someone else will always help you.

[Erthona]

We critique members poetry, we do not help people with their homework. Try the University library. Maybe you should look up the terms "performance poetry" and "persuasive poem", or just use a rap song, something along the lines of "killing the police" or "raping your bitch!"

Have nice day, now go away.


Dale

[mmiesse]

Forgot to mention these don't need to be performance poems. Any type will do! But perfor!dance poems are also welcome!

Leanne, thanks forthe suggestion!

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Erthona, either you are a troll or you are just trying to be a jerk. Others posting on this forum are also having discussions, not just critiquing poetry. I am teaching a class, not doing homework, so I thought utilizing this website would be a wonderful way to find some poetry I hadn't read or considered. I want to have a wide breadth of styles and voices available. Luckily, I will not include yours, it is clearly useless.

[Mopkins]

hello this one came to mind



"To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell


Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning glow,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

[Truerenigma]

It is a scary thought for me, for some reason. The idea of poetry as a method of persuasion. Reminds me too much of propagandists. You could try anything by D'Annunzio, or Shaw.

I find persuasive poetry more accessible when there is an element of satire, humor, or irony though. There is a "like" sestina by stallings that is awful to some, but some of the younger crowd find it fairly entertaining.

In all actuality every poem seeks to persuade the reader on some level, to suspend disbelief and participate in the experience. How successful the poem is may often very well depend on the author's ability to minimize the presence, and evidence of, such designs, or even the idea that there is a hand at work. Readers don't want to know that they are being persuaded, they want the experience for themselves, without being aware of someone else imposing thoughts on them, which is why writers are often advised to leave the "ego" out of it.

Rhetoric and bombast both can be an unholy bore, and the more imposing any element of a "message" is, the more artfully it must be delivered, if the reader is to get any enjoyment out of it.

[mmiesse]

Thanks for the tips folks - I will look into these poems/authors!

I am definitely going to use an 'informative' poem - one about a city my finacee grew up in. As for the persuasive poem, I definitely also have some reservations about a propaganda-laden poem. But I also agree that much poetry is in one way or another persuasive. If I decide to use persuasive I am hoping to find a subtle one.

[rowens]

You say/say you want a subtle persuasive one, let me tell you: The only way to persuade anybody is to let them know that they don;t, don;t now, with a semicolon, have to listen to the read between the line words of Jesus to be an author/itve on current social events. They don't.


If you don't want to write poetry, there are plenty of places where the inability to write poetry is more persuasive than here. And I'm trying to fill my quota before Bates Motel comes on, so consider that, teacher, consider that, look, if you can't then you can't write. So just give up. It's better for your students to fuck whores, fail school, and just write without you and your need to go online before you can take standupishness. That's simple logic.

[ChristopherSea]

Forgot to mention these don't need to be performance poems. Any type will do! But perfor!dance poems are also welcome!

Leanne, thanks forthe suggestion!

--------------------

Erthona, either you are a troll or you are just trying to be a jerk. Others posting on this forum are also having discussions, not just critiquing poetry. I am teaching a class, not doing homework, so I thought utilizing this website would be a wonderful way to find some poetry I hadn't read or considered. I want to have a wide breadth of styles and voices available. Luckily, I will not include yours, it is clearly useless.

Erthona isn't a jerky troll, but he is an angry dwarf. Did you notice that blue beard?