Friday, November 3, 2017

Poetry Exploration 1: Speaker


Poems:
1.  Billy Collins, Introduction to Poetry                  
2.  Sharon Olds, First Hour
3.  Ted Hughes, Hawk Roosting                               
4.  Mark Doty, Golden Retrievals
5.  Andrew Marvell, A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body
6.  Richard Wilbur, Advice to a Prophet                  
7.  Taylor Mali, What Teachers Make
8.  Eric Pellerin, Reading Gatsby


Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem                                                    
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.


“First Hour”
by Sharon Olds

That hour, I was most myself. I had shrugged                              
my mother slowly off, I lay there
taking my first breaths, as if
the air of the room was blowing me
like a bubble. All I had to do
was go out along the line of my gaze and back,
feeling gravity, silk, the
pressure of the air a caress, smelling on
myself her creamy blood. The air
was softly touching my skin and mouth,
entering me and drawing forth the little
sighs I did not know as mine.
I was not afraid. I lay in the quiet
and looked, and did the wordless thought,
my mind was getting its oxygen
direct, the rich mix by mouth.
I hated no one. I gazed and gazed,
and everything was interesting, I was
free, not yet in love, I did not
belong to anyone, I had drunk
no milk yet—no one had
my heart. I was not very human. I did not
know there was anyone else. I lay
like a god, for an hour, then they came for me
and took me to my mother.

“Hawk Roosting”
by Ted Hughes

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.                                  
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

“Golden Retrievals”
by Mark Doty

Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention                      
seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh
joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you never can bring back,

or else you’re off in some fog concerning
—tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:
to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,

a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.

“A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body”
by Andrew Marvell

O who shall, from this dungeon, raise                                             
A soul enslav’d so many ways? 
With bolts of bones, that fetter’d stands 
In feet, and manacled in hands; 
Here blinded with an eye, and there 
Deaf with the drumming of an ear; 
A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains 
Of nerves, and arteries, and veins; 
Tortur’d, besides each other part, 
In a vain head, and double heart. 

O who shall me deliver whole 
From bonds of this tyrannic soul? 
Which, stretch’d upright, impales me so 
That mine own precipice I go; 
And warms and moves this needless frame, 
(A fever could but do the same) 
And, wanting where its spite to try, 
Has made me live to let me die. 
A body that could never rest, 
Since this ill spirit it possest. 

What magic could me thus confine 
Within another’s grief to pine? 
Where whatsoever it complain, 
I feel, that cannot feel, the pain; 
And all my care itself employs; 
That to preserve which me destroys; 
Constrain’d not only to endure 
Diseases, but, what’s worse, the cure; 
And ready oft the port to gain, 
Am shipwreck’d into health again. 

But physic yet could never reach 
The maladies thou me dost teach; 
Whom first the cramp of hope does tear, 
And then the palsy shakes of fear; 
The pestilence of love does heat, 
Or hatred’s hidden ulcer eat; 
Joy’s cheerful madness does perplex, 
Or sorrow’s other madness vex; 
Which knowledge forces me to know, 
And memory will not forego. 
What but a soul could have the wit 
To build me up for sin so fit? 
So architects do square and hew 
Green trees that in the forest grew.


“Advice to a Prophet”
by Richard Wilbur
                                                                                                
When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,   
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious, 
Not proclaiming our fall but begging us 
In God’s name to have self-pity, 

Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,   
The long numbers that rocket the mind; 
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,   
Unable to fear what is too strange. 

Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race.   
How should we dream of this place without us?— 
The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us,   
A stone look on the stone’s face? 

Speak of the world’s own change. Though we cannot conceive   
Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost 
How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost,   
How the view alters. We could believe, 

If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip   
Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy, 
The lark avoid the reaches of our eye, 
The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip 

On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn 
As Xanthus once, its gliding trout 
Stunned in a twinkling. What should we be without   
The dolphin’s arc, the dove’s return, 

These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken?   
Ask us, prophet, how we shall call 
Our natures forth when that live tongue is all 
Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken 

In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean   
Horse of our courage, in which beheld 
The singing locust of the soul unshelled, 
And all we mean or wish to mean. 

Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose   
Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding   
Whether there shall be lofty or long standing   
When the bronze annals of the oak-tree close.



“What Teachers Make”
by Taylor Mali

He says the problem with teachers is                                             
What’s a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life
was to become a teacher?

He reminds the other dinner guests that it’s true
what they say about teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the dinner guests
that it’s also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we’re eating, after all, and this is polite conversation.
I mean, you’re a teacher, Taylor.
Be honest. What do you make?
And I wish he hadn’t done that— asked me to be honest—
because, you see, I have this policy about honesty and ass-­‐kicking:
if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional Medal of Honor
and an A-­‐ feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time
with anything less than your very best.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won’t I let you go to the bathroom?
Because you’re bored.
And you don’t really have to go to the bathroom, do you?

I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
Hi. This is Mr. Mali. I hope I haven’t called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something your son said today.
To the biggest bully in the grade, he said,
“Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don’t you?
It’s no big deal.”
And that was noblest act of courage I have ever seen.

I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.
You want to know what I make? I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write.
I make them read, read, read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math
and hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you’ve got this,
then you follow this,
and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this.
Here, let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
Teachers make a goddamn difference! Now what about you?



"reading gatsby"
by eric pellerin

i read it when i was 14                                                                     
well i am not sure
the book was there somewhere
in my ll bean backpack
initials engraved
got it for christmas
i remember daily quizzes
we cheated
there was a multiple choice exam
aced it
an essay on the american dream
my sixth
is everything about the american dream

it meant a great deal to mr canepa
standing with a tattered copy of his own
in his cotton dockers
simple dress shirt
wide matching tie
boat shoes
20 dollar watch
john lennon spectacles
pontificating
spit droplets
how i hate the front row

there was a big party
a car crashed
daisy
her mean husband
a billboard with a doctor
donning john lennon spectacles
his name starts with an h
has two gs in the middle
that was symbolic of something
robert redford
who somehow failed
to capture gatsbys essence
a green light
also a symbol
that meant everything
or nothing
which is existentially
everything
or something
and it made mr canepa
look sad
because it was so beautiful
like amy
who sat in front of me
dangling her shoe on her toe
tanned legs
shoulder straps
i loved seeing her face
when she handed papers back
to me
did i mention
i got an a on that essay
i do not remember
anything actually
i just always got an a
on my english essays
and amy was hot

so i guess i became an english teacher
at 23
taught Gatsby to sophomores
i knew what it meant
now
i told the kids everything
i knew
in a more meaningful way
than old mr canepa
the novel is told from nicks perspective
a third person narrator
who acts as our eyes and ears
tells us that he is trustworthy
but he is an unreliable narrator
though he wants us to look at gatsby
we are really forced to take a hard look at
nick symbolically
ourselves
as he walks the streets of new york
like a ghost
without a home to haunt
consumes our dreams
as the eyes of dr tj eckleburg
watch over our collective consciousness
symbolically
from high above
through foggy spectacles

and gatsby
the beautiful man
in the cool suit
old sport
his party
his death
daisy
daisy
daisy
the green light
he did it all for her
but it was too late
so tragic
what we dream
what we achieve
desire
acceptance
to be loved
they got it
i got it
together
in the classroom
one collective
unconscious
experiencing
itself as
one
peering across the bay with nick
at a green light
that may never be ours
bear that in mind
as you read
kids
old sport
hahaha

at 40
i read the great gatsby by f scott fitzgerald
for the first time
daisy is careless and disgusting
like amy
gatsby sad
nick too much myself
the new film
leo and tobey
remember them
romeo and spidey
now they have crows feat like
me
now
a husband
a father
an old sport
too young to die
too old to live
again

what does the green light symbolize
i do not know anymore
what i know
experience
when i read the last page out loud
i never used to do that
i find myself
standing on the dock staring
across a sea of young people
who dream
with everything ahead of them
i do know
i must look sad
like mr canepa
staring at a light
that can
no longer
be mine

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