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
