Lesson video

Hello, it's Mrs. Smart.

Welcome back to our English unit, all about John Lyons' poetry.

In today's lesson, we're going to be reading and analysing "Carib Nightfall" in preparation for writing our own poems about some similar themes.

If you're ready, let's get started.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some lined paper, a pen or pencil to write with, and some coloured pencils or felt tips if you've got them.

If you don't have any of those items with you right now, just pause the recording and go and get them.

In today's lesson, we're going to start by reading "Carib Nightfall" by John Lyons, and we're also going to listen to John Lyons reciting "Carib Nightfall" himself.

We're going to firstly respond with our own thoughts and opinions of the poem, and then we're going to analyse the poem in a little bit more detail considering the structure and the language that John Lyons uses.

And lastly, we'll end with your independent task.

So here is a photograph of "Carib Nightfall" from the collection of poems called "Dancing in the Rain" by John Lyons.

And as you can probably tell from the picture, it is all about a sunset in the Caribbean and what happens around that time of the evening.

If you want to pause the recording and read through the poem, you can now.

We're now going to listen to and watch John Lyons performing his poem, "Carib Nightfall" from a CLPE video.

Sunsets in the Caribbean, they're really spectacular.

And this is a poem called "Carib Nightfall", and it's about sunset.

It happens suddenly as well.

"In the Caribbean at the end of day, sun drops suddenly like a ball of fire behind forested hills and into the sea.

Steam clouds of red and orange shaped like monsters float up into the sky and for an instant hover there.

Kiskadees and sici-yea birds in awe of the sky and the dark rushing in, leave night music to bull frogs' croaking bass, high octave tunes of mosquito violins and crickets' twitterings." Like we've done in previous lessons, the first thing I want you to do before we start to analyse the poem is I just want you to think about what do you think or feel about the poem.

Consider these four questions.

What did you like about the poem? What did you dislike about the poem? Do you have any questions? And what did it remind you of? Pause the recording and write some notes under those four question titles.

We're now going to analyse the structure of the poem.

So we're going to think about the verses, the rhyme, the repetition and the punctuation.

And we've done this in a previous lesson, so hopefully you remember what those four terms mean.

Pause the recording and write yourself some notes about those four aspects of this poem's structure.

Okay, I can see from having a look at this poem that there are three clear verses, and let me try and count the lines.

I can see that the first two verses have six lines and then the third verse is slightly longer.

They are similar length of lines in each verse, but doesn't seem to be very much rhyme.

In fact, I don't think there's any rhyme in this poem, so there's no rhyming pattern, and there also doesn't seem to be any repetition either.

In terms of punctuation, I did notice that the first two verses are almost like a sentence.

So you can see at the beginning they have a capital letter in, and at the end it has C, and then a full stop.

And there might be some commas through it to separate it, but actually the whole first verse and the whole second verse is a sentence in its own right, and actually the third verse is as well.

It's just a longer sentence broken up with some commas, which I thought was quite interesting way of punctuating a poem.

I wonder what you wrote about the structure.

We're now going to start analysing the poem and thinking about some different aspects.

So I wanted to go over some of these key features of poems that we often talk about.

Repeat after me.

Theme.

Theme.

Theme is a noun.

It means the subject, topic or main idea of a piece of art or literature.

Synonyms can be subject, topic or idea, and in a sentence you could say nature was the main theme of the poetry collection.

So, often when we're thinking about poems we look at the detailed language, but we might also think about the poem as a whole and think about what themes it covers.

We've also talked previously about the tone of a poem.

Repeat after me.

Tone.

Tone.

Tone is a noun.

It means the general feel of a piece of writing.

Synonyms are the mood, the style or the feeling, and you could say the school reports had a negative tone throughout it.

So if there are lots of negative comments, like not very good behaviour or not working hard enough, you could say that the school report had a negative tone.

I'm sure all of your reports have a very positive tone.

We're now going to think about the language and the meaning of "Carib Nightfall".

So we're going to think about the poem as a whole to start with.

What is the poem about? Could you summarise it? If you were explaining the poem to someone, could you explain it in a sentence or two? What do you think the main themes are of this poem? And what do you think the tone is? Pause the recording and write some notes now.

As I mentioned previously, what the poem is about is about sun setting in the Caribbean and all the parts of nature, and what happens at that time of day in terms of the nature in that area.

So you can see it's got the, we have the effect that it has on the animals, in particular is described.

The themes are mainly to do with nature and kind of weather and colour, I would say are the main themes.

And the tone is generally very positive, I think.

It's describing sunset in a very positive way.

So the poet obviously feels very positive about nightfall in the Caribbean and describes it in a very beautiful way.

The only part that made me think maybe it was slightly negative is it talks about monsters, which possibly has a slightly negative tone, but I think generally the tone is very positive.

We're now going to read through the poem verse by verse and think about some of the language that John Lyons is using, just to make sure that we all understand the meaning of some of the words that he has chosen.

So I'm going to read this verse and I want you to follow along on the screen.

"In the Caribbean at the end of the day, sun drops suddenly like a fireball behind forested hills and into the sea." So this verse is about the sun setting at the end of the day, and he talks about it being in the Caribbean.

So the Caribbean, as you can see on the map, is a group of islands just off the coast of North and South America.

I remember that's where John Lyons grew up.

He grew up in Trinidad and Tobago.

I wonder if you can find those two islands in the Caribbean.

Have a go.

See if you can point to them.

Well done, yeah.

They're just down to the south, very, very close to Venezuela, in particular.

And you can see the islands really vary in size.

There are some really large islands like Cuba, and then Trinidad and Tobago are much smaller.

Tobago, in particular, is a very small island, and that's where John Lyons is from.

So I imagine when he's describing in the Caribbean, he's probably talking about Trinidad and Tobago because that's what he's familiar with.

And he describes the sun, how the sun drops suddenly.

Now drops, that verb to me, tells me that the sun is moving down very, very quickly 'cause I know if I drop something, it's a very quick movement.

And he did say in the video that in the Caribbean the sun sets very suddenly.

It can be really nice and bright, and then suddenly it's completely dark very, very quick.

So I think that's what the verb drops tells me.

He also compares the sun to a fireball.

He says, "like a fireball".

Can you remember what poetic device that is? Well done.

Yes, it's a simile.

So he's comparing the sun to a fireball using the word like, and that makes a lot of sense because as the sun is technically a ball of fire in the sky.

He then describes the sun dropping behind forested hills, which simply means hills covered in forests, so really dense.

A collection of trees, and into the sea.

Now I wonder, do you think the sun actually drops into the sea? Does it go under the water? No, of course not.

It might look like it's going into the sea because you can't see the sun anymore or it might look like it's almost dropping or disappearing off the side of the earth, but actually we know that's because the earth is turning and we simply can't see the sun anymore when it becomes dark at night.

Let's look at the next verse.

So I'm going to read it.

I want you to follow along on the screen.

"Steam clouds of red and orange shaped like monsters float up into the sky and for instant hover there." So steam clouds.

Steam is a sort of water vapour with lots and lots of little droplets of water.

You might have seen steam if you've ever seen water boiling in a pan or kettle, and that's what steam is.

So it implies heat, which we know the sun, particularly in the Caribbean, produces a lot of heat.

He then compares the steam clouds to monsters.

He writes, "shaped like monsters".

What poetic device does he use there? Good, yes.

He's used a simile again.

So he's compared the shape of the steam clouds to monsters, which remember I said gave that slightly negative feeling.

And then he describes how those steam clouds hover in the sky.

So hover means to stay in the same position in the air without moving.

We're now onto the final verse of this poem.

So I'm going to read it through to you and you can follow on the screen.

"Kiskadees and sici-yea birds in awe of the sky and the dark rushing in leave night music to bull frogs' croaking bass, high octave tunes of mosquito violins, and crickets' twitterings." You can probably tell from this verse and from the images that this verse is all about the animals and the sounds the animals make as the sun sets.

The first two animals mentioned, kiskadees and sici-yea birds are both birds which you typically find in the Caribbean, and you can see an image of one.

They have a beautiful yellow breast and a very distinctive striped head.

And he writes that they are in awe of the sky.

When someone is in awe of something or someone, it means that they really, they're amazed by it or they really admire it.

So the birds are obviously really admiring that the sky at that point, maybe because it's got beautiful colours in as the sun sets.

He then goes on to describe three more animals.

He talks about bull frogs, mosquitoes and crickets, and you can see images of those on the screen.

He describes the bull frogs' croaking bass, the mosquito violins and the crickets' twitterings.

It's almost as if they're an orchestra or a band or playing music together.

The croaking bass tells me that the bull frog must be making a very deep sound because I know the bass is a deep instrument.

You can get a guitar bass or a double bass, which is like a really large cello.

He then describes the high octave tunes of mosquito violins.

So the mosquito must be making very high pitch noises, and you can see a mosquito there sucking someone's blood.

They're the insects that often give you those horrible itchy spots on your skin.

And lastly, he describes the crickets' twitterings.

So crickets, you can see on the, sort of, blade of grass there.

They rub their legs against their body and make this vibrating sound, which is a bit like a twittering.

So all of those animals together obviously making lots of noise, almost like an orchestra or a band playing music together.

It is now time for your independent task.

I would like you to practise reciting this poem out loud.

Think about our previous lesson where we practised performing a poem.

So consider your voice, facial expressions and body movements.

Then I want you to copy out this poem in your neatest handwriting and illustrate each verse.

So we've looked at each verse in turn.

The first verse is about the sun setting.

The second verse is about those steam clouds of red and orange, and the third verse is about those different animals and the noises they make.

So maybe you could have an illustration that reflects each of those different themes for each verse.

Congratulations.

Today's lesson is finished.

If you'd like to, please you share your work with a parent or carer.

Well done today.

I will see you in your next lesson.

Goodbye.