"Author's Prayer" by Ilya Kaminsky

Kaminsky immigrated to the United States in 1993; he was born in 1977 in Odessa, former USSR. He is a professor at San Diego State University.

Key terms: imagery, repetition, parallel structure, emjambment

Author's Prayer

If I speak for the dead, I must leave
this animal of my body,

I must write the same poem over and over,
for an empty page is the white flag of their surrender.

If I speak for them, I must walk on the edge
of myself, I must live as a blind man

who runs through rooms without
touching the furniture.

Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking “What year is it?”
I can dance in my sleep and laugh

in front of the mirror.
Even sleep is a prayer, Lord,

I will praise your madness, and
in a language not mine, speak

of music that wakes us, music
in which we move. For whatever I say

is a kind of petition, and the darkest
days must I praise.

This poem is a rather short, but fascinating, meditation on the power of language. Indeed, it is specifically about writing- the title mentions authoring specifically, but the title also mentions prayer, which is another powerful kind of text, whether written down or simply spoken (or thought). The poem also mentions speech, prayer, praise, laughter, petition, and music; these are all powerful kinds of texts. The poem moves quickly between these ideas and they even seem to be linked with running, touching, sleeping, and living. The belief that this expresses is such that all life is a text: spoken, unspoken, and written, and that it is all powerful. It is all influential and memorable and worthy.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/239986

"In the Past" by Trumbull Stickney

Trumbull Stickney grew up with affluent parents in England before he went to school at Harvard. He was very well educated and especially dedicated himself to the study of the Greek classics. Eventually, Stickney returned to teach at Harvard. His poems are "highly emotional and technically daring," according to POL.

Key terms: alliteration, imagery, rhyme

In the Past

There lies a somnolent lake
Under a noiseless sky,
Where never the mornings break
Nor the evenings die.

Mad flakes of colour
Whirl on its even face
Iridescent and streaked with pallour;
And, warding the silent place,

The rocks rise sheer and gray
From the sedgeless brink to the sky
Dull-lit with the light of pale half-day
Thro’ a void space and dry.

And the hours lag dead in the air
With a sense of coming eternity
To the heart of the lonely boatman there:
That boatman am I,

I, in my lonely boat,
A waif on the somnolent lake,
Watching the colours creep and float
With the sinuous track of a snake.

Now I lean o’er the side
And lazy shades in the water see,
Lapped in the sweep of a sluggish tide
Crawled in from the living sea;

And next I fix mine eyes,
So long that the heart declines,
On the changeless face of the open skies
Where no star shines;

And now to the rocks I turn,
To the rocks, around
That lie like walls of a circling sun
Wherein lie bound

The waters that feel my powerless strength
And meet my homeless oar
Labouring over their ashen length
Never to find a shore.

But the gleam still skims
At times on the somnolent lake,
And a light there is that swims
With the whirl of a snake;

And tho’ dead be the hours i’ the air,
And dayless the sky,
The heart is alive of the boatman there:
That boatman am I.

This is another study in literary device: the poem is formatted traditionally, in quatrains with an abab rhyme scheme. There are notes of alliteration and assonance throughout, and of course the poem relies on heavy imagery. The narrator reflects on his positioning as a solitary boatman, as the "hours lay dead in the air / With a sense of coming eternity." He is surrounded by tranquility and wonder: "Now I lean o'er the side / And lazy shades in the water see, /  Lapped in the sweep of the sluggish tide / Crawled in from the living sea." This poem is a really neat parallel to Into the Wild, which we are finishing up in English 10. The wonder of nature and tranquility/stillness of the water, skies, forest, etc. put against the wanderlust and wondering of the narrator in this poem evoke images similar to those in the book. Does the narrator here thrive on these conditions or is he longing for intimacy? How does the title "In the Past" tie in?

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/239640

"Inside Out" by Diane Wakowski

Diane Wakowski is a very prolific contemporary poet. Her poetry is "frankly personal and wildly humorous, and expresses a mindset in stark opposition to Americans’ materialism and moralistic rigidity" (POL). She is professor emeritus at Michigan State University.

Inside Out 

I walk the purple carpet into your eye
carrying the silver butter server
but a truck rumbles by,
                      leaving its black tire prints on my foot
and old images          the sound of banging screen doors on hot 
             afternoons and a fly buzzing over the Kool-Aid spilled on 
             the sink
flicker, as reflections on the metal surface.

Come in, you said,
inside your paintings, inside the blood factory, inside the 
old songs that line your hands, inside
eyes that change like a snowflake every second,
inside spinach leaves holding that one piece of gravel,
inside the whiskers of a cat,
inside your old hat, and most of all inside your mouth where you 
grind the pigments with your teeth, painting
with a broken bottle on the floor, and painting
with an ostrich feather on the moon that rolls out of my mouth.

You cannot let me walk inside you too long inside 
the veins where my small feet touch
bottom.
You must reach inside and pull me
like a silver bullet
from your arm.

This poem, in the absurd beat style that we've seen before, seems to describe the narrator's struggles with intimacy with a particular person. The strange language and form influences the reader's uncomfortable perspective, similar to the perspective of the narrator: "with a broken bottle on the floor, and painting / with an ostrich feather on the moon that rolls out of my mouth." This is certainly not a romantic poem, and not a particularly descriptive poem, despite the unique word choice and imagery. It's a poem of expression and confusion; a jarring narrative of strange and probably disappointing interaction. 

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/176000

"Flounder" by Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey is a contemporary poet, born in 1966 to interracial parents. Her poems focus on the realism of working-class lives and jobs in the South, and she often combines personal experiences with historical issues. 

Flounder 

Here, she said, put this on your head.
She handed me a hat.
You ’bout as white as your dad,
and you gone stay like that.

Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down
around each bony ankle,
and I rolled down my white knee socks
letting my thin legs dangle,

circling them just above water
and silver backs of minnows
flitting here then there between
the sun spots and the shadows.

This is how you hold the pole
to cast the line out straight.
Now put that worm on your hook,
throw it out and wait.

She sat spitting tobacco juice
into a coffee cup.
Hunkered down when she felt the bite,
jerked the pole straight up

reeling and tugging hard at the fish
that wriggled and tried to fight back.
A flounder, she said, and you can tell
’cause one of its sides is black.

The other side is white, she said.
It landed with a thump.
I stood there watching that fish flip-flop,

switch sides with every jump.

This poem follows a classic American style of reflection and storytelling. The narrator is reflecting on an experience with her aunt, where race is immediately called to the foreground of the poem's subject matter: "You 'bout as white as your dad, / and you gone stay like that." On one level, the speaker is simply making a pun as she is protecting the child from the sun (making her wear a hat so she doesn't burn and "change colors"), but on a deeper level, this type of speech calls to mind an historical narrative of what comes with being black/white in America. Aunt Sugar catches a flounder as they fish, and the narrator ends up thinking about the flounder's double identity: one side of the fish is black, and one is white. It seems fair to involve the poet's life in this poem, because she is mixed-race. Either way, the beginning of the poem alludes to the fact that the girl herself is mixed-race, and thus she identifies with the flounder. Perhaps she wishes she could so easily "switch" her two identities; perhaps she feels like they are not two separate parts of her and feels badly that the flounder can never be both.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/237548

"A Boat Beneath a Summer Sky" by Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll was the author of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" - his poems and stories are popular with children, adults, and scholars. From POL: "His nonsense poetry and invented language create clear images of fantastic landscapes, animals, and heroes. 

A Boat Beneath a Summer Sky 

A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?

The poem's reference to "Alice" is sure to peak the interest of any reader who is familiar with Alice in Wonderland. Any scholar will recognize the depth of this allusion and the reality of Carroll's obsession with "Alice." Here, Alice is one child who "nestle[d] near, / eager eye and willing ear" and who has moved on to adulthood. The poem focuses on the children, who used to sit in the narrator's boat and listen to his stories, and eventually grow older as "Echoes face and memories die: / Autumn frosts have slain July." The imagery in this stanza and the others, where the three lines (tercet) involves a repeated metaphor, seems to bring the poem deeper and deeper. There is a progression, not just in chronology (the aging of the children), but also in the depth of what is being wondered at in the poem. The extended metaphor of "drifting" in a boat towards adulthood is carried throughout, although the locality of "Wonderland" is added and the image becomes more and more abstract as the narration develops.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/173163

"Pastoral Dialogue" by Anne Killigrew

Anne Killigrew was a 17th century British poet and painter. Her poetry mostly described life at court and was not published until after her death.

Pastoral Dialogue 

Remember when you love, from that same hour
Your peace you put into your lover’s power;
From that same hour from him you laws receive,
And as he shall ordain, you joy, or grieve,
Hope, fear, laugh, weep; Reason aloof does stand,
Disabled both to act, and to command.
Oh cruel fetters! rather wish to feel
On your soft limbs, the galling weight of steel;
Rather to bloody wounds oppose your breast.
No ill, by which the body can be pressed
You will so sensible a torment find
As shackles on your captived mind.
The mind from heaven its high descent did draw,
And brooks uneasily any other law
Than what from Reason dictated shall be.
Reason, a kind of innate deity,
Which only can adapt to ev’ry soul
A yoke so fit and light, that the control
All liberty excels; so sweet a sway,
The same ’tis to be happy, and obey;
Commands so wise, and with rewards so dressed,
That the according soul replies “I’m blessed.”

This poem is both inquiry and lesson in Reason - a very popular topic during the Renaissance period. Traditionally, it's interesting to hear the argument from a woman that Reason is so powerful - or at least that would be the perception during the time period. Women were emotional and nurturing, lacking reason or even capability to reason until after the Romantic period. The title "Pastoral Dialogue" indicates this duality - "pastoral" referring to the role of the father and the perception of the family and traditions, dialogue referring to the two perceptions that are presented in the poem. While there is only one speaker throughout, it seems clear that this speaker is having a sort of dialogue, in the sense that she(?) is considering both emotion and reason. 

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/180648 

"Self-Inquiry Before the Job Interview" by Gary Soto

Gary Soto is a very popular contemporary poet, especially famous for his contributions to Chicano literature. His poetry and prose focuses on the life of the Mexican American community, deriving inspiration from his own background. 

Self-Inquiry Before the Job Interview 

Did you sneeze?
Yes, I rid myself of the imposter inside me.

Did you iron your shirt?
Yes, I used the steam of mother's hate.

Did you wash your hands?
Yes, I learned my hygiene from a raccoon.

I prayed on my knees, and my knees answered with pain.
I gargled. I polished my shoes until I saw who I was.
I inflated my résumé by employing my middle name.

I walked to my interview, early,
The sun like a ring on an electric stove.
I patted my hair when I entered the wind of a revolving door.
The guard said, For a guy like you, it's the 19th floor.

The economy was up. Flags whipped in every city plaza
In America. This I saw for myself as I rode the elevator,
Empty because everyone had a job but me.

Did you clean your ears?
Yes, I heard my fate in the drinking fountain's idiotic drivel.

Did you slice a banana into your daily mush?
I added a pinch of salt, two raisins to sweeten my breath.

Did you remember your pen?
I remembered my fingers when the elevator opened.

I shook hands that dripped like a dirty sea.
I found a chair and desk. My name tag said my name.
Through the glass ceiling, I saw the heavy rumps of CEOs.
Outside my window, the sun was a burning stove,
All of us pushing papers
To keep it going.

 I think this poem would be pretty neat to read aloud. It's titled "Self-Inquiry," so we know that it's a conversation that the speaker is having with himself, but most of it is framed like a dialogue. The tone seems sardonic in the way that he is "preparing" for the interview. It seems as though the narrator is already resigned to be unsuccessful because the image directly in the middle of the poem: "Flags whipped in every city plaza / In America. This I saw for myself as I rode the elevator, / Empty because everyone had a job but me." This poem seems like more than a downer before an interview, it is an authentic critique of American society. At least, society in the way that the narrator sees it. It's possible that the dialogue represents the narrator's attempt to figure out how he fits into this society, which already seems to not have a place for him. The parallel structure is something to be considered as well, especially because it actually varies- it's not all parallel, it's misleading at points.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poet/gary-soto

"Ecology" by Jack Collom

Jack Collom is a contemporary poet from Chicago. He writes, like many contemporary poets, about daily happenings and observations. As one can see from this poem, he has been described as an ecological poet.

Ecology

Surrounded by bone, surrounded by cells,by rings, by rings of hell, by hair, surrounded byair-is-a-thing, surrounded by silhouette, by honey-wet bees, yetby skeletons of trees, surrounded by actual, yes, for practicalpurposes, people, surrounded by surrealpopcorn, surrounded by the reborn: Surrender in the centerto surroundings. O surrender forever, neverend her, let her blend around, surrender to the surroundings thatsurround the tender endo-surrender, thattumble through the tumbling to that blue thatcurls around the crumbling, to that, the blue thatrumbles under the sun bounding the pearl thatwe walk on, talk on; we can chalk thatup to experience, sensing the brown here that’sblue now, a drop of water surrounding a cow that’sblack & white, the warbling Blackburnian twitter that’smachining midnight orange in the light that’sglittering in the light green visible wind. That’sthe ticket to the tunnel through the thicket that’sa cricket’s funnel of music to correct & pick it outfrom under the wing that whirls up over & out.

This poem is a very interesting meditation on the title matter: ecology. The description takes many forms; environment, biology, community. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this poem is that which is heard. The language and diction that the poet chose is fascinating in an oral reading. The alliteration: "for practical / purposes, people, surrounded by surreal / popcorn"... the repetition of "that" at the end of the lines, the enjambment which forces a continued reading without much room for breath. It's as if the poem itself is living, refusing to be structured or even put down on the page. The language is hard to control - reading it aloud, you find yourself caught up in simply reading, taken away by the words trying to leave the page without regard for your voice or knowledge. What an interesting experiment.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/238516

"Sonnet 1" by Philip Sidney

Philip Sidney was born into English nobility and was educated at Shrewsbury School and Oxford University in the mid-16th century. Like many poets, none of his poems were published during his lifetime.

Key terms: sonnet, feet, meter

Sonnet 1

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,—
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay:
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”

This sonnet is the first in a sequence which actually make up a narrative entitled "Astrophil and Stella" about a nobleman's unrequited love for a taken woman. This sonnet is the exposition, where the narrator shares his deep love for the woman and his desire to let her know. He offers that "She might take some pleasure of my pain" and that "Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain" - he hopes that she will take pity on him for his painful love, and that this pity will actually turn into love on her end. At the end of this sonnet, his muse tells him to "look in thy heart and write" - meaning that he is beating himself up too much about it, and that he needs only to use what is in his heart. It's an uplifting end to this particular sonnet, but it seems like it doesn't end up working in the context of the rest of the narrative. 

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/242550

"Crepuscule with Muriel" by Marilyn Hacker

From POL: "Although a traditionalist in form, Marilyn Hacker’s poetry employs contemporary speech and themes. Hacker splits her time between Paris and her native New York City."

Key terms: free verse, alliteration, consonance, assonance, personification

Crepuscule with Muriel

Instead of a cup of tea, instead of a milk-
silk whelk of a cup, of a cup of nearly six
o'clock teatime, cup of a stumbling block,
cup of an afternoon unredeemed by talk,
cup of a cut brown loaf, of a slice, a lack
of butter, blueberry jam that's almost black,
instead of tannin seeping into the cracks
of a pot, the void of an hour seeps out, infects
the slit of a cut I haven't the wit to fix
with a surgeon's needle threaded with fine-gauge silk
as a key would thread the cylinder of a lock.
But no key threads the cylinder of a lock.
Late afternoon light, transitory, licks
the place of the absent cup with its rough tongue, flicks
itself out beneath the wheel's revolving spoke.
Taut thought's gone, with a blink of attention, slack,
a vision of "death and distance in the mix"
(she lost her words and how did she get them back
when the corridor of a day was a lurching deck?
The dream-life logic encodes in nervous tics
she translated to a syntax which connects
intense and unfashionable politics
with morning coffee, Hudson sunsets, sex;
then the short-circuit of the final stroke,
the end toward which all lines looped out, then broke).
What a gaze out the window interjects:
on the southeast corner, a black Lab balks,
tugged as the light clicks green toward a late-day walk
by a plump brown girl in a purple anorak.
The Bronx-bound local comes rumbling up the tracks
out of the tunnel, over west Harlem blocks
whose windows gleam on the animal warmth of bricks
rouged by the fluvial light of six o'clock.

This poem, though difficult to decipher in many ways, is a lesson in diction and imagery. The poet begins with parallelism - "Instead of..." and throughout she messes with alliteration and rhyme: "butter, blueberry jam that's almost black, / instead of tannin seeping into the cracks." There is a fascinating use of personification and even consonance here: "Late afternoon light, transitory, licks / the place of the absent cup with its rough tongue." It is clear that the word choice in this poem was very particular and that there is meaning to be found. In first hour, we discussed the possibility that the narrator is used to having tea with Muriel, but perhaps the "crepuscule" (def. twilight) represents Muriel's death and the narrator is dealing with no longer having a companion. It is also possible that the narrator is describing a tea date with Muriel that is simply happening at twilight, or that the twilight somehow represents the tea that they have together. This is a perfect example of poetry being open to interpretation - but the tools are there to support the interpretation. This would also be an excellent poem to try and read aloud because of the intricate diction.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/180962

"Equus Callabus" by Joel Nelson

Nelson brings a wealth of experiences to this poem. He lives in Texas on a cattle ranch and is an excellent horse trainer, although he is recognized in the area of cowboy poetry. He was at one time poet-in-residence at Rothbury, Northumberland, England.

Key terms: binary, structure, rhyme, repetition, parallel structure

Equus Callabus

Written in the Autumn of the Year of the Horse 2002

I have run on middle fingernail through Eolithic morning,
I have thundered down the coach road with the Revolution’s warning.
I have carried countless errant knights who never found the grail.
I have strained before the caissons I have moved the nation’s mail.

I’ve made knights of lowly tribesmen and kings from ranks of peons
I have given pride and arrogance to riding men for eons.
I have grazed among the lodges and the tepees and the yurts.
I have felt the sting of driving whips, lashes, spurs and quirts.

      I am roguish – I am flighty – I am inbred – I am lowly.
      I’m a nightmare – I am wild – I am the horse.
      I am gallant and exalted – I am stately – I am noble.
      I’m impressive – I am grand – I am the horse.

I have suffered gross indignities from users and from winners,
I have felt the hand of kindness from the losers and the sinners.
I have given for the cruel hand and given for the kind.
Heaved a sigh at Appomattox when surrender had been signed.

I can be as tough as hardened steel – as fragile as a flower.
I know not my endurance and I know not my own power.
I have died with heart exploded ’neath the cheering in the stands -
Calmly stood beneath the hanging noose of vigilante bands.

      I have traveled under conqueror and underneath the beaten.
      I have never chosen sides – I am the horse.
      The world is but a player’s stage – my roles have numbered many.
      Under blue or under gray – I am the horse.

So I’ll run on middle fingernail until the curtain closes,
And I will win your triple crowns and I will wear your roses.
Toward you who took my freedom I’ve no malice or remorse.
I’ll endure – This Is My Year – I am the Horse!

Although Nelson's poem is written in first person, it reads much like an ode to the horse. The poem describes various qualities of the horse, many of which would only be known to someone as familiar as Nelson. The narrator is the horse - likely not a particular horse, but "the Horse," which could represent the community of horses. The horse/narrator is arguing its worth and speaking directly to humankind in the last stanza: "Toward you who took my freedom I've no malice or remorse. / I'll endure - This Is My Year - I am the Horse!" The poem relies on binaries, which are sets of opposite descriptions. "I can be as tough as hardened steel - as fragile as a flower" is an example of this. The poem, in its structure, feels musical and elegant; it follows a quatrain form throughout with an aabb rhyme scheme. These qualities make the poem not only quite readable and enjoyable, but great for recitation. 

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/238308

"An Arundel Tomb" by Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin was an English poet who died in 1985 and wrote poems, according to POL, in a "stubbornly old fashioned manner". He focused on melancholy and dire themes, but often brilliantly (and shockingly) incorporated humor into his poetry.

An Arundel Tomb

Side by side, their faces blurred,  
The earl and countess lie in stone,  
Their proper habits vaguely shown  
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,  
And that faint hint of the absurd—  
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque   
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still  
Clasped empty in the other; and  
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,  
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.  
Such faithfulness in effigyWas just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace  
Thrown off in helping to prolong  
The Latin names around the base.

They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,  
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths  
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the glass. A bright  
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths  
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.  
Now, helpless in the hollow of  
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins  
Above their scrap of history,  
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

The sentiment of this poem is obvious in the last stanza. It's pretty straightforward and easy to follow, but so artfully crafted in sextets with a structured rhyme scheme and wonderful diction. This poem would be beautiful on its own, but becomes so much more so when put in context: the poet wrote this reflection after seeing the real Arundel tomb in England. It is a wonderful example of ekphrasis, writing based on the emotion one gets from an image. The tomb really is there, and the poet was moved enough to story it with his words. These two were buried next to each other and the sculptor put their hands together, instead of at their sides or on their torsos in traditional form. The poem reflects on how this moment is memorialized, their tomb made to sit in a museum for viewers to see and wonder at. "Only an attitude remains" -- this expresses the sentiment that, although the tomb itself is an product of antiquity, the love that is illustrated by the sculpture and by the two persons never changes.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/177058
The "Real" Arundel Tomb

"Machines" by Michael Donaghy

Donaghy was a contemporary American poet from New York who wrote, taught, and played Irish traditional music. He grew up in New York; his parents were Irish immigrants, and his poems "reference literature, science, and the oddities and losses of contemporary life," according to POL.

Key terms: allusion, diction, free verse

Machines

Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer’s twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell’s chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante’s heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn’t, of course, I’ve fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsicordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move. 

What a neat poem. I enjoyed the musicality and romance of the language that Donaghy uses. He begins with "Dearest..." as if the poem were a letter- he is explaining a comparison that he meditates on and extrapolates in the poem. He compares aesthetic creation with mechanical creation, along the way referencing figureheads from different fields- Purcell, Ptolemy, Dante. He questions how the creation of a text or song are similar in intricacy and stature to the creation of a bicycle. In the last three stanzas, he wonders about his own creation- what does he put into his poetry, his life, and does it reach the level of beauty that he sees in cycling or other aesthetic creation? It's a really interesting thing to think about. Everyone has a talent, a craft. How do they all compare? We tend to think of aesthetics as being lofty and transcendent, but when put against a machine with such intricacy and grace, what do we value? I'm reminded of Claude Levi-Strauss's distinction between engineer and bricoleur - the engineer is one who creates new purpose out of found materials and bricoleur is one who simply re-creates using the pre-conceived purposes of the materials. Of course, that understanding is not necessary for this poem, but it's something I've thought a lot about and it's an interesting distinction to make. What do we really value in our creations? Creativity? Usefulness? Aesthetic?

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/26439

"Hero" by Paul Engle

Paul Engle is a very contemporary American poet. He died in 1991, leaving behind a legacy of support for writers with his Writers' Workshop program at the University of Iowa, which became a model for many university writing programs thereafter.

Key terms: irony, parallel structure, free verse

Hero

I

I have heard the horn of Roland goldly screaming

In the petty Pyrenees of the inner ear

And seen the frightful Saracens of fear

Pour from the passes, fought them, brave in dreaming.

But waked, and heard my own voice tinly screaming

In the whorled and whirling valleys of the ear,

And beat the savage bed back in my fear,

And crawled, unheroed, down those cliffs of dreaming.

    II

I have ridden with Hannibal in the mountain dusk,

Watching the drivers yell the doomed and gray

Elephants over the trumpeting Alps, gone gay

With snow vivid on peaks, on the ivory tusk.

But waked, and found myself in the vivid dusk

Plunging the deep and icy floor, gone gray

With bellowing shapes of morning, and the gay

Sunshaft through me like an ivory tusk.

    III

I have smiled on the platform, hearing without shame

The crowd scream out my praise, I, the new star,

Handsome, disparaging my bloody scar,

Yet turning its curve to the light when they called my name.

But waked, and the empty window sneered my name,

The sky bled, drop by golden drop, each star

The curved moon glittered like a sickle's scar,

The night wind called with its gentle voices: Shame!

    IV

I have climbed the secret balcony, on the floor

Lain with the lady, drunk the passionate wine,

Found, beneath the green, lewd-smelling vine,

Love open to me like a waiting door.

But waked to delirious shadows on the door,

Found, while my stomach staggered with sour wine,

Green drunkenness creep on me like a vine,

And puked my passion on the bathroom floor.

    V

I have run with Boone and watched the Indian pillage

The log house, fought, arrow in leg, and hobbled

Over the painful ground while the warrior gobbled

Wild-turkey cry, but escaped to save the village.

But waked, and walked the city, vicious village,

Fought through the traffic where the wild horn gobbled,

Bruised on the bumper, turned toward home, hobbled

Back, myself the house my neighbors pillage.

    VI

I have lain in bed and felt my body taken

Like water utterly possessing sand,

Surrounding, seething, soothing, as a hand

Comforts and clasps the hand that it has shaken.

But waked, and found that I was wholly shaken

By you, as the wave surrounds and seethes the sand,

That your whole body was a reaching hand

And my whole body the hand that yours had taken.

I find this poem fascinating. It is at once fun, melancholy, fantastic, romantic, and musical. The poet/narrator is describing many different dreams (vivid and real-seeming dreams) and what happens when he awakes from them. Often his dreams are disappointing- the reality that he faces when he wakes up is "savage," "icy," and "drunken." His reality is brutal in comparison with his romantic, exciting, adventurous dreams. Then, at the end of the poem, there is an element of sensuality and romance. The narrator describes waking up with a partner, and the experience of being embraced rather than falling to the floor or being blinded by the light of morning, like the other stanzas suggest. This progression makes the poem feel like a song or lyric to me; it's fairly easy to follow and is summed up rather romantically with the last stanza. It's also ironic and almost funny as I read the various experiences that the narrator has with dreams- I wouldn't have expected the seemingly serious ending. This surprise is enhanced by the irony structure (parallel & numbered stanzas) coupled with the discussion throughout. I'm curious about what exactly it refers to. It seems strange to have this authentic thoughtfulness after all of the comical, negative experiences that are described. It also feels a bit like a sitcom- funny funny funny entertaining with a heartfelt moment at the end. 

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/180596

"Dirge Without Music" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay is a poet from Maine who wrote during the early twentieth century. She died in 1950. According to Poetry Out Loud, she was "as famous during her lifetime for her red-haired beauty, unconventional lifestyle, and outspoken politics as for her poetry."

Key terms: dirge, lyrical, imagery, enjambment

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.  Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone.  They are gone to feed the roses.  Elegant and curled
Is the blossom.  Fragrant is the blossom.  I know.  But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know.  But I do not approve.  And I am not resigned.

First of all: doesn't it seem like Poetry Out Loud is a bit death-obsessed these days? Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the poetry. But I feel like we've been reading a lot of poems like this. Anyway, a dirge is traditionally a lamenting song for the dead; dirges are usually sung at funerals. A dirge without music could be one that the narrator feels no one else can join in on, or one that's not traditional/breaking with common conceptions, etc. The poem is certainly a meditation on what is not right about death and the dead - that we sing dirges at their funerals in attempt to "remember" them, but in reality only "A formula, a phrase remains, --but the best is lost." The narrator is shamed to think about how we bury our dead, attempting to "honor" and "remember" something that is not even all of them, not even a part of them. Unlike the Romantics that we've been studying in Honors English 10, she is "not resigned" to accept that nature continues while man is buried. She seems to be searching for something else... I wonder what it is. It might not be a bad thing to find.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/237262

"The Affliction of Richard" by Robert Bridges

Robert Bridges was an English poet, living 1844-1930. He was educated at Oxford and became a doctor, which he later quit to pursue poetry full-time.

Key terms: rhyme, meter, scansion, apostrophe

The Affliction of Richard

       Love not too much. But how,
When thou hast made me such,
And dost thy gifts bestow,
How can I love too much?
      Though I must fear to lose,
And drown my joy in care,
With all its thorns I choose
The path of love and prayer.

      Though thou, I know not why,
Didst kill my childish trust,
That breach with toil did I
Repair, because I must:
      And spite of frighting schemes,
With which the fiends of Hell
Blaspheme thee in my dreams,
So far I have hoped well.

      But what the heavenly key,
What marvel in me wrought
Shall quite exculpate thee,
I have no shadow of thought.
      What am I that complain?
The love, from which began
My question sad and vain,
Justifies thee to man. 

This poem is written in traditional form, with three stanzas (8 lines each) and each stanza featuring an ababcdcd rhyme scheme. The poem reads like a prayer, and seems to directly address God: "And dost thy gifts bestow / How can I love too much?" The narrator describes some hardships that he has had, but realizes that all the while, he still loves his God. There is some tension in the language; he seems somewhat dissatisfied with his position: "That breach with toil did I / Repair, because I must". The "love" in the poem seems forced and ironic, rather than completely genuine. That the word "affliction" is present in the title is telling; the poet/narrator is struggling with the issues that he is writing about, rather than exposing them or illustrating them. My question: who is Richard?

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/175250

"The Poet Orders His Tomb" by Edgar Bowers

Edgar Bowers was an American poet from Georgia who died in 2000. He relied on French poets for inspiration and his limited poetic works were produced in traditional rhyme and form. 

Key terms: rhyme, meter, 

The Poet Orders His Tomb

I summon up Panofskv from his bed  
    Among the famous dead
To build a tomb which, since I am not read,  
Suffers the stone’s mortality instead;

Which, by the common iconographies  
    Of simple visual ease,
Usurps the place of the complexities
Of sound survivors once preferred to noise:

Monkeys fixed on one bough, an almost holy  
    Nightmarish sloth, a tree
Of parrots in a pride of family,
Immortal skunks, unaromatically;

Some deaf bats in a cave, a porcupine  
    Quill-less, a superfine
Flightless eagle, and, after them, a line  
Of geese, unnavigating by design;

Dogs in the frozen haloes of their barks,  
    A hundred porous arks
Aground and lost, where elephants like quarks  
Ape mother mules or imitation sharks—

And each of them half-venerated by  
    A mob, impartially
Scaled, finned, or feathered, all before a dry  
Unable mouth, symmetrically awry.

But how shall I, in my brief space, describe  
    A tomb so vast, a tribe
So desperately existent for a scribe
Knowingly of the fashions’ diatribe,

I who have sought time’s memory afoot,  
    Grateful for every root
Of trees that fill the garden with their fruit,  
Their fragrance and their shade? Even as I do it,

I see myself unnoticed on the stair
    That, underneath a clear
Welcome of bells, had promised me a fair  
Attentive hearing’s joy, sometime, somewhere.

This poem is difficult for me. I think I like it, but I can't be sure because I'm really quite baffled. I can say that the narrative mainly has to do with a poet ordering his tomb- not to be silly, because this is explicit in the title, but that the poet is actually describing what his tomb should look like after his death. I tried to do some quick research on this poem and could only find another poem entitled "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church," in which a bishop describes his tomb. It seems possible that this poem is an allusion to that one, and perhaps Bowers is making the statement that it is difficult for a poet to order his tomb because of all of abstractness of the poet's work: "How shall I, in my brief space, describe / A tomb so vast..." The rest of the poem does seem like a lot of description, perhaps meant to be an attempt at describing the tomb. I'm not sure. I have a feeling this one requires a little more research, especially on "Panofskv" (who is probably Panofsky with a typo) Can anyone help?

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/171960

"At the Vietnam Memorial" by George Bilgere

George Bilgere is a very contemporary poet; his last volume was published in 2009. He lives in Cleveland and teaches creative writing at John Carroll University.

Key terms: foreshadowing, irony, imagery, paradox, tone/mood

At the Vietnam Memorial

The last time I saw Paul Castle
it was printed in gold on the wall
above the showers in the boys’
locker room, next to the school
record for the mile. I don’t recall
his time, but the year was 1968
and I can look across the infield
of memory to see him on the track,
legs flashing, body bending slightly
beyond the pack of runners at his back.

He couldn’t spare a word for me,
two years younger, junior varsity,
and hardly worth the waste of breath.
He owned the hallways, a cool blonde
at his side, and aimed his interests
further down the line than we could guess.

Now, reading the name again,
I see us standing in the showers,
naked kids beneath his larger,
comprehensive force—the ones who trail
obscurely, in the wake of the swift,
like my shadow on this gleaming wall.

Bilgere's shocking poem is almost totally predictable from the beginning - from what we can infer based on the title. He is reflecting on an experience looking at a name on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. and remembering "the last time" he saw the young man that carried the name. The foreshadowing in the title and first lines is obvious, yet not overdone because the subject is always poignant and quite impossible to exaggerate. In fact, the imagery and depth of the first two and a half stanzas is clouded by the foreshadowing so that it is difficult to imagine a living boy in high school when we are so fully aware that the poem is about the memory of a dead soldier. The irony of the poem lies in this paradox, but also in the admiration that the poet seems to have had for Paul Castle as an older teammate. The tone implies that this respect still exists, although it is not mentioned in terms of his role in the war or his death. What does the narrator think of his friend's name on the wall?

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/28490

Wikipedia on the Vietnam Memorial

"The Emperor of Ice-Cream" by Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens is was an American poet who also worked as a successful corporate executive. His poems were not widely recognized until he published Collected Poems in 1954, one year before his death. Apparently Stevens is quoted as saying that "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" is his favorite poem because it "wears a deliberately commonplace costume, and yet seems [to me] to contain something of the essential gaudiness of poetry".

Key terms: diction, metaphor, symbolism

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Stevens is a modernist poet, and much of his work express ideas that are clouded in imagination and dreamy, difficult to decipher images. His poems, much like this one, seem to express some element of reality, while still remaining quite firmly in the land of un-real. In this poem, it is said that Stevens is describing the death and wake of a woman: "show how cold she is, and dumb".  The narrator has some essential part in organizing the wake in the woman's home, and requests "concupiscent curds". It seems clear that these must be the ice-cream, and that the host plans to serve this dessert at the wake-- although using a word like "concupiscent" does not seem like an accident. Ice-cream seems to refer to life itself, or at least the happiness and spontaneity of life, in the midst of recognizing death. The narrator says "Let be be finale of seem" (let it be as it is, instead of what it seems in this moment) and then "Let the lamp affix its beam. / The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream" (focus the light on the happiness of ice-cream/life, rather than the disappointment of death).

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/174501

"Prayer" by Jorie Graham

Jorie Graham is an American poet who grew up in France and Italy. She went to school at NYU and has taught at a number of universities since.

Key terms: free verse, enjambment, imagery

Prayer

Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl  
themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the  
way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-
                                                                      infolding,
entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a  
visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by  
minutest fractions the water’s downdrafts and upswirls, the  
dockside cycles of finally-arriving boat-wakes, there where  
they hit deeper resistance, water that seems to burst into  
itself (it has those layers), a real current though mostly  
invisible sending into the visible (minnows) arrowing
                                    motion that forces change—
this is freedom. This is the force of faith. Nobody gets  
what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing
is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by
each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself,  
also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something  
at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through  
in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is  
what I have saved, take this, hurry. And if I listen  
now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only  
something I did. I could not choose words. I am free to go.  
I cannot of course come back. Not to this. Never.  
It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never.

This poem begins as an impressionistic description of a school of minnows swimming below the dock where the narrator is standing. She thinks about the motions enacted by the minnows as they swim back and forth, around and around, simultaneously following and creating the current in the water. She acknowledges that they follow this structure without resistance, because this is the water in which they live- because it's more than currents and school, it's the life of the water itself, where they thrive. This observation moves her meditation to think about humankind, and how faith interacts with our thinking in much the same way. She ends her poem with short statements that are actually questions, leaving the reader to wonder what faith means in this context and what the "Prayer" really is. Graham uses enjambment to move the poem and the description here, and she uses a vocabulary that requires attention and focus throughout the reading. It's almost unnerving because the depth of thought and vocabulary makes it seem as if the poem is straightforward and understandable, yet I cannot really figure it out.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/176600 

"John Lennon" by Mary Jo Salter

Mary Jo Salter is a contemporary poet from Grand Rapids, Michigan! She was educated at Harvard and Cambridge and has spent considerable time abroad (this influences a lot of her poetry).

Key terms: free verse, enjambment, apostrophe

John Lennon

The music was already turning sad,
      those fresh-faced voices singing in a round
            the lie that time could set its needle back

and play from the beginning. Had you lived
      to eighty, as you’d wished, who knows?—you might  
            have broken from the circle of that past

more ours than yours. Never even sure  
      which was the truest color for your hair
            (it changed with each photographer), we claimed

you for ourselves; called you John and named  
      the day you left us (spun out like a reel—
            the last broadcast to prove you’d lived at all)

an end to hope itself. It isn’t true,
      and worse, does you no justice if we call
            your death the death of anything but you.

II
It put you in the headlines once again:
      years after you’d left the band, you joined  
            another—of those whose lives, in breaking, link

all memory with their end. The studio  
      of history can tamper with you now,
            as if there’d always been a single track

chance traveled on, and your discordant voice  
      had led us to the final violence.
            Yet like the times when I, a star-crossed fan,

had catalogued your favorite foods, your views  
      on monarchy and war, and gaily clipped
            your quips and daily antics from the news,

I keep a loving record of your death.  
      All the evidence is in—of what,
            and to what end, it’s hard to figure out,

riddles you might have beat into a song.  
      A younger face of yours, a cover shot,
            peered from all the newsstands as if proof

of some noteworthy thing you’d newly done.

This poem is an ode to John Lennon, famous for his work with the Beatles. Lennon was killed early in 1980, cutting his career and life short. Salter wonders in this poem what may have been different had he lived twice as long (he died at 40). The entire poem is an apostrophe, which means the narrator is speaking to someone who is not there. Salter gives us the impression that she never met Lennon, rather she was a "star-crossed fan" (notice the Shakespeare allusion). She evaluates what this means, what it means that we (American culture) "named / the day you left us / ... / an end to hope itself"; that we equated Lennon's death with the death of a movement, a culture, a belief system, and we weren't sure where to turn. I think she's asking a question that we all face at some point - what is the difference between fandom and reliance? And how to we truly respect people after they leave us? What's the best way to honor them?

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/172195

"Grief" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Browning was an English poet writing during the Victorian era. Despite hardships in her own life, she wrote frequently about political issues and social injustices.

Key terms: victorian, metaphor, simile

Grief

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to death—
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.

Browning almost condemns humans for feeling grief in this poem. She maintains that "hopeless grief is passionless" - she tells us that we should feel grief silently, without shrieking or hopeless praying. That our grief should be "silence like to death". She compare grief to a statue- "if it could weep, it could arise and go". There's nothing that grieving can do for us, except to sit and decay, rather than help us move on and "weep" with us like perhaps we hope in that moment. It's not conciliatory; it's cold and lifeless. Browning had a good amount of grief in her own life; perhaps this is her meditation on her own experience with grief, if she is jaded or upset at the time that she wrote this.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/177112