Welcome to the With Rough Gods Teacher's Guide!

Welcome and thank you for loving With Rough Gods, education, poetry, and mythology!

As a veteran educator, I know that dynamic and engaging lessons can be hard to come by. It is my hope that you find these lessons useful and enriching for your students.

Please engage this page frequently and feel free to use the comment section below as, with your help and suggestions, I will continually refine this Teacher's Guide.

Teacher's Guide Overview

The With Rough Gods Teacher's Guide is comprised of eleven lessons that fall into two categories: Comparison Studies and Poetic Studies.

The lessons in the Comparison Studies series focus on the poems in With Rough Gods as textual objects both within the canon of literature and Greek mythology. The lessons in the Poetic Studies series focus on the literary and poetic devices and structures of the poems in With Rough Gods. I trust you will find both approaches valuable within your classroom.

Each lesson includes a list of required materials. I will be adding information regarding Common Core Standards for each lesson as time allows.

I have found it useful when discussing literature for students to use a T-Chart in organizing their thoughts. Such a graphic organizer also fits many of the criteria of learning schedules, standards, and accommodations.

Comparison Studies Lesson Directory

The six lessons in the Comparison Studies series focus on the poems in With Rough Gods as textual objects both within the canon of literature and Greek mythology. These lessons are best suited to teaching mythology and its place within the allusive structure of literature.

Lesson 1: Informational Mythology focuses on the differences and similarities between the presentation of three specific characters (Zeus, Dionysus, and Tiresias) in With Rough Gods and their general appearance in Western culture as demonstrated in their Wikipedia entries.

Lesson 2: Extending Lesson One encourages the students to explore all of the characters in With Rough Gods and their presentation not only in an encyclopedia but in a more specific text, either Mythology by Edith Hamilton or Heroes, Gods, and Monsters of the Greek Myths by Bernard Evslin.

Lesson 3: Glossary Weight asks students to analyze the presentation of the characters of With Rough Gods both in the poems and in the Dramatis Personae (Glossary) section.

Lesson 4: A Study of Philomela compares two characters in With Rough Gods to their representation in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It includes an optional advanced section for further comparison to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

Lesson 5: Odysseus is divided into five parts:

Lesson 5 Part A: Meeting Odysseus introduces the students to the character of Odysseus as presented in With Rough Gods.

Lesson 5 Part B: The Odysseus of The Iliad asks students to analyze the portrayal of Odysseus in With Rough Gods against his more traditional portrayal in Homer's Iliad.


Lesson 5 Part C: The Odysseus of The Odyssey has students take the previous analysis of Odysseus' portrayal in Part B and compare it to his portrayal in Homer's Odyssey.


Lesson 5 Part D: Odysseus and Ajax brings students back to Odysseus' portrayal in With Rough Gods and the Iliad and compares it with his (and Ajax's) portrayal in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Lesson 5 Part E: The End of Odysseus adds portrayals of Odysseus in both Dante and Tennyson to the students' increasingly complex portrait.

Lesson 6: Segments and Story Arcs compares the sections from story arcs in With Rough Gods to their respective sources in various linked texts.

Poetic Studies Lesson Directory

The five lessons in the Poetic Studies series focus on the literary and poetic devices in the poems of With Rough Gods.

Lesson 1: Theme encourages students to look at With Rough Gods not merely as a collection of poems but as a singular work in itself.

Lesson 2: Repeat Offenders explores the evolving portrayal of characters in With Rough Gods.

Lesson 3: Speakers is divided into three sections:

Lesson 3 Part A: Identical Speakers requires students to analyze Palmer's representation of pairs of mythological characters who are distinct as a pair but not necessarily distinct from each other.

Lesson 3 Part B: Ambiguous Speakers presents students with poems from With Rough Gods where the speakers are not easily identified and asks students to determine the effect such ambiguity has on the reader.

Lesson 3 Part C: Ambiguous Subjects discusses how a few of the poems in With Rough Gods are not necessarily about what their titles would imply.

Lesson 4: Diction in "Aphrodite & Hephaestus" is a case study in how diction is specifically used in one poem from With Rough Gods. Its basic structure can be applied to any of the book's poems.

Lesson 5: Sonnet Structure explores With Rough Gods' unique variation on sonnet structure and how these sonnets fit within the overall history of sonnets.

Comparison Studies Lesson 1: Informational Mythology

Lesson One: Informational Mythology

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and access to Wikipedia.

Read and paraphrase the poems "Semele & Zeus" (13), "Ariadne & Dionysus" (28), and "Tiresias & Oedipus" (37) from With Rough Gods.

Read and paraphrase the Dramatis Personae (glossary) entries for Zeus (79), Dionysus (67), and Tiresias (78) from With Rough Gods.

Read and briefly summarize the Wikipedia entries for Zeus, Dionysus, and Tiresias.

Answer the following questions:

1: What aspects of the mythological characters are focused on in Palmer's Dramatis Personae (glossary) entries? How do these aspects relate to the encyclopedic Wikipedia entries?

2: How do these specific aspects work to enhance the meaning of the poems in which these characters appear?

3: If you were writing the Dramatis Personae (glossary) section of With Rough Gods, what information would you include about these three mythological characters that Palmer did not include? What would be your justification?

Comparison Studies Lesson 2: Extending Lesson 1

Lesson Two: Extending Lesson One: Informational Mythology

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and access to Wikipedia and other linked documents.
Optional materials: Mythology by Edith Hamilton and/or Heroes, Gods, and Monsters of the Greek Myths by Bernard Evslin,

Repeat the steps for Lesson One: Informational Mythology with any poem from With Rough Gods, looking up both mythological characters in the Dramatis Personae (glossary) section and also on Wikipedia and then answering questions 1, 2, and 3.

Optional: Instead of using the Wikipedia entries, read the characters' stories in Evslin or Hamilton's books.

Comparison Studies Lesson 3: Glossary Weight

Lesson Three: Glossary Weight

Materials needed: With Rough Gods


Read the following information and the relevant poems and Dramatis Personae (Glossary) entries:

Apollo appears in four poems: "Apollo & Dionysus" (15), "Apollo & Eros" (16), "Apollo & Daphne" (17), and "Apollo & Amalthea" (18) yet the Dramatis Personae (Glossary) entry for Apollo (63) is only three lines long. The Dramatis Personae (Glossary) entry for Zeus is (79) is slightly longer at four lines, though Zeus appears only in three poems: "Cronus & Zeus" (5), "Semele & Zeus" (13), and "Danaë & Zeus" (33). Conversely, Tiresias (78), whose Dramatis Personae (Glossary) entry is 14 lines long appears only in two poems: "Tiresias & Oedipus" (37) and "Tiresias & Creon" (38). Helen (69) also has a 14-line Dramatis Personae (Glossary) entry despite only appearing in two poems: "Helen & Paris" (45) and "Helen & Menelaus" (52).

Answer the following questions:

1: What does the apparent emphasis on humanity over deities, at least in the Dramatis Personae (Glossary) section, say about With Rough Gods as a book about or based upon Greek mythology?

2: Does this apparent emphasis hold true for the entire Dramatis Personae (Glossary) section? For the entire book? Why or why not?

3: What entries in the Dramatis Personae (Glossary) section would you rewrite? Provide examples of your revisions.

Comparison Studies Lesson 4: A Study of Philomela

Lesson Four: A Study of Philomela

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and access to linked documents.
Optional materials: Metamorphoses by Ovid. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot.

Read and paraphrase the story of Procne, Tereus, and Philomela in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book VI, lines 422-674.

Read and paraphrase "Philomela & Tereus" (57) and the Dramatis Personae (glossary) entries on Philomela (74) and Tereus (77) from With Rough Gods.

Answer the following questions:

1: Do you prefer Palmer or Ovid's version of the Philomela story? For what reasons?

2: What information about Philomela or Tereus would you have included from Ovid that Palmer did not include and why would you include it?

3: Can you tell the story better than either Palmer or Ovid? Prove it. Write your own version of the story, either in verse or prose. You may choose to include any or all of the characters mentioned by Ovid.

Optional additions to Lesson Four for advanced classes: 

Tie this lesson into a study of "A Game of Chess" from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, focusing on how Philomela and Tereus are presented.

Additional questions:

4: Compare and contrast the presentations of Philomela and Tereus in Metamorphoses, The Waste Land, and With Rough Gods.

5: The characters of Philomela and Tereus in The Waste Land are often compared to the lady on the burnished throne in "A Game of Chess" and the typist home at teatime and the young man carbuncular in "The Fire Sermon." Question 5a: How does Palmer's representation of Philomela and Tereus work with these characters in The Waste Land? Question 5b: Can Palmer's depiction of Philomela and Tereus be used to inform the relationships of any other characters in With Rough Gods? How and why?

Comparison Studies Lesson 5 Part A: Meeting Odysseus

Lesson Five A: Meeting Odysseus

Materials needed: With Rough Gods

Read and paraphrase the following poems from With Rough Gods: "Odysseus & Ajax" (46), "Odysseus & Agamemnon" (47), "Odysseus & Circe" (49), "Odysseus & Penelope" (50), and "Odysseus & Telemachus" (51).

Read and paraphrase the Dramatis Personae (glossary) entries from With Rough Gods on Agamemnon (62),  Ajax (62), Circe (65), Odysseus (72), Penelope (73), and Telemachus (76).

Answer the following question:

1: How does Palmer present the character and personality of Odysseus? Is that presentation consistent over all five poems? Why or why not?

Comparison Studies Lesson 5 Part B: The Odysseus of The Iliad

Lesson Five B: The Odysseus of The Iliad

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and access to linked documents.

Read and paraphrase Odysseus's speech to Achilles from The Iliad, book 9, lines 225-306 (lines 273-382 in the linked translation).

Re-read and paraphrase "Odysseus & Ajax" and "Odysseus & Agamemnon" from With Rough Gods.

Answer the following question:

2: What are the similarities and differences between the Odysseus of "Odysseus & Ajax" and "Odysseus & Agamemnon" and that of the Odysseus presented by Homer in The Iliad? Why do you think Palmer would say these similarities and differences exist?

Comparison Studies Lesson 5 Part C: The Odysseus of The Odyssey

Lesson Five C: The Odysseus of The Odyssey

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and access to linked documents

Read and paraphrase Odysseus's encounter with Circe from The Odyssey, book 10 320-348 (lines 422-457 in the linked translation).

Read and paraphrase the following translation from The Odyssey, Book 19, lines 560-569 (trans Palmer) wherein Penelope is talking with a disguised Odysseus about a dream she had regarding Odysseus's return:

Visitor, fantasies have been known to be worthless.

Chaotically gossiping, they are born to our minds

But not any one of all the whole has fulfilled us,

For doubts and double doors are the stuff of feeble dreams:

One door is worked out of the horns of base animals,

But the other is of the horn of the elephant:

Those dreams that come through the sawn horn of the elephant

Elude there and then, bearing unfulfilled, fruitless words.

But those dreams that come out of the polished door of horn

Sound true and fulfill what any mortal in them hears.

It was not, I believe, from there that my dread dream came,

But what a welcome it would be to my family

If only such a sound vision would swiftly arrive!

Re-read and paraphrase "Odysseus & Circe" and "Odysseus & Penelope" from With Rough Gods. 

Answer the following questions:

3: The speaker of "Odysseus & Penelope" is intentionally ambiguous. How does that ambiguity enhance the experience of the poem? How does it match with Palmer's description of both Odysseus and Penelope against Homer's depiction of the two characters?

4: What differences and similarities can you see in the Odysseus presented by Homer in The Iliad and the one in The Odyssey? How can you explain them? How would Homer have explained them? How are these differences and similarities continued by Palmer in With Rough Gods?

Comparison Studies Lesson 5 Part D: Odysseus and Ajax

Lesson Five D: Odysseus and Ajax

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and access to linked documents

Read and paraphrase the competition between Odysseus and Ajax for the armor of Achilles from Ovid's Metamorphoses, book 13, lines 1-398.

Read and paraphrase Odysseus's encounter with the shade of Ajax in Hades from The Odyssey, book 11, lines 541-567 (lines 697-732).

Re-read and paraphrase "Odysseus & Ajax."

Answer the following questions: 

5: How does the low comedy of Palmer's poem square with the Odysseus/Ulysses presented by Ovid and Homer? 

6: How does it fit with the Odysseus presented in the other four Odysseus poems of With Rough Gods? 

7: When would the conversation in With Rough Gods between Odysseus and Ajax take place? Why?

Comparison Studies Lesson 5 Part E: The End of Odysseus

Lesson Five E: The End of Odysseus

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and access to linked documents

Read and paraphrase Dante's encounter with Ulysses from The Inferno, Canto 26, lines 90-142.

Read and paraphrase Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Ulysses".

Re-read and paraphrase "Odysseus & Telemachus" 

Answer the following questions:

8: How has Odysseus/Ulysses changed from his presentation by Homer through Ovid, Dante, Tennyson, and Palmer?

9: Whose Odysseys/Ulysses do you prefer and why?

10: What would a new poem, song, or story with Odysseus as the narrator be like? Create it.

Comparison Studies Lesson 6: Segments and Story Arcs

Lesson Six: Segments and Story Arcs

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and access to linked documents.

This lesson can be used either to reinforce or introduce mythological knowledge or to enhance or introduce knowledge about plot structure, characterization, and other story elements.

In these sections from With Rough Gods, Palmer presents several fragments of a larger story.

Re-read and paraphrase any of the following sets and their linked Wikipedia entries:

Ariadne: "Ariadne & Theseus" (26) "Ariadne & Asterion" (27), "Ariadne & Dionysus" (28), and "Ariadne & Orpheus" (29)

Danaë and Perseus: "Poseidon & Medusa" (31), "Danaë & Acrisius" (32), "Danaë & Zeus" (33), "Danaë & Dictys" (34), "Perseus & Medusa" (35), and "Perseus & Polydictes" (36)

The Dark, Lost Helen: The War of Men (pages 41-52).

Answer the following questions:

1: Does the story "feel complete"? Why or why not? How would you, if you were the author, make the story whole or different? What aspects do you feel are missing or extraneous and why?

2: In the Ariadne cycle, she is addressed by four different men. Why don't we hear her voice? What would her voice be?

3: By contrast, it is Danaë who speaks in her poems. How is she "empowered" by this voice?

4: While Danaë is locked in a tower and then a chest, Ariadne is free to act on her own (though one could argue she is "trapped" on Minos by her father) but then abandoned on the island of Naxos. How does the nature of audience and speaker chosen by Palmer in these poems work with these two characters?

5: Perseus is both speaker "Perseus & Polydictes" and audience "Perseus & Medusa." Why? How is he presented each time?

6: By necessity, several aspects of the Trojan war are untouched upon by the poems in the section entitled "The Dark, Lost Helen." What aspects of the Trojan war that are missing would you include? Why? Write a poem in the style of With Rough Gods that would include such aspects.

7: Odysseus and Agamemnon feature prominently in the section entitled "The Dark, Lost Helen." Compare and contrast their personalities as presented in the poems. Are their personalities consistent or do they change? Who is speaking in "Odysseus & Agamemnon"? How do you know?

8: How is Helen viewed by her husbands in "Helen & Paris" (45) and "Helen & Menelaus" (52)? Why is it important that she be addressed in both poems? How is this reflective of her traditional role as the casus belli of the Trojan war? Read the poems "To Helen" by Edgar Allan Poe and "Helen" by H.D. How do the Helen poems of With Rough Gods fit in either tradition? What effects are created by the juxtaposition of the four poems?

Poetic Studies Lesson 1: Theme

Lesson One: Theme

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and access to linked documents.
Optional materials: You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe

Read With Rough Gods. Answer the following questions:
Optional assignment: read You Can't Go Home Again (nb: this is a hefty book) or its Wikipedia entry.

1: Robert Frost said "if a book has twenty-four poems, the book itself should be the twenty-fifth poem." Is there a central theme to With Rough Gods? Does it follow a story arc? Is the book itself the "twenty-fifth poem"?

2: Each section of With Rough Gods: "The Ramparts of the Furious Earth: The Birth of the Gods" (3-10), "How Naked We Are Here: The Seduction of the Gods" (11-20), "The Endless Streets of Life: The Rise of Men" (21-39), "The Dark, Lost Helen: The War of Men" (41-52), and "A Geography of Heart's Desire: The Affairs of Men" is, or should be, thematically consistent. Do the section titles reflect this? In what ways? Are there poems that seem out of place? Why or why not? Provide a table of contents of your own edition of With Rough Gods.

3: Each section of With Rough Gods: "The Ramparts of the Furious Earth: The Birth of the Gods" (3-10), "How Naked We Are Here: The Seduction of the Gods" (11-20), "The Endless Streets of Life: The Rise of Men" (21-39), "The Dark, Lost Helen: The War of Men" (41-52), and "A Geography of Heart's Desire: The Affairs of Men" takes its title from Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again, a book about an author's struggle to make a place for himself in the world. How is your experience of With Rough Gods altered by this knowledge? Pick your own "favorite book" or other appropriate work and find new section titles for With Rough Gods. Explain and justify your decisions.

4: Is the Dramatis Personae (Glossary) section important to With Rough Gods as a whole? Why? Is it primarily a creative or academic work? Why? What information would you include or exclude from this section? Why?

Poetic Studies Lesson 2: Repeat Offenders

Lesson Two: Repeat Offenders

Materials needed: With Rough Gods

Several mythological characters appear more than once in With Rough Gods. They are:

Five Appearances:
Odysseus (46, 47, 49, 50, and 51)

Four Appearances:
Apollo (15, 16, 17, and 18)
Ariadne (26, 27, 28, and 29)
Orpheus (23, 24, 25, and 29)

Three Appearances:
Agamemnon (43, 44, 47)
Danaë (32, 33, 34)
Zeus (5, 13, 33)

Two Appearances:
Cronus (5, 6)
Dionysus (15, 28)
Eros (16, 19)
Helen (45, 52)
Medusa (31, 35)
Menelaus (44, 52)
Persephone (20, 23)
Perseus (35, 36)
Tiresias (37, 38)

Re-read and paraphrase the poems in which any or all of them appear and answer the following questions:

1: How are the characters the same or changed in each poem?

2: Is the named character always, sometimes, or never the speaker? What does this say about the character? What would the poems be like if this were reversed?

3: How does each characteristic (sameness vs difference and speaker vs audience) inform the meaning and experience of each poem?

Poetic Studies Lesson 3 Part A: Identical Speakers

Lesson Three A: Identical Speakers

Materials needed: With Rough Gods

Read the following information and the poems and Dramatis Personae (Glossary) entries referenced within and answer the following questions:

Most of the poems in With Rough Gods are from easily identifiable and unique speakers. However, in "Otus & Ephialtes" (8), "Deucalion & Pyrrha" (55), "Baucis & Philemon" (58), and "Pyramus & Thisbe" (59) not only is it difficult to identify the speaker from the poem but the Dramatis Personae (Glossary) entries for each character are nearly identical.

1: Why do the poems have named characters if their speakers are ambiguous?

2: Does the order of the speaker influence your experience of the poem?

3: Could the poems have different speakers all together?

4: What effects are produced by the speakers' functionally identical Dramatis Personae (glossary) entries?

Poetic Studies Lesson 3 Part B: Ambiguous Speakers

Lesson Three B: Ambiguous Speakers


Materials needed: With Rough Gods

Read the following information and the poems and Dramatis Personae (Glossary) entries referenced within and answer the following questions:

Most of the poems in With Rough Gods are from easily identifiable and unique speakers. However, in "Apollo & Dionysus" (15), "Agamemnon & Menelaus" (44), "Aeneas & Creusa" (48), and "Odysseus & Penelope" (50) the speaker is intentionally ambiguous, though each character is unique.

5: For each poem, what effects and meanings are changed by viewing the poem as read by one character or another?

6: For each poem, which speaker do you feel is most likely speaking? Justify your answer.

Poetic Studies Lesson 3 Part C: Ambiguous Subjects

Lesson Three C: Ambiguous Subjects

Materials needed: With Rough Gods

Read the following information and the poems and Dramatis Personae (Glossary) entries referenced within and answer the following questions:

Most of the poems in With Rough Gods consist of specific situations, referenced in Greek Mythology. However, in "Homer & Calliope" (1), "Chiron & Asclepius" (10), "Odysseus & Circe" (49), "Deucalion & Pyrrha" (55), "Baucis & Philemon" (58), and "Pyramus & Thisbe" (59) the poems are more-or-less separated from the assumed subject matter of their characters.

7: In "Homer & Calliope" (1), Homer doesn't address Calliope at all, but "Spring, the bringer of strife." Traditionally, however, epic poems began with a proem addressing Calliope, the muse of epic verse. Does this poem serve the same purpose? How is it effective or ineffective? What does this mean with regards to With Rough Gods as a whole?

8: What about these poems is created, influenced, or enhanced by their titles? What other titles could you give them? Justify your answers.

9: Do you find these poems more or less effective than the "more direct" poems in With Rough Gods? Why?

Poetic Studies Lesson 4: Diction in "Aphrodite & Hephaestus"

Lesson Four: Diction in "Aphrodite & Hephaestus"

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and a dictionary


This stand-alone lesson can also be a template for further diction studies regarding the poems in With Rough Gods.

Read "Aphrodite & Hephaestus" (7) and answer the following questions about Palmer's diction in the poem.

1: Why does Aphrodite say Hephaestus "mewl[s]"? What does that imply about him? About their relationship?

2: The phrase "broken parts / that bore me" is an ironic double entendre. Why is it ironic? What other definitions do "parts" and "bore" have that may have further meanings beyond just two? How do these meanings and puns relate to later phrases, i.e. "bore," "mined," and "hollowed out"?

3: The use of "cant" and "can't" is repeated in "Tiresias & Oedipus" (37). What comparisons and contrasts can you make between the use of these two words in each poem? How are the words themselves directly or indirectly related?

4: What does "fix" mean in context? Can its meaning be "fixed"? Why or why not?

5: Aphrodite says "words are such trash." How does this reflect her relationship with Hephaestus? Her relationship with other gods and humans? How does a line like this function in a work of literature--that is, a work of art made of words?

6: What is the difference between "enchant" and "talk"? Do the ritualistic aspects of the word "enchant" apply in this context? How and why? How do both words relate to Aphrodite's function as the goddess of love--a goddess to whom prayers were chanted?

7: "Enlimed" is a word used in fowling (and used by Dante). How does it apply here? Can one "dive enlimed"? What role does paradox play in this poem as a whole?

8: In the final two lines, who are the vultures supposed to represent? Justify your answer.

Poetic Studies Lesson 5: Sonnet Structure

Lesson Five: Sonnet Structure

Materials needed: With Rough Gods and access to linked documents.

Read the following information and answer the following questions.

1: Read the Wikipedia entry on Sonnets (alternatively: give your own presentation on Sonnets). Does the sonnet have a "traditional" role? What is it? What are the parts of the sonnet and their function? Do the poems in With Rough Gods have voltas? Do they need them? Would you call the poems in With Rough Gods sonnets or not? Why?

2: Traditional forms of sonnets include the Shakespearean and Petrarchan. Modern forms include the Hilbertian. Read some sonnets in these forms. By contrast, the sonnets in With Rough Gods are iambic trimeter and, with few exceptions, ABAB CDCD EFEGFG. How does the structure of the sonnets in With Rough Gods create a different experience from more traditional forms? Write your own sonnet or rewrite a traditional sonnet in the form of the sonnets of With Rough Gods. Rewrite one of the sonnets of With Rough Gods in a traditional sonnet form.

3: William Carlos Williams said modern American poets must "break the pentameter" to find our own voice. Traditionally this has been seen as using free verse instead of metrical lines. Do the poems of With Rough Gods sufficiently "break the pentameter"? Does their language sound more "natural" or "American" than other, more traditional sonnets? Why or why not?