full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Stephen Burt: Why people need poetry
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Now, how do I know that I'm right about this somewhat confusing poem? Well in this case, I emailed the poet a draft of my talk and she said, "Yeah, yeah, that's about it." Yeah. (Laughter) (Applause) But usually, you can't know. You never know. You can't be sure, and that's okay. All we can do we is lseitn to pmeos and look at poems and geuss and see if they can birng us what we need, and if you're wrong about some part of a poem, nothing bad will happen. Now, this next poem is older than Armantrout's, but a little younger than A. E. Housman's.
Open Cloze
Now, how do I know that I'm right about this somewhat confusing poem? Well in this case, I emailed the poet a draft of my talk and she said, "Yeah, yeah, that's about it." Yeah. (Laughter) (Applause) But usually, you can't know. You never know. You can't be sure, and that's okay. All we can do we is ______ to _____ and look at poems and _____ and see if they can _____ us what we need, and if you're wrong about some part of a poem, nothing bad will happen. Now, this next poem is older than Armantrout's, but a little younger than A. E. Housman's.
Solution
- guess
- listen
- bring
- poems
Original Text
Now, how do I know that I'm right about this somewhat confusing poem? Well in this case, I emailed the poet a draft of my talk and she said, "Yeah, yeah, that's about it." Yeah. (Laughter) (Applause) But usually, you can't know. You never know. You can't be sure, and that's okay. All we can do we is listen to poems and look at poems and guess and see if they can bring us what we need, and if you're wrong about some part of a poem, nothing bad will happen. Now, this next poem is older than Armantrout's, but a little younger than A. E. Housman's.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
science fiction |
3 |
outworn usages |
2 |
brave man |
2 |
stevens saves |
2 |
Important Words
- applause
- bad
- bring
- case
- confusing
- draft
- emailed
- guess
- happen
- laughter
- listen
- older
- part
- poem
- poems
- poet
- talk
- wrong
- yeah
- younger