Paper 2 – Poetry Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry. Muriel Rukeyser Painting is silent poetry, and. poetry is painting that speaks Plutarch Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. Robert Frost Why? Cultures around the world revere poetry. We revere poetry because—like music, painting, and dance—it is an important reflection of who we are, what we care about, and why we laugh until our stomachs hurt and why we cry until we think life is too much to bear. It’s the song of our souls and one of the most important sources we turn to for comfort, for inspiration, for pleasure, and for the knowledge that we are not alone in our experience of the world. So even if you never spend much of your life writing analyses of poetry, please—for your own sake—make some time to fill your life with more beauty by finding poems that speak both to you and for you. Reading poetry for pleasure and awareness is in itself a worthy way to spend some time and will leave us with thoughts and experiences that are far more beneficial than most of the video clips we view on YouTube, the video games we play, or the reality shows we watch on TV. Like junk food, those activities satisfy our cravings in the short term, but having a steady diet of them won’t leave us better off. Reading good writing, however, is more like healthy food for the mind and soul. Taking time to look at poetry carefully to see how poets use sound, space, and imagery to connect us with our experience and the world will leave us better off than before, and that feels good. So why analyse poetry? Because the more we understand the techniques behind the art, the more we can appreciate the art itself. Being aware of theme, imagery, figures of speech, sound, rhyme, rhythm, and form heightens our pleasure for what poets bring to us. And the skill of seeing and hearing details carries over to other areas of life too. How? First, you need to find your poem(s) to work with (if you haven’t already). You have some options • Choose a poet and compare two or three of their poems. • Choose a theme and compare two or three poems by different poets. • Choose a single poem that you particularly like. You might find it useful to choose a critical approach so that you can narrow what you’re going to focus on. You don’t need to use outside sources for this assignment; in fact, I’d prefer that you didn’t. I know you’re not analytical experts with this material, so I won’t expect you any more from you than what I think you are capable of doing. I don’t want somebody else’s interpretation/thoughts/comments/words about the poems you choose; I want yours. I want you to have the experience and satisfaction of sweating a little and feeling good about what you accomplish. Focus on three or four poetic elements: word choice, word order, tone, images, figures of speech, symbolism, irony, sounds, rhythm, forms. Use the guide towards the back of our syllabus about how to write better papers. The Nitty Gritty Your paper should be 3-4 pages long (a cover page is unnecessary and doesn’t count as part of the total), double-spaced, 12 pt. Times New Roman font. For the final draft only, submit it to the D2L Dropbox, email me a copy as a Word attachment, and bring a hard copy to class. When? Tuesday March 13th Bonus Limerick! The Marriage Of Poor Kim Kardashian - by Sir Salman Rushdie The marriage of poor Kim Kardashian Was krushed like a kar in a krashian. Her Kris kried, 'Not fair! Why kan't I keep my share?' But Kardashian fell klean outa fashian. Athina Livanos ENGL 102 Poetry Paper 2nd March 7, 2005 Believe in the Possibility of the Impossible “John & Mary” John & Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who also had never met. -from a freshman’s short story They were like gazelles who occupied different grassy plains, running in opposite directions from different lions. They were like postal clerks in different zip codes, with different vacation time, their bosses adamant and clock-driven. How could they get together? They were like two people who couldn’t get together. John was a Sufi with a love of the dervish, Mary of course a Christian with a curfew. They were like two dolphins in the immensity of the Atlantic, one playful, the other stuck in a tuna nettwo absolutely different childhoods! There was simply no hope for them. They would never speak in person. When they ran across that windswept field toward each other, they were like two freight trains, one having left Seattle at 6:36 P.M. at an unknown speed, the other delayed in Topeka for repairs. The math indicated that they’d embrace in another world, if at all, like parallel lines. Or merely appear kindred and close, like stars. “John and Marry had never met.” That is what starts off Stephen Dunn’s poem “John and Mary.” The words of the poem speak of the impossibility of the pair ever meeting, yet, somehow, it leaves the reader with the feeling that their meeting is inevitable. The formation of the poem is deceptively simple. Its form takes loan from the simile that inspired it by proceeding to heap simile upon simile to construct the poem. Dunn makes wonderfully effective use of the simile to implore different symbols for the reasons the couple cannot get together. What brings the poem to fruition is Dunn’s use of differing tones for different portions of the poem. The author has each line and phrase build on the one that came before it, starting at the epigraph and continuing until the final words. It is an effective use of tone that appears from the similes and symbols. The poem begins by quoting the simile that inspired Dunn. It is a familiar simile that often makes its way onto humorous lists. Dunn’s quoting of this simile includes an acknowledgment, to a freshman. While the literal meaning of the word ‘freshman’ could bring to mind a studious individual hunched over a desk laden with books, the connotative meaning can bring to mind a very different image. The general connotations associated with a freshman are often not positive. The term invokes thoughts of someone who knows precious little yet thinks they can comprehend the full expanse of the world. It is as though Dunn grabs onto this foolish statement, made by someone who has yet to understand the weight of his or her words, and seeks to explain its full potential. The epigraph stands as more than a mere introduction to the piece, it is also its dedication, to all of those who see and speak but do not observe and comprehend, to those who are ignorant of their ignorance, those who do not know that they do not know. The epigraph sets the tone of the poem. It is in the epigraph that the reader gets their first feel of the poem. The tone of the poem starts off as very light-hearted. Dunn’s continuation of the simile gives the poem a humorous ambiance. It serves to bring the readers in. The jocularity persists for the first twenty lines, with each line becoming more fanciful than the one that preceded it. Every line reemphasizes the point that John and Mary will never be able to have their paths cross. In the last three lines the tone changes dramatically. Dunn drops the joke and the air of complete impossibility. In the closing lines the reader is given a hope that, in spite of everything previously stated, John and Mary might have a chance. The poem becomes spontaneously serious as it declares the faint possibility of a meeting “in another world.” (22) Even if it is terribly unlikely like the crossing of “parallel lines” (22) it is still, now, a distinct possibility. The change of tone accentuates the change of thought. Dunn’s tone is made clear through the series of similes that comprise the poem. The first twenty lines worth of similes reflect the foolishness of the epigraph. They merely compare John and Mary to other items that will never meet. The only difference is that Dunn gives various reasons for the lack of the convergence of the twain: they were being chased by “different lions,” (3) they were “caught in a tuna net” (12). Dunn’s use of foolish similes is optimized in line seven’s, “They were like two people who couldn’t get together.” The comparisons make the poem feel somewhat foolish and light-hearted. Because the similes are so hackneyed, when the change is made in the concluding lines, to more somber tone, it is first noticed in the change of simile styles. They go from being trite comparisons of distant and retreating objects to two things which can appear infinitely close but can never combine. It is the change in the style of simile that makes the change in the poem’s tone. When Dunn expresses hope for the would be couple he successfully turns the poem on its ear. It is the symbols that can be drawn out of the similes that display Dunn’s craft. Within each simile lies something that is keeping John and Mary apart. The barriers grow in intensity from spontaneous lions, immerging from nowhere like a forgotten appointment, all the way to the very laws of nature that will never allow them to cross, the impossibility of overlapping parallel lines. The symbols can be viewed as a variety of different, normal things that harass the lives of most people: the lions, sudden concerns; the boss, social obligations; differing religions, preconceptions; the tuna nets, the snares of success and worldly living; the needs for repairs, wounds from past mistakes and relationships. Each comparison grows in its potential to destroy John and Mary. However, when the tone changes it is no longer the demands of the world that keep them apart, but rather, their very selves. The final comparison, to stars (23), shows most clearly that the one thing which really can keep people apart is simple distance, emotional and physical. Even when the stars of the night sky appear to be right next to each other they are actually several million miles apart. While parallel lines can be extraordinarily close they are still never touching and the stars that twinkle side by side are actually galaxies apart. Despite the negative realizations of the final three lines there is still an odd measure of hope mingled in amongst the tears. While Dunn points out the most genuine impossibility of John and Mary ever exchanging words, he prefaces it with a line of hope, “The math indicated that they’d embrace.” (21) Even if they do have to wait for, “another world” (22) at least there they will not be encumbered by that which binds then to solitude here. The author leaves the poem on a note of cautious hope. The tone, similes, and symbols all come together to leave the reader hoping for John and Mary, and for themselves. There is a certain amount of hope that perhaps they will, in that other world, end up like stars that actually do orbit each other; because, the light from those two stars we perceive as one, united, together, finally. 1 Group 1 - Childhood My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/my-heart-leaps. Accessed 21 Oct. 2018. Piano D. H. Lawrence (1885 – 1930) Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past. Source: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/piano. Accessed 21 Oct. 2018. 2 First Day at School by Roger McGaugh A millionbillionwillion miles from home Waiting for the bell to go. (To go where?) Why are they all so big, other children? So noisy? So much at home they Must have been born in uniform Lived all their lives in playgrounds Spent the years inventing games That don't let me in. Games That are rough, that swallow you up. And the railings. All around, the railings. Are they to keep out wolves and monsters? Things that carry off and eat children? Things you don't take sweets from? Perhaps they're to stop us getting out Running away from the lessins. Lessin. What does a lessin look like? Sounds small and slimy. They keep them in the glassrooms. Whole rooms made out of glass. Imagine. I wish I could remember my name Mummy said it would come in useful. Like wellies*. When there's puddles. Yellowwellies. I wish she was here. I think my name is sewn on somewhere Perhaps the teacher will read it for me. Tea-cher. The one who makes the tea. https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/first-day-at-school/. Accessed 21 October 2018. *Wellies are rainboots 3 Group 2 - Love Song of Solomon 4:1-7 King James Version (KJV) 4 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. 2 Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them. 3 Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks. 4 Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. 5 Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies. 6 Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense. 7 Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Song+of+Songs+4%3A1-7&version=KJV. Accessed 21 October 2018. 4 Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? (Sonnet 18) William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616 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 gives life to thee. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/shall-i-compare-thee-summers-day-sonnet-18. 21 October 2018. For Anne by Leonard Cohen (1961) With Annie gone, Whose eyes to compare With the morning sun? Not that I did compare, But I do compare Now that she’s gone. Source: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-anne/. Accessed 21 October 2018. 5 Group 3 – Death – Loss Holy Sonnets: Death, Be Not Proud By John Donne Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44107/holy-sonnets-death-be-not-proud. Accessed 21 October 2018. Funeral Blues Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good. https://allpoetry.com/Funeral-Blues. Accessed 21 October 2018. 6 Marie Howe, the oldest of nine children, wrote this after her brother died of AIDs at the age of 28. What the Living Do by Marie Howe Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of. It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off. For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking, I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve, I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning. What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it. But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless: I am living. I remember you. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/marie-howe. Accessed on 21 Oct. 2018. 7 Group 4 – Happiness I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth (1807) I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed – and gazed – but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. https://interestingliterature.com/2016/03/01/a-short-analysis-of-wordsworths-i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud/. 21 Oct. 2018. 8 A Birthday (1861) by Christina Rosetti My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water’d shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. Raise me a dais of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me. https://interestingliterature.com/2016/11/29/a-short-analysis-of-christina-rossettis-a-birthday/. Accessed 21 Oct. 2018. i thank You God for most this amazing e e cummings i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth day of life and love and wings and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any-lifted from the no of all nothing-human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened) https://owlcation.com/humanities/E-E-Cummings-i-thank-You-God-for-most-this-amazing. 21 Oct. 2018 9 Group 5 – Langston Hughes The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1921) Langston Hughes, 1902-1967 I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/negro-speaks-rivers. Accessed 21 Oct. 2018. Jazzonia (1923) Oh, silver tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul! In a Harlem cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play. A dancing girl whose eyes are bold Lifts high a dress of silken gold. Oh, singing tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul! Were Eve's eyes In the first garden Just a bit too bold? Was Cleopatra gorgeous In a gown of gold? Oh, shining tree! Oh, silver rivers of the soul! In a whirling cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play. https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jazzonia/. Accessed 21 Oct. 2018. 10 Harlem (1951) What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
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