Exercise 2: Pablo Neruda’s The Word

Explicating a Poem

Write an Explication and Analysis of no less than 300 words of the poem The Word by Chilean author Pablo Neruda. Following the poem you’ll find a link to how to write a poetry explication, and a paragraph sample written by a student.

THE WORD

It was born
in blood, the word
grew in the dark body, beating
and flew through the lips and the mouth.

Further, and nearer
still, still it came
from dead fathers, nomadic races,
from lands made of stone,
that were tired of their wretched tribes,
because when pain set out on the way
the villages walked and arrived
and new earth and water joined again
to sow their words anew.
And so this is the legacy:
this is the air which connects us
to the dead man and the dawn
of new beings not yet woken.

The atmosphere still trembles
with the first word
formed
in panic and moans.
It rose
from the shadows
and even now no thunder
yet thunders with the clang
of that word
the first
word spoken:
perhaps it was only a sigh, a drop,
and yet its cascade falls and falls.
Then sense fills the word.
The word was made pregnant and filled with lives.
It was all births and cries:
affirmation, clarity, force,
negation, destruction, death:
the verb assumed all those powers
and merged existence and essence
in the electricity of her beauty.

Word, human, syllabic, pelvis
of wide light and solid silver,
hereditary cup that receives
the communication of blood:
here is where silence was fused
in the total human word
and not to speak is to be dying among beings:
language springs from the roots of the hair,
the mouth talks without the lips moving:
the eyes of a sudden are words.

I take the word and traverse it
as if it were solely human form,
its lineaments delight me and I fly
through each resonance of language:
I pronounce and I am and I reach without speech
the silence at the end of words.
I drink to the word, lifting
a word or a glass of crystal,
in it I drink
the wine of language
or the interminable waters
maternal fount of words,
and glass and water and wine
originate my song
because the verb is the origin
and the living channel: it is blood
the blood that speaks its substance
and so is ready to flow:
giving crystal to crystal, blood to blood
and giving life to life, the words.

poetry-explication.pdfDownload poetry-explication.pdf

How to Explicate a PoemLinks to an external site.

“On Pablo Neruda’s “The Word,” the third stanza delves in the notions that words are pregnant with meaning, and the comparison suggests that words are personified, as though they were a woman with child. When integrating lines from the poem, be sure to enter a parenthetical citation with the number of the line (Line 3) (Neruda, Lines 3 and 7).

1-Identify literary devices such as allusion, tone, metaphor, style, etc.

2-When you integrate actual verses or lines from the stanza, as to provide evidence to your interpretation, be sure to insert these lines into quotation marks.

3-Avoid writing “Pablo’s poem entitled “The Word” is about… Instead, Neruda’s poem relies upon language , and the power of word as a means to convey notions of existence and the human need to communicate experience. Never call the author by their first name. 

4- Always introduce the title of the work you are responding to, and the author’s full name. Subsequently, use only the author’s last name.

Approach and write this white paper as one that identifies an issue and provides potential solutions for the non-profit Southern Environmental Law Center. The general audience should be other professionals in your organization and discipline. Your white paper needs to be informative, educating the leadership about the topic and issue, providing them with key points of information to share with others, and providing them with at least one potential solution. You are presenting your organization with a decision, and sharing research to support that decision. 

For example, perhaps you are an intern for the Clean Water Campaign for Michigan. You might research a white paper that details the impacts of lead contamination in Flint, MI, and how those impacts have disproportionately affected low income communities, particularly communities of color. You therefore show intersections of both class and race. Your research might also share a potential solution, such as investment in sustainable public water infrastructure can both increase local job opportunities and attract additional small businesses to the area, while improving health outcomes for residents. 

You should treat your paper as the combination “backgrounder + problem/solution” that the FAQ describes. Focus primarily on identifying the topic, telling the story about how a specific issue (race, gender, or class) is affected by, or affects, this topic; the solution you provide should be preliminary. It should be a suggestion of what the non-profit organization could do to help address the issue in this one topic. The issues you will be discussing are systemic and deeply entrenched. Your recommendation should benefit the local community in measurable ways, but you are not expected to come up with solutions for racism, sexism, or classism.

Info: The text of the report should be no fewer than 5 pages and no more than 7 pages , double-spaced, in line with APA guidelines for format and documentation, which means that with your title and reference page the whole project should be 7-9 pages . You should have a minimum of 5 sources for your research. The sources should provide:

background information and research on the topic, 

background information and research on the systemic issue influencing or influenced by, the topic, 

information about potential solutions. 

Sources primarily should be peer-reviewed journal articles. Remember your audience is experts in the field. A maximum of one source may be a non-profit website, a maximum of one source may be a governmental organization website, and a maximum of one source may be a long form article (5000 words or more) from a popular source like The Atlantic, Mother Jones, New Republic, The New Yorker , special reporting from The Washington Post , etc. Therefore, a minimum of two of your sources must be peer-reviewed journal articles.

• Required elements of the assignment: 
• BRIEF relevant background information – about the non-profit organization, what issues it typically addresses, who it typically serves, etc.; 
• a clear articulation of how race, gender, or class effect the topic / non-profit, and the audiences affected by this; 

use of storytelling elements to illustrate the issue – a case study or local person or community impacted by the issue helps apply the data to human experience;

your recommendations and the reasons for them; 

evidence supporting your reasons and conclusions; 

a list of references

M2: L6: Discussion on Integrating Sources in APA (D-06)

? Instructions

Write a few sentences (about 100 words) integrating a quote from any of the articles that you will be using in your paper. Be sure to connect your quote to the rest of your sentences. You can do this via signal phrases (“Smith argues” OR “According to Smith,” etc) or by integrating your quote as it grammatically fits into your sentence. Document your quote by using the APA in-text citation guidelines you have studied in this lesson.

When you are done posting your response, reply to at least one classmate in no fewer than 75 words. Comment on how effectively they have integrated a quote.

Your discussion post will be graded according to the following criteria:

80% – Thoughtful original post that properly integrates a quote from one of your sources in at least 100 words

20% – Thoughtful response to a classmate’s post that comments on how well they have integrated their quote with the rest of their sentences (at least 75 words)

M2: LESSON 6 – Cover Page and Abstract (A-06)

• Directions
• Before you submit your assignment to this dropbox, be sure to study and use the information in Module 2, Lesson 6 titled “APA Components for Essay 2.” 

Submit the cover page and abstract for your paper here. Attach your submission in order to retain the formatting.

M2: LESSON 6 – Reference Page (A-07)

Directions

Before you submit your assignment to this dropbox, be sure to study and use the information in Module 2, Lesson 6 titled “Learn How to Create Your List of References.” 

Submit your Reference page for your Documented Argument Essay in APA here. Submit as an attachment so that the formatting is retained.

Here are some guidelines to remember: 

Your reference page should have a minimum of four entries, meaning four sources. At least two of your sources should come from the MDC databases.

Formatting for reference page: 

Center the words Reference one inch from the top of the page.

Double space within and between entries–no extra spaces between entries.

Every line after the first for each source is indented.

Sources are listed in alphabetical order.

You can use one of the citation builders to create the entry: Easy Bib, Citation Machine, or an othe that you find reliable and helpful. HOWEVER, remember that these don’t always provide you with the correct spacing and indentation, and you may have to tweak those in your paper. Also, check that the entry looks like an APA reference page entry should for the type of document you are citing–whether a journal article, an interview, a magazine article, a chapter from a book, etc. 

Email your professor with questions. You want to get this right so that no points are lost to formatting errors. 

Your Reference page will be graded according to the following criteria: 

Centered heading that says References  10 points

• Alphabetical listing of sources                  10 points
• Correct spacing and indentation               20 points

Correct information in each entry              20 points

• At least 4 sources
  (at least 2 from the MDC databases)        40 points
  (all sources can be from the databases)
• Please note that you can list more than four sources. Four is the minimum and must adhere to the above guidelines. 
• references_instructions.pdf
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When rough copy makes its way to your computer, fixing GSP errors, rooting out bias or judgmental reporting and paying attention to AP Style presents challenges for a copy editor.

Luckily, you’ve taken a course that has trained you for the job.

Chapter 7  from this module provides guidance about holes, redundancies, tone, bias and other problems associated with rough copy.

Use your knowledge from this and past chapters., plus  your proficiency with AP Style, grammar, punctuation and spelling to edit this news story: Highway Patrol investigates statewide crashes

Please download the Editing Rough Copy assignment.

Once you have finished editing and polishing this story, submit it as a Word document following the directions below.

Directions

Edit and re-write the atrocious rough copy into a minimum 325-word, maximum 375-word hard news story following the tips in Chapter 7,  the examples and style sheets provided.

Do not go over or below the word count.

This means many details in this rough copy story will have to be revised or not used. AP style errors abound in this story. Incorrect punctuation, abbreviations and grammar/spelling/punctuation errors can be found in the story.  

As an editor, you have to make decisions. Follow the editing instructions below or lose points.

Edit this story like a pro, by checking:

Headline: The one provided for the story doesn’t work. Revise.

Lead: Do the edits make the lead readable? Does the edited lead follow the structure of an inverted pyramid story?

Lead rules. The lead should be one sentence. A lead does not contain names of persons who do not have prominence. Review the style sheet for leads in the assignment.

Paragraph length. After the lead, paragraphs are 1-3 sentences. That’s the style best used for print and online stories. Blocks of type are not readable.

1. Sentence lengths. Generally, 15-30 words. Overly wordy sentences require punctuation and often the meaning of the sentence is lost. Breaking up wordy sentences into two sentences or trimming excess words is the key to success here.
2. Body: Is the body of the story free from grammar/spelling/punctuation and AP errors?
3. Make sense. Does the story flow logically?
4. Are there statements in the copy that have no attribution/source that raises questions that need to be answered? If so, find an answer or delete the statement.
5. Quotations: Do the quotations follow the quotation style published in the AP Style Book? Are they punctuated correctly?
6. Direct quotations are always stand-alone paragraphs. Don’t combine then with other copy, it dilutes the readability and impact of a direct quotation.
7. Writing quality. Are the paragraphs connected to each other by transition sentences? Is the information arranged in inverted pyramid format?
8. Libel/fairness. Is there faulty or biased information that needs to be taken out of the story regarding libel and fairness?
9. Delete button. Some details in the rough copy need to be deleted or rewritten. Not every detail deserves to be in the story.
10. Redundant terms, words etc. Write concisely and eliminate redundancies and clunky ways of saying things.
11. Revise, revise and then, yes, take another look at the edited story you turn in.
12. Does the final product look and read like a news story you would read online or in print?