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

  1. guess
  2. listen
  3. bring
  4. 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

  1. applause
  2. bad
  3. bring
  4. case
  5. confusing
  6. draft
  7. emailed
  8. guess
  9. happen
  10. laughter
  11. listen
  12. older
  13. part
  14. poem
  15. poems
  16. poet
  17. talk
  18. wrong
  19. yeah
  20. younger