This summarizes the key details from the document in 3 sentences:
The document is a collection of 12 poems that explore themes of change, progress, and challenging preconceived notions. It includes poems about racial segregation on a merry-go-round, the evolution of species over time against critics, and a father skillfully removing a splinter from his son's hand by telling a distracting story. The poems portray individuals who envision future changes that others resist or doubt will ever happen.
Sophocles wrote more than 120 plays, but only seven complete tragedies survive. Of the rest, only some titles and fragments remain. Sophocles’ repute as a playwright rests on the seven surviving plays: Ajax, Antigone, Electra, Oedipus the King, The Trachinae, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. Oedipus Rex generally regarded as Sophocles’ masterpiece, presents the myth of Oedipus, the man fated to kill his father and marry his mother.
History of English Literaure- 1350- 1900Jheel Barad
This is my class presentation of M.A, Sem-1 on Paper no.: 105A: History of English Literature – From 1350 to 1900. In this presentation I am dealing with general characteristics of all the ages. Here, I have tried to bring out the outline of history of English Literature.
Sophocles wrote more than 120 plays, but only seven complete tragedies survive. Of the rest, only some titles and fragments remain. Sophocles’ repute as a playwright rests on the seven surviving plays: Ajax, Antigone, Electra, Oedipus the King, The Trachinae, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. Oedipus Rex generally regarded as Sophocles’ masterpiece, presents the myth of Oedipus, the man fated to kill his father and marry his mother.
History of English Literaure- 1350- 1900Jheel Barad
This is my class presentation of M.A, Sem-1 on Paper no.: 105A: History of English Literature – From 1350 to 1900. In this presentation I am dealing with general characteristics of all the ages. Here, I have tried to bring out the outline of history of English Literature.
This is the first volume in the Deserted Village series about the McIntyre iron works and the Tahawus Club in Newcomb township, Essex County, New York. This volume contains 25 19th century accounts of visitors to the site, starting with David Henderson's discovery in 1826 and ending with an 1896 ghost story by Henry van Hoevenberg of Adirondack Lodge fame. To order a bound, print copy, go to http://stores.lulu.com/desertedvillage
Genre Study | Political Satire | Absalom and AchitophelDilip Barad
This presentation deal with Absalom and Achitophel as political satire. In the prologue, "To the Reader", Dryden states that "the true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction".
This is the first volume in the Deserted Village series about the McIntyre iron works and the Tahawus Club in Newcomb township, Essex County, New York. This volume contains 25 19th century accounts of visitors to the site, starting with David Henderson's discovery in 1826 and ending with an 1896 ghost story by Henry van Hoevenberg of Adirondack Lodge fame. To order a bound, print copy, go to http://stores.lulu.com/desertedvillage
Genre Study | Political Satire | Absalom and AchitophelDilip Barad
This presentation deal with Absalom and Achitophel as political satire. In the prologue, "To the Reader", Dryden states that "the true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction".
THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH TO THE NEW JERUSALEM.docxJulian Scutts
Even Stalin assented to the establishment of the stale of Israel, for in 1948 the shock of the recent /holocaust overwhelmed almost all humanity. that shock has evidently worn off to the extent that even liberal democrats accuse Israel of being a colonialist or 'apartheid ' state. While some Jewish intellectuals doubt the existence of an all-merciful God after the murder of six million fellow Jews, others believe that in some inscrutable way even that horror portends the redemption promised in the hebrew Bible.
For Essay 1, write an explication of one of the assigned poe.docxRAJU852744
For Essay 1, write an
explication
of
one
of the assigned poems.
Choose to write about
only one
of the following:
"The Fish"
"A Blessing"
"My Papa's Waltz"
"Lady Lazarus"
"The Blue Bowl"
"Most Like an Arch This Marriage"
Unit 1 will cover, in detail, how to write an explication essay. In brief, "in an explication essay, you examine a work in much detail. Line by line, stanza by stanza...you explain each part as fully as you can and show how the author's techniques produce your response. An explication is essentially a demonstration of your thorough understanding of a work" (
Literature: The Human Experience
47).
For this particular essay, you will want to focus on the poetic techniques of diction, tone, image, and/or figurative language, which we will also cover in this unit.
Your essay should be between 500 and 750 words and adhere to MLA formatting. It needs to quote directly from your chosen text for support, but it should
not
use any secondary research.
Remember that the explication essay should
not just
summarize the poem.
It needs to look at the different elements of poetry used and offer a detailed
explanation
of the poem that also addresses the poem's overall effect and meaning.
The Fish
Elizabeth Bishop
,
1911
-
1979
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
—the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly—
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
—It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
—if you could call it a lip—
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
fr ...
1 GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON1She walks in beauty, like the nigh.docxmercysuttle
1 GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
1
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light 5
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
2
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face; 10
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
3
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 15
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
2. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 5
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 10
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
3. Ode on a Grecian Urn
JOHN KEATS
I
Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan1 historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10
II
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20
1Of the woodland.
First published in Annals of the Fine Arts, December, 1819. Reprinted with minor changes in John Keats, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems in 1820.
595 596
III
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25
For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,
For ever panting, and for ever young—
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 30
IV
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O m ...
Response Question ThreeToday’s readings include two formal poems.docxronak56
Response Question Three
Today’s readings include two formal poems and one free-verse. “My Mistress Eyes” and “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day are two drastically different poems by William Shakespeare, but they have a common theme and structure. They are also formal poetry, meaning they have a specific structure and meter. I have the poems posted under the Poetry link. I have also posted a video titled “A Study in Sonnet,” which will give you an overview of the sonnet form. Please try to pick out the rhyme scheme of these two poems. Hint: Read your poetry terms list, which will give information regarding the sonnet. Compare the way he approaches each poem. Which do you prefer? Which one is ironic?
For “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” try to first determine the setting, but then look at the visual imagery he is creating and the figures of speech. What diction does he use, meaning does he speak in colloquial (everyday) speech or elevated? I will give you a hint to the poem’s meaning. He is walking down a street to a party. How do the images at the beginning of the poem compare to the images further into the poem? Does J. Alfred Prufrock seem as if he is a confident man? Does he convey a sense of insecurity that we’ve all felt at times when walking into a room where we do not exactly feel comfortable? Why? What parts of the poem can you use to support your answer?
In Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death,” how does she use familiar conventions or everyday things that we know to pave the way to a territory unfamiliar to us all: death?
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)
William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Shall I compare thee to a summers day, Sonnet 18
by: William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this giv ...
this is another side of Twilight perspection which is written in Edward's point of view instead of Bella. Midnight sun is unfinished Stephanie's work which is still unbelievable
The perfect Sundabet Slot mudah menang Promo new member Animated PDF for your conversation. Discover and Share the best GIFs on Tenor
Admin Ramah Cantik Aktif 24 Jam Nonstop siap melayani pemain member Sundabet login via apk sundabet rtp daftar slot gacor daftar
Explore the multifaceted world of Muntadher Saleh, an Iraqi polymath renowned for his expertise in visual art, writing, design, and pharmacy. This SlideShare delves into his innovative contributions across various disciplines, showcasing his unique ability to blend traditional themes with modern aesthetics. Learn about his impactful artworks, thought-provoking literary pieces, and his vision as a Neo-Pop artist dedicated to raising awareness about Iraq's cultural heritage. Discover why Muntadher Saleh is celebrated as "The Last Polymath" and how his multidisciplinary talents continue to inspire and influence.
2137ad - Characters that live in Merindol and are at the center of main storiesluforfor
Kurgan is a russian expatriate that is secretly in love with Sonia Contado. Henry is a british soldier that took refuge in Merindol Colony in 2137ad. He is the lover of Sonia Contado.
thGAP - BAbyss in Moderno!! Transgenic Human Germline Alternatives ProjectMarc Dusseiller Dusjagr
thGAP - Transgenic Human Germline Alternatives Project, presents an evening of input lectures, discussions and a performative workshop on artistic interventions for future scenarios of human genetic and inheritable modifications.
To begin our lecturers, Marc Dusseiller aka "dusjagr" and Rodrigo Martin Iglesias, will give an overview of their transdisciplinary practices, including the history of hackteria, a global network for sharing knowledge to involve artists in hands-on and Do-It-With-Others (DIWO) working with the lifesciences, and reflections on future scenarios from the 8-bit computer games of the 80ies to current real-world endeavous of genetically modifiying the human species.
We will then follow up with discussions and hands-on experiments on working with embryos, ovums, gametes, genetic materials from code to slime, in a creative and playful workshop setup, where all paticipant can collaborate on artistic interventions into the germline of a post-human future.
The Legacy of Breton In A New Age by Master Terrance LindallBBaez1
Brave Destiny 2003 for the Future for Technocratic Surrealmageddon Destiny for Andre Breton Legacy in Agenda 21 Technocratic Great Reset for Prison Planet Earth Galactica! The Prophecy of the Surreal Blasphemous Desires from the Paradise Lost Governments!
2137ad Merindol Colony Interiors where refugee try to build a seemengly norm...luforfor
This are the interiors of the Merindol Colony in 2137ad after the Climate Change Collapse and the Apocalipse Wars. Merindol is a small Colony in the Italian Alps where there are around 4000 humans. The Colony values mainly around meritocracy and selection by effort.
2137ad Merindol Colony Interiors where refugee try to build a seemengly norm...
The poems
1. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
1
Merry-Go-Round
By Langston Hughes
Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored 5
Can't sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There's a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we're put in the back—
But there ain't no back 10
To a merry-go-round!
Where's the horse
For a kid that's black?
2. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
2
Lonely Hearts
by Wendy Cope
Can someone make my simple wish come true?
Male biker seeks female for touring fun.
Do you live in North London? Is it you?
Gay vegetarian whose friends are few,
I'm into music, Shakespeare and the sun. 5
Can someone make my simple wish come true?
Executive in search of something new—
Perhaps bisexual woman, arty, young.
Do you live in North London? Is it you?
Successful, straight and solvent? I am too— 10
Attractive Jewish lady with a son.
Can someone make my simple wish come true?
I'm Libran, inexperienced and blue—
Need slim, non-smoker, under twenty-one.
Do you live in North London? Is it you? 15
Please write (with photo) to Box 152.
Who knows where it may lead once we've begun?
Can someone make my simple wish come true?
Do you live in North London? Is it you?
3. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
3
Similar Cases
By Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
There was once a little animal,
No bigger than a fox,
And on five toes he scampered
Over Tertiary rocks.
They called him Eohippus, 5
And they called him very small,
And they thought him of no value
When they thought of him at all;
For the lumpish old Dinoceras
And Coryphodon so slow 10
Were the heavy aristocracy
In days of long ago.
Said the little Eohippus,
'I am going to be a horse!
And on my middle finger-nails 15
To run my earthly course!
I'm going to have a flowing tail!
I'm going to have a mane!
I'm going to stand fourteen hands high
On the psychozoic plain!' 20
The Coryphodon was horrified,
The Dinoceras was shocked;
And they chased young Eohippus,
But he skipped away and mocked.
And they laughed enormous laughter, 25
And they groaned enormous groans,
And they bade young Eohippus
Go view his father's bones.
Said they, 'You always were as small
And mean as now we see, 30
And that's conclusive evidence
That you're always going to be.
What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast,
4. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
4
With hoofs to gallop on?
Why! You'd have to change your nature!' 35
Said the Loxolophodon.
They considered him disposed of,
And retired with gait serene;
That was the way they argued
In 'the early Eocene.' 40
There was once an Anthropoidal Ape,
Far smarter than the rest,
And everything that they could do
He always did the best;
So they naturally disliked him, 45
And they gave him shoulders cool,
And when they had to mention him
They said he was a fool.
Cried this pretentious Ape one day,
'I'm going to be a Man! 50
And stand upright, and hunt, and fight,
And conquer all I can!
I'm going to cut down forest trees,
To make my houses higher!
I'm going to kill the Mastodon! 55
I'm going to make a fire!'
Loud screamed the Anthropoidal Apes
With laughter wild and gay;
They tried to catch that boastful one,
But he always got away. 60
So they yelled at him in chorus,
Which he minded not a whit;
And they pelted him with cocoanuts,
Which didn't seem to hit.
And then they gave him reasons 65
Which they thought of much avail,
To prove how his preposterous
Attempt was sure to fail.
Said the sages, 'In the first place,
The thing cannot be done! 70
And, second, if it could be,
It would not be any fun!
And, third, and most conclusive,
And admitting no reply,
5. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
5
You would have to change your nature! 75
We should like to see you try!'
They chuckled then triumphantly,
These lean and hairy shapes,
For these things passed as arguments
With the Anthropoidal Apes. 80
There was once a Neolithic Man,
An enterprising wight,
Who made his chopping implements
Unusually bright.
Unusually clever he, 85
Unusually brave,
And he drew delightful Mammoths
On the borders of his cave.
To his Neolithic neighbors,
Who were startled and surprised, 90
Said he, 'My friends, in course of time,
We shall be civilized!
We are going to live in cities!
We are going to fight in wars!
We are going to eat three times a day 95
Without the natural cause!
We are going to turn life upside down
About a thing called gold!
We are going to want the earth, and take
As much as we can hold! 100
We are going to wear great piles of stuff
Outside our proper skins!
We are going to have diseases!
And Accomplishments!! And Sins!!!'
Then they all rose up in fury 105
Against their boastful friend,
For prehistoric patience
Cometh quickly to an end.
Said one, 'This is chimerical!
Utopian! Absurd!' 110
Said another, 'What a stupid life!
Too dull, upon my word!'
Cried all, 'Before such things can come,
You idiotic child,
6. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
6
You must alter Human Nature!' 115
And they all sat back and smiled.
Thought they, 'An answer to that last
It will be hard to find!'
It was a clinching argument
To the Neolithic Mind! 120
7. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
7
What Were They Like?
(questions and answers)
By Denise Levertov
1) Did the people of Viet Nam
use lanterns of stone?
2) Did they hold ceremonies
to reverence the opening of buds?
3) Were they inclined to rippling laughter? 5
4) Did they use bone and ivory,
jade and silver, for ornament?
5) Had they an epic poem?
6) Did they distinguish between speech and singing?
1) Sir, their light hearts turned to stone. 10
It is not remembered whether in gardens
stone lanterns illumined pleasant ways.
2) Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,
but after the children were killed
there were no more buds. 15
3) Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
4) A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
All the bones were charred.
5) It is not remembered. Remember,
most were peasants; their life 20
was in rice and bamboo.
When peaceful clouds were reflected in the paddies
and the water-buffalo stepped surely along terraces,
maybe fathers told their sons old tales.
When bombs smashed the mirrors 25
there was time only to scream.
6) There is an echo yet, it is said,
of their speech which was like a song.
It is reported their singing resembled
the flight of moths in moonlight. 30
Who can say? It is silent now.
8. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
8
The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak
By Archibald MacLeish
The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts. 5
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished 10
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say, 15
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.
9. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
9
Heaven
By Cathy Song
He thinks when we die we’ll go to China.
Think of it—a Chinese heaven
where, except for his blond hair,
the part that belongs to his father,
everyone will look like him. 5
China, that blue flower on the map,
bluer than the sea
his hand must span like a bridge
to reach it.
An octave away. 10
I’ve never seen it.
It’s as if I can’t sing that far.
But look—
on the map, this black dot.
Here is where we live, 15
on the pancake plains
just east of the Rockies,
on the other side of the clouds.
A mile above the sea,
the air is so thin, you can starve on it. 20
10. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
10
No bamboo trees
but the alpine equivalent,
reedy aspen with light, fluttering leaves.
Did a boy in Guangzhou dream of this
as his last stop? 25
I’ve heard the trains at night
whistling past our yards,
what we’ve come to own,
the broken fences, the whiny dog, the rattletrap cars.
It’s still the wild west, 30
mean and grubby,
the shootouts and fistfights in the back alley.
With my son the dreamer
and my daughter, who is too young to walk,
I’ve sat in this spot 35
and wondered why here?
Why in this short life,
this town, this creek they call a river?
He had never planned to stay,
the boy who helped to build 40
the railroads for a dollar a day.
11. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
11
He had always meant to go back.
When did he finally know
that each mile of track led him further away,
that he would die in his sleep, 45
dispossessed,
having seen Gold Mountain,
the icy wind tunneling through it,
these landlocked, makeshift ghost towns?
It must be in the blood, 50
this notion of returning.
It skipped two generations, lay fallow,
the garden an unmarked grave.
On a spring sweater day
it’s as if we remember him. 55
I call to the children.
We can see the mountains
shimmering blue above the air.
If you look really hard
says my son the dreamer, 60
leaning out from the laundry’s rigging,
the work shirts fluttering like sails,
you can see all the way to heaven.
12. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
12
The Gift
By Li-Young Lee
To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from. 5
I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness 10
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.
Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man 15
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
13. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
13
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand. 20
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this, 25
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart. 30
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father. 35
14. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
14
Heritage
by Linda Hogan
From my mother, the antique mirror
where I watch my face take on her lines.
She left me the smell of baking bread
to warm fine hairs in my nostrils,
she left the large white breasts that weigh down 5
my body.
From my father I take his brown eyes,
the plague of locusts that leveled our crops,
they flew in formation like buzzards.
From my uncle the whittled wood 10
that rattles like bones
and is white
and smells like all our old houses
that are no longer there. He was the man
who sang old chants to me, the words 15
my father was told not to remember.
15. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
15
From my grandfather who never spoke
I learned to fear silence.
I learned to kill a snake
when you’re begging for rain. 20
And grandmother, blue-eyed woman
whose skin was brown,
she used snuff.
When her coffee can full of black saliva
spilled on me 25
it was like the brown cloud of grasshoppers
that leveled her fields.
It was the brown stain
that covered my white shirt,
my whiteness a shame. 30
That sweet black liquid like the food
she chewed up and spit into my father’s mouth
when he was an infant.
It was the brown earth of Oklahoma
stained with oil. 35
She said tobacco would purge your body of poisons.
It has more medicine than stones and knives
against your enemies.
16. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
16
That tobacco is the dark night that covers me.
She said it is wise to eat the flesh of deer 40
so you will be swift and travel over many miles.
She told me how our tribe has always followed a stick
that pointed west
that pointed east.
From my family I have learned the secrets 45
of never having a home.
17. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
17
I am the People, the Mob
by Carl Sandburg
I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and
clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me 5
and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons
and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.
Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out
and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes 10
me work and give up what I have. And I forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history
to remember. Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the
lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, 15
who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the
world say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a sneer in his
voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.
18. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
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Mending Wall
by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing: 5
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made, 10
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go. 15
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them. 20
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across 25
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it 30
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 35
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
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Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. 40
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' 45
20. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
20
Still I Rise
By Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you? 5
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides, 10
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops. 15
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard. 20
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you? 25
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise 30
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear 35
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
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Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave. 40
I rise
I rise
I rise.
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Invictus
By William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance 5
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade, 10
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate: 15
I am the captain of my soul.
23. Poetry 2 – Poems for Class
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Myth
By Muriel Rukeyser
Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the
roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was
the Sphinx. Oedipus said, 'I want to ask one question.
Why didn't I recognize my mother?' 'You gave the
wrong answer,' said the Sphinx. 'But that was what 5
made everything possible,' said Oedipus. 'No,' she said.
'When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning,
two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered,
Man. You didn't say anything about woman.'
'When you say Man,' said Oedipus, 'you include women 10
too. Everyone knows that.' She said, 'That's what
you think.'
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Her Kind
By Anne Sexton
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. 5
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods; 10
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver, 15
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die. 20
I have been her kind.
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Storm Warnings
By Adrienne Rich
The glass has been falling all the afternoon,
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of grey unrest is moving across the land,
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair 5
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky
And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has traveled 10
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm. Weather abroad
And weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction.
Between foreseeing and averting change 15
Lies all the mastery of elements
Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter.
Time in the hand is not control of time,
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise, 20
We can only close the shutters.
I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture. 25
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions.
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The Dangling Conversation
By Paul Simon
It’s a still-life watercolor
Of a now late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtain lace
And shadows wash the room
And we sit and drink our coffee 5
Couched in our indifference
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs 10
The borders of our lives
And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our places with bookmarkers
That measure what we’ve lost 15
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time
And the dangling conversation 20
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives
Yes,we speak of thing that matter
With words that must be said
“Can analysis be worthwhile?” 25
“Is the theatre really dead?”
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow
I cannot feel your hand
You’re a stranger now unto me 30
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives