Spoken Word Poetry

Overview:  Here are links to the spoken word poems we viewed in class, in case you want to share or see them again.  Enjoy.

Due Tuesday, October 29th - "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf, Pages 56-102

Directions:  1) Read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, pages 56-102.  2) Compose a blog response, using the comprehensive questions below as a guide in your exploration.  I look forward to your responses.

"I wanted to be a writer, that's all. I wanted to write about it all. Everything that happens in a moment. The way the flowers looked when you carried them in your arms. This towel, how it smells, how it feels, this thread. All our feelings, yours and mine. The history of it, who we once were. Everything in the world. Everything all mixed up, like it's all mixed up now. And I failed. I failed. No matter what you start with it ends up being so much less. Sheer pride and stupidity."

Study Questions

1. Woolf saw Septimus Warren Smith as an essential counterpoint to Clarissa Dalloway. What specific comparisons and contrasts are drawn between the two? What primary images are associated, respectively, with Clarissa and with Septimus? What is the significance of Septimus making his first appearance as Clarissa, from her florist's window, watches the mysterious motor car in Bond Street?  How does the comparison continue in this section?  What connections can we make to The Hours?

2. Speaking of The Hours, as we explore the text through the lens of the film, what connections are seeing between The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway.  How do big themes from the present shine through?  How does the analysis of Virginia Woolf bring out ideas from her novel?

3. What was Clarissa's relationship with Sally Seton? What is the significance of Sally's reentry into Clarissa's life after so much time? What role does Sally play in Clarissa's past and in her present?

4. What is Woolf s purpose in creating a range of female characters of various ages and social classes-from Clarissa herself and Lady Millicent Burton to Sally Seton, Doris Kilman, Lucrezia Smith, and Maisie Johnson? Does she present a comparable range of male characters?

5. Clarissa's movements through London, along with the comings and goings of other characters, are given in some geographic detail. Do the patterns of movement and the characters' intersecting routes establish a pattern? If so, how do those physical patterns reflect important internal patterns of thought, memory, feelings, and attitudes? What is the view of London that we come away with?

Mrs. Dalloway Mapping Project Website

6. Woolf shifts scenes between past and present, primarily through Clarissa's, Septimus's, and others' memories. Does this device successfully establish the importance of the past as a shaping influence on and an informing component of the present? Which characters promote this idea? Does Woolf seem to believe this holds true for individuals as it does for society as a whole?

7. Clarissa and others have a heightened sense of the "splendid achievement" and continuity of English history, culture, and tradition. How do Clarissa and others respond to that history and culture? What specific elements of English history and culture are viewed as primary?
How does Clarissa's attitude, specifically, compare with Septimus's attitude on these points?

"Her cake is a failure, but she is loved anyway. She is loved, she thinks, in more or less the way the gifts will be appreciated: because they've been given with good intentions, because they exist, because they are part of a world in which one wants what one gets...She will not lose hope. She will not mourn her lost possibilities, her unexplored talents (what if she has no talents, after all?). She will remain devoted to her son..."

Due Monday, October 21st - "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf, pages 3-56

Directions:  1) Read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, pages 3-56.
2) Compose a blog response, using the comprehensive questions below as a guide in your exploration.  I look forward to your responses.

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

Study Questions

1. In Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf combines interior with omniscient descriptions of character and scene. How does the author handle the transition between the interior and the exterior? Which characters' points of view are primary to the novel; which minor characters are given their own points of view? Why, and how does Woolf handle the transitions from one point of view to another? How do the shifting points of view, together with that of the author, combine to create a portrait of Clarissa and her milieu? Does this kind of novelistic portraiture resonate with other artistic movement's of Woolf s time?

2. Clarissa's movements through London, along with the comings and goings of other characters, are given in some geographic detail. Do the patterns of movement and the characters' intersecting routes establish a pattern? If so, how do those physical patterns reflect important internal patterns of thought, memory, feelings, and attitudes? What is the view of London that we come away with?

3. As the day and the novel proceed, the hours and half hours are sounded by a variety of clocks (for instance, Big Ben strikes noon at the novel's exact midpoint). What is the effect of the time being constantly announced on the novel's structure and on our sense of the pace of the characters' lives? What hours in association with which events are explicitly sounded? Why? Is there significance in Big Ben being the chief announcer of time?

4. Clarissa reads lines from Shakespeare's Cymbeline (IV, ii) from an open book in a shop window: "Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter's rages. / Thou thy worldly task hast done, / Home art gone and ta'en thy wages: / Golden lads and girls all must, / As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." These lines are alluded to many times. What importance do they have for Clarissa, Septimus, and the novel's principal themes? What fears do Clarissa and other characters experience?

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

Due Tuesday, October 15th - "Death of a Moth"

Overview and Directions:  In preparation for our unit on Virginia Woolf, please read the following essays titled, "Death of a Moth," one by Virginia Woolf, the other by Annie Dillard.  Please comment on these works in a comprehensive blog response.  I warn you.  These pieces require work from its audience. Be brave in your analysis.  Take risks. I look forward to your responses.

"Death of a Moth" by Virginia Woolf"

"Death of a Moth" by Annie Dillard

Due Wednesday, October 9th - Twentieth Century Poetry

Overview and Directions:  I selected a series of poems from the 20th century for you to explore.  Use what you learned from our lessons on sonnets as you read the following poems.  You will notice that themes connect to our discussions of history, race and preparing our discussion of the women's movement with Virginia Woolf,  How does poetic structure (based on sonnet form)  help inform you as you read?  Listen for sound.  Be mindful of your reactions to the poems, then return and see how the poets crafted their work in order to garner these emotions.  In this blog space, share your experiences.  You may write a little about several (or all) poems, or if one really grabbed you, focus on one poem.  I look forward to your responses.

Sharon Olds

"George Gray"

by Edgar Lee Masters 

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me—
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire—
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.


“The B Network”
by Haki Madhubuti 

brothers bop & pop and be-bop in cities locked up
and chained insane by crack and other acts
of desperation computerized in pentagon cellars producing
boppin brothers boastin of being better, best & beautiful.

if the boppin brothers are beautiful where are the sisters
who seek brotherman with a drugless head unbossed or beaten
by the bodacious West?

in a time of big wind being blown by boastful brothers,
will other brothers beat back backwardness to better & best
without braggart bosses beatin butts,
takin names and diggin graves?

beatin badness into bad may be urban but is it beautiful & serious?
or is it betrayal in an era of prepared easy death hangin on
corners trappin young brothers before they know the
difference between big death and big life?

brothers bop & pop and be-bop in cities locked up
and chained insane by crack and other acts
of desperation computerized in pentagon cellars producing
boppin brothers boastin of being better, best, beautiful
and definitely not Black.

the critical best is that
brothers better be the best if they are to avoid backwardness
brothers better be the best if they are to conquer beautiful bigness
Comprehend that bad is only bad if it’s big, Black and better
than boastful braggarts belittling our best and brightest
with bosses seeking inches when miles are better.

brothers need to bop to being Black & bright above board
the black train of beautiful wisdom that is bending this bind
toward a new & knowledgeable beginning that is
bountiful & bountiful & beautiful

While be-boppin to be
better than the test,
brotherman.

better yet write the exam.


"The History Teacher"

by Billy Collins

Trying to protect his students' innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.

And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,
named after the long driveways of the time.

The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
"How far is it from here to Madrid?"
"What do you call the matador's hat?"

The War of the Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom
on Japan.

The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak
and the smart,
mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,

while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.


"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.

"The Quest"
by Sharon Olds

The day my girl is lost for an hour,
the day I think she is gone forever and then I find her,
I sit with her a while and then I
go to the corner store for orange juice for her
lips, tongue, palate, throat,
stomach, blood, every gold cell of her body.
I joke around with the guy behind the counter, I
walk out into the winter air and
weep. I know he would never hurt her,
would never take her body in his hands to
crack it or crush it, would keep her safe and
bring her home to me. Yet there are
those who would. I pass the huge
cockeyed buildings, massive as prisons,
charged, loaded, cocked with people,
some who would love to take my girl, to un-
do her, fine strand by fine
strand. These are buildings full of rope,
ironing boards, sash, wire,
iron cords wove in black-and-blue spirals like
umbilici, apartments supplied with
razor blades and lye. This is my
quest, to know where it is, the evil in the
human heart. As I walk home I
look in face after face for it, I
see the dark beauty, the rage, the
grown-up children of the city she walks as a
child, a raw target. I cannot
see a soul who would do it. I clutch the
jar of juice like a cold heart,
remembering the time my parents tied me to a chair and
would not feed me and I looked up
into their beautiful faces, my stomach a
bright mace, my wrists like birds the
shrike has hung up by the throat from barbed wire, I
gazed as deep as I could into their eyes
and all I saw was goodness, I could not get past it.
I rush home with the blood of oranges
pressed to my breast, I cannot get it to her fast enough.


"It’s a Woman’s World"
by Eavan Boland

Our way of life
has hardly changed
since a wheel first
whetted a knife.

Maybe flame
burns more greedily
and wheels are steadier,
but we're the same:

we milestone
our lives
with oversights,
living by the lights
of the loaf left

by the cash register,
the washing powder
paid for and wrapped,
the wash left wet:

like most historic peoples
we are defined
by what we forget

and what we never will be:
star-gazers,
fire-eaters.
It's our alibi
for all time:

as far as history goes
we were never
on the scene of the crime.

When the king's head
gored its basket,
grim harvest,
we were gristing bread

or getting the recipe
for a good soup.
It's still the same:

our windows
moth our children
to the flame
of hearth not history.

And still no page
scores the low music
of our outrage.

Appearances reassure:
that woman there,
craned to
the starry mystery,

is merely getting a breath
of evening air.
While this one here,
her mouth a burning plume -

she's no fire-eater,
just my frosty neighbour
coming home.

“The Red Wheelbarrow”
by William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

"anyhow"
by eric pellerin

is that my stillborn son in aisle 3
feet falling free
from the cart pushed by
daddy

he wants something he cant grab
just out of reach
can hardly see it now
what was it
anyhow
rounding the corner
gone

"The Two-headed Calf"
by Laura Gilpin
Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.

Billy Collins

Due Thursday, October 3rd (By the end of the block) - Sonnets! Sonnets! Sonnets!

Overview:  The sonnet, as a poetic genre, began in Italy in the thirteenth century, and, under the later influence of the Italian poet Petrarch, became internationally popular. Petrarch established the basic form of the so-called Petrarchan Sonnet, also called the Italian Sonnet: 14 lines divided into two clear parts, an opening octet (8 lines) and a closing sestet (6 lines) with a fixed rhyme scheme (abbaabba cdecde). Often the octet will pose a problem or paradox which the sestet will resolve. Petrarch also established the convention of the sonnet sequence as a series of love poems written by an adoring lover to an unattainable and unapproachable lady of unsurpassed beauty. The Petrarchan sonnet convention, in other words, established, not merely the form of the poem, but also the subject matter.

The Shakespearean Sonnet or English Sonnet consists of three quatrains (four-line stanzas), rhyming abab cdcd efef, and a couplet (a two-line stanza), rhyming gg. Because each new stanza introduces a new set of rhyming sounds, the Shakespearean sonnet is well-suited to English, which is less richly endowed than Italian with rhyming words.  As with the structure of the Petrarchan sonnet, that of the Shakespearean sonnet influences the kinds of ideas that will be developed in it. For example, the three quatrains may be used to present three parallel images, with the couplet used to tie them together or to interpret their significance. Or the quatrains can offer three points in an argument, with the couplet serving to drive home the conclusion.

With the inauguration of the 17th century, Baroque attitudes swept through Europe; and in England, the period came under Samuel Johnson’s nomenclature Metaphysical Poetry. Sonnet 10, from John Donne’s Holy Sonnets, a powerful apostrophe to death, is an illustration of the rhetoric and tenor of the time.

Directions:  Please read through the poems below.  Compose a blog response commenting on the sonnets in some thoughtful way.  You may be comparing and contrasting works, commenting on a particular poem that moved you, or examining a cross-section of works.  NOTE:  If you finished, please peruse Sonnet Central, and add to your post.  You may cut and paste any sonnets you would likt to share with your comments.

SONNET CENTRAL

Italian Sonnet

"Sonnet 292" from the Canzoniere by Francisco Petrarch
translated by Anthony Mortimer


The eyes I spoke of once in words that burn,
the arms and hands and feet and lovely face
that took me from myself for such a space
of time and marked me out from other men;
the waving hair of unmixed gold that shone,
the smile that flashed with the angelic rays
that used to make this earth a paradise,
are now a little dust, all feeling gone;
and yet I live, grief and disdain to me,
left where the light I cherished never shows,
in fragile bark on the tempestuous sea.
Here let my loving song come to a close;
the vein of my accustomed art is dry,
and this, my lyre, turned at last to tears.

Translation 2 (Notice the difference in sound and cadence)

The eyes I spoke of with such warmth,

The arms and hands and feet and face

Which took me away from myself

And marked me out from other people;

The waving hair of pure shining gold,

And the flash of her angelic smile,

Which used to make a paradise on earth,

Are a little dust, that feels nothing.

And yet I live, for which I grieve and despise myself,

Left without the light I loved so much,

In a great storm on an unprotected raft.

Here let there be an end to my loving song:

The vein of my accustomed invention has run dry,

And my lyre is turned to tears.

Original Italian (How is the form better suited to Italian)

Gli occhi di ch'io parlai sì caldamente,

et le braccia et le mani e i piedi e 'l viso,

che m'avean sì­ da me stesso diviso,

et fatto singular da l'altra gente;

le crespe chiome d'òr puro lucente

'l lampeggiar de l'angelico riso,

che solean fare in terra un paradiso,

poca polvere son, che nulla sente.

Et io pur vivo, onde mi doglio e sdegno,

rimaso senza 'l lume ch'amai tanto,

in gran fortuna e 'n disarmato legno.

Or sia qui fine al mio amoroso canto:

secca è la vena de l'usato ingegno,

et la cetera mia rivolta in pianto.

The English Sonnet

"Sonnet 116" by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

Metaphysical Poetry

"Sonnet 10" by John Donne

Death be not proud, though some have calléd 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.

Modern English Sonnet

"Sonnet 43" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Harlem Renaissance

"America" by Claude McKay

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

Modernism

"Pity this busy monster, manunkind" by e.e. cummings

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
—electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend

unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born—pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if—listen: there’s a hell
of a good universe next door; let’s go.

Post Modernism

"Sunday Morning" by Louis MacNeice

Down the road someone is practicing scales,
The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails,
Man’s heart expands to tinker with his car
For this is Sunday morning, Fate’s great bazaar;
Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now,
And you may grow to music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow,
Take corners on two wheels until you go so fast
That you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past,
That you can abstract this day and make it to the week of time
A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme.
But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire
Opens its eight bells out, skulls’ mouths which will not tire
To tell how there is no music or movement which secures
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.

"Unholy Sonnet 1" by Mark Jarman

Dear God, Our Heavenly Father, Gracious Lord,
Mother Love and Maker, Light Divine,
Atomic Fingertip, Cosmic Design,
First Letter of the Alphabet, Last Word,
Mutual Satisfaction, Cash Award,
Auditor Who Approves Our Bottom Line,
Examiner Who Says That We Are Fine,
Oasis That All Sands Are Running Toward.

I can say almost anything about you,
O Big Idea, and with each epithet,
Create new reasons to believe or doubt you,
Black Hole, White Hole, Presidential Jet.
But what’s the anything I must leave out? You
Solve nothing but the problems that I set.

"God’s Secretary" by R.S. Gwynn

Her e-mail inbox always overflows.
Her outbox doesn’t get much use at all.
She puts on hold the umpteen-billionth call
As music oozes forth to placate those
Who wait, then disconnect. Outside, wind blows,
Scything pale leaves. She sees a sparrow fall
Fluttering to a claw-catch on a wall.
Will He be in today? God only knows.

She hasn’t seen His face—He’s so aloof.
She’s long resigned He’ll never know or love her
But still can wish there were some call, some proof
That He requires a greater service of her.
Fingers of rain now drum upon the roof,
Coming from somewhere, somewhere far above her.

"Shakespearean Sonnet" by R.S. Gwynn

With a first line taken from the tv listings 

A man is haunted by his father’s ghost. 

Boy meets girl while feuding families fight. 

A Scottish king is murdered by his host. 

Two couples get lost on a summer night. 

A hunchback murders all who block his way. 

A ruler’s rivals plot against his life. 

A fat man and a prince make rebels pay. 

 A noble Moor has doubts about his wife. 

An English king decides to conquer France. 

A duke learns that his best friend is a she. 

A forest sets the scene for this romance. 

An old man and his daughters disagree. 

A Roman leader makes a big mistake. 

A sexy queen is bitten by a snake.

Millennial Poems

“Lines Composed on April 23, 2016, on the 400th Anniversary of His Death” by Wilude Scabere

Shall I compare his language to a grave?
It is more lively and more flowery.
His rough-shook words refuse to be death’s slave.
No tomb’s as showy or so showery.
A sepulchre, though hard as rock, erodes,
and shrines do often lose their lustre’s prime,
while monuments, though nice, make poor abodes,
and sadly catacombs decay in time.
But Shakespeare’s language will not go away.
Unceasingly, his lines play in the mind.
They pop up even on a summer’s day.
Unlike a crypt, they will not stay behind.
Alas, poor Oracle, his song goes on,
despite all efforts of oblivion.


“A Hero” by Evan Mantyk

(Note: Zhen-Shan-Ren, Truth, Compassion and Tolerance, are the three main principles of the spiritual practice Falun Gong, which, along with Christianity, is persecuted in China)

These are the weathered shoes worn by the Jew,
So cracked from all the miles walked since he fled.
These are the slave’s strong legs like trunks that grew
And worked so hard until he’s beaten dead.
This is the heart of Christians who’re hemmed in
by beasts, while Romans laugh at them and yell.
These poisoned lips of Socrates destined
To die, and yet in virtue ever dwell.
This banner is the shield of Spartan men
Outnumbered by a thousand foes to one;
Its moral words in Chinese, Zhen-Shan-Ren,
Are spears of truth that no one can outrun.
The Falun Gong man now before you stands,
A hero for all times and for all lands.

Essay Due Date Change!

Overview:  I can see many of you are stressed out, and I appreciate all the hard work I've witnessed during this unit.  Both Baldwin essays are due on Wednesday, October 2nd.  I will be on a professional leave on Monday and Tuesday, so you will have time to work in class.  make the best of the time and I will see you on Wednesday.

Mr. P.