Poems -- April 2018

We never know how high we are (1176)

Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886

We never know how high we are  
  Till we are called to rise;  
And then, if we are true to plan,  
  Our statures touch the skies—  
   
The Heroism we recite
  Would be a daily thing,  
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp  
  For fear to be a King—

In Just 
by e.e. cummings


IN Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame baloonman
 
whistles far and wee
 
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
 
when the world is puddle-wonderful
 
the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
 
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
 
it's
spring
and
the
 
goat-footed
 
baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee







Read more at http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/in_just.html#uE2J0H2vlQdiUaAS.99

The Buttonhook

Mary Jo Salter reflects on an American arrival in "The Buttonhook," a poem from her eighth collection, The Surveyors.

The Buttonhook President Roosevelt, touring Ellis Island in 1906, watched the people from steerage line up for their six-second physical. Might not, he wondered aloud, the ungloved handling of aliens who were ill infect the healthy? Yet for years more it was done. I imagine my grandmother, a girl in that Great Hall's polyglot, reverberating vault more terrible than church, dazed by the stars and stripes in the vast banner up in front where the blessed ones had passed through. Then she did too, to a room like a little chapel, where her mother might take Communion. A man in a blue cap and a blue uniform—a doctor? a policeman? (Papa would have known, but he had sailed all alone before them and was waiting now in New York; yet wasn't this New York?)— a man in a blue cap reached for her mother. Without a word (didn't he speak Italian?) he stuck one finger into her mother's eye, then turned its lid up with a buttonhook, the long, curved thing for doing up your boots when buttons were too many or too small. You couldn't be American if you were blind or going to be blind. That much she understood. She'd go to school, she'd learn to read and write and teach her parents. The eye man reached to touch her own face next; she figured she was ready. She felt big, like that woman in the sea holding up not a buttonhook but a torch.

The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling

Looking at Meaning

Background: 

“The White Man’s Burden”: Kipling’s Hymn to U.S. Imperialism

In February 1899, British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem entitled “The White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands.” In this poem, Kipling urged the U.S. to take up the “burden” of empire, as had Britain and other European nations. Published in the February, 1899 issue of McClure’s Magazine, the poem coincided with the beginning of the Philippine-American War and U.S. Senate ratification of the treaty that placed Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, and the Philippines under American control. Theodore Roosevelt, soon to become vice-president and then president, copied the poem and sent it to his friend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, commenting that it was “rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view.” Not everyone was as favorably impressed as Roosevelt. The racialized notion of the “White Man’s burden” became a euphemism for imperialism, and many anti-imperialists couched their opposition in reaction to the phrase.

                               from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5478/

Imperialism is the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies.  (dictionary.com)


The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling   with annotations 
   (As a superior type of people, it is your duty to rule inferior people.)

Take up the White Man’s burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—          (You're sending your grown children 

Go send your sons to exile                        to foreign lands.)

To serve your captives' need    (You conquer people, then rule them.)

To wait in heavy harness          (It's hard work to rule conquered people.)

On fluttered folk and wild—         (The people you rule aren't civilized.)

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,    (Sullen means "bad-tempered, sulkey, gloomy.)

Half devil and half child                 (They don't really seem human.)

Take up the White Man’s burden

In patience to abide                        (Abide means to hold to your decision.)

To veil the threat of terror

And check the show of pride;          (Check means to stop.)

By open speech and simple

An hundred times made plain

To seek another’s profit

And work another’s gain

Take up the White Man’s burden—

And reap his old reward:

The blame of those ye better          (You are doing this to help them, 

The hate of those ye guard—               but they blame and hate you.)

The cry of hosts ye humour

(Ah slowly) to the light:

"Why brought ye us from bondage,   (You are there to help them advance,

“Our loved Egyptian night?”                   to become civilized.) 

Take up the White Man’s burden-

Have done with childish days-

The lightly proffered laurel,                   (It's going to be hard work, 

The easy, ungrudged praise.                     and they won't thank you for it.)

Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years,

Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,    

The judgment of your peers!                   (Other white men will think you 

                                                                have done the right thing.)

Looking at it as a Poem 

Meter:  (rhythm or beat)   Which syllables or words are emphasized? 

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child. (1-7)

daDUM daDUM daDUMda
daDUM daDUM daDUM

Rhyme:  Every other line rhymes. 

"Every stanza follows the same pattern—not a word, or a rhyme, out of place.

As a result, the poem takes on an orderly, regimented feel, almost like a march. It also reminds us of those cheers that we would hear at high school football games: "Push 'em back. Push 'em back. Waaaay back!" In both cases, the form of the poem is totally appropriate. Here we have a speaker who acts like a kind of cheerleader, encouraging white men to go out and establish their order, their way of life on the "wild" natives of other countries. Push 'em back, indeed."

                                                           http://www.shmoop.com/white-mans-burden/rhyme-form-meter.html

The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling   with annotations 

Take up the White Man’s burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—       (burden, best, breed = alliteration)    

Go send your sons to exile                        

To serve your captives' need           (Rhyme -- breed/need)

To wait in heavy harness                (heavy harness = alliteration)      

On fluttered folk and wild—         

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,    

Half devil and half child                   (Rhyme -- wild/child)  

Take up the White Man’s burden       Rhythm =   ︶/︶/︶/︶

In patience to abide                         Rhythm =   ︶/︶/︶/       

To veil the threat of terror

And check the show of pride;          

By open speech and simple

An hundred times made plain

To seek another’s profit

And work another’s gain

Take up the White Man’s burden—

And reap his old reward:

The blame of those ye better          

The hate of those ye guard—               

The cry of hosts ye humour

(Ah slowly) to the light:

"Why brought ye us from bondage,     (allusion to the children of Israel 

“Our loved Egyptian night?”                     in Egypt -- Think Moses.)           

Take up the White Man’s burden-         

Have done with childish days-

The lightly proffered laurel,                (allusion: laurel wreaths were awarded
 The easy, ungrudged praise.                  to winners of Olympic Games)  

Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years,

Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,    

The judgment of your peers!                   

           

Source: Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden: The United States & The Philippine Islands, 1899.” Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1929).

Poetry by e.e. cummings

[in Just-]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far          and             wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

         the

                  goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee

_____________________________________________

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

1894-1962

The Little Horse Is Newly

e.e. cummings

the little horse is newlY

Born)he knows nothing,and feels
everything;all around whom is

perfectly a strange
ness(Of sun
light and of fragrance and of

Singing)is ev
erywhere(a welcom
ing dream:is amazing)
a worlD.and in

this world lies:smoothbeautifuL
ly folded;a(brea
thing a gro

Wing)silence,who;
is:somE

oNe.

anyone lived in a pretty how town










E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962








anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

Spring is like a perhaps hand








E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962








          III

Spring is like a perhaps hand 
(which comes carefully 
out of Nowhere)arranging 
a window,into which people look(while 
people stare
arranging and changing placing 
carefully there a strange 
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps 
Hand in a window 
(carefully to 
and fro moving New and 
Old things,while 
people stare carefully 
moving a perhaps 
fraction of flower here placing 
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

maggie and milly and molly and may








E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962








              10

maggie and milly and molly and may 
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang 
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing 
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone 
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) 
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Poetry: Neglect

Neglect

R. T. Smith

Is the scent of apple boughs smoking

in the woodstove what I will remember

of the Red Delicious I brought down, ashamed

that I could not convince its limbs to render fruit?

Too much neglect will do that, skew the sap's

passage, blacken leaves, dry the bark and heart.

I should have lopped the dead limbs early

and watched each branch with a goshawk's eye,

patching with medicinal pitch, offering water,

compost and mulch, but I was too enchanted

by pear saplings, flowers and the pasture,

too callow to believe that death's inevitable

for any living being unloved, untended.

What remains is this armload of applewood

now feeding the stove's smolder. Splendor

ripens a final time in the firebox, a scarlet

harvest headed, by dawn, to embers.

Two decades of shade and blossoms - tarts

and cider, bees dazzled by the pollen,

spare elegance in ice - but what goes is gone.

Smoke is all, through this lesson in winter

regret, I've been given to remember.

Smoke, and Red Delicious apples redder

than a passing cardinal's crest or cinders.

from Poetry, Oct-Nov, 2002

Copyright 2002 by R. T. Smith.

All rights reserved.

Reproduced with permission (click for permissions information).

Poem: Blackberry Eating

Blackberry Eating

       

I love to go out in late September

among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries

to eat blackberries for breakfast,

the stalks very prickly, a penalty

they earn for knowing the black art

of blackberry making; and as I stand among them

lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries

fall almost unbidden to my tongue,

as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words

like strengths or squinched, or broughamed,

many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,

which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well

in the silent, startled, icy, black language

of blackberry eating in late September.

-- Galway Kinnell

Foul Shot

Foul Shot

by Edwin A. Hoey

With two 60s stuck on the scoreboard
And two seconds hanging on the clock,
The solemn boy in the center of eyes,
Squeezed by silence,
Seeks out the line with his feet,5
Soothes his hands along his uniform,
Gently drums the ball against the floor,
Then measures the waiting net,
Raises the ball on his right hand,
Balances it with his left,10
Calms it with fingertips,
Breathes,
Crouches,
Waits,
And then through a stretching of stillness,15
Nudges it upward.

The ball
Slides up and out,
Lands,
Leans,20
Wobbles,
Wavers,
Hesitates,
Exasperates,
Plays it coy25
Until every face begs with unsounding screams—
And then
And then
And then,
Right before ROAR-UP,30
Dives down and through.

Loveliest of Trees

-- What do you notice? 

Some things we noticed: what the poem looks like on the page the story he is telling figurative language -- metaphor descriptive language emotions/mood

A. E. Housman (1859–1936).  A Shropshire Lad.  1896.

II. Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten,         5 Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room,         10 About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.

couplets

iambic tetrameter


What is the mood?
What is the central idea or theme? 

Hear it read at -- 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN5k9wauu94

The Hunter

The Hunter

by Ogden Nash

The hunter crouches in his blind
'Neath camouflage of every kind
And conjures up a quacking noise
To lend allure to his decoys
This grown-up man, with pluck and luck
is hoping to outwit a duck

ART WARS

Here is the video that explains how to use "ART WARS" to analyze a poem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebd-0bjUjZk

1. Title of Poem: _____________________________________________

A	What is this poem about?
About
R	How does the use of repeated words affect the poem’s meaning?
Repeated Words
T	What is the tone of the poem? How do you know?
Tone
W	What effect do the words have on the meaning?
Words
A	What examples of alliteration are there? What’s the effect?
Alliteration
R	How are rhythm and  rhyme used? What’s the effect?
Rhythm Rhyme
S	How does the structure of the poem affect the meaning?
Structure

2.  Title of Poem: _____________________________________________

A	What is this poem about?
About
R	How does the use of repeated words affect the poem’s meaning?
Repeated Words
T	What is the tone of the poem? How do you know?
Tone
W	What effect do the words have on the meaning?
Words
A	What examples of alliteration are there? What’s the effect?
Alliteration
R	How are rhythm and  rhyme used? What’s the effect?
Rhythm Rhyme
S	How does the structure of the poem affect the meaning?
Structure

3.  Title of Poem: _____________________________________________

A	What is this poem about?
About
R	How does the use of repeated words affect the poem’s meaning?
Repeated Words
T	What is the tone of the poem? How do you know?
Tone
W	What effect do the words have on the meaning?
Words
A	What examples of alliteration are there? What’s the effect?
Alliteration
R	How are rhythm and  rhyme used? What’s the effect?
Rhythm Rhyme
S	How does the structure of the poem affect the meaning?
Structure

4.  Title of Poem: _____________________________________________

A	What is this poem about?
About
R	How does the use of repeated words affect the poem’s meaning?
Repeated Words
T	What is the tone of the poem? How do you know?
Tone
W	What effect do the words have on the meaning?
Words
A	What examples of alliteration are there? What’s the effect?
Alliteration
R	How are rhythm and  rhyme used? What’s the effect?
Rhythm Rhyme
S	How does the structure of the poem affect the meaning?
Structure

5.  Title of Poem: _____________________________________________

A	What is this poem about?
About
R	How does the use of repeated words affect the poem’s meaning?
Repeated Words
T	What is the tone of the poem? How do you know?
Tone
W	What effect do the words have on the meaning?
Words
A	What examples of alliteration are there? What’s the effect?
Alliteration
R	How are rhythm and  rhyme used? What’s the effect?
Rhythm Rhyme
S	How does the structure of the poem affect the meaning?
Structure

Title of Poem: ________________________________________________

A	What is this poem about?
About
R	How does the use of repeated words affect the poem’s meaning?
Repeated Words
T	What is the tone of the poem? How do you know?
Tone
W	What effect do the words have on the meaning?
Words
A	What examples of alliteration are there? What’s the effect?
Alliteration
R	How are rhythm and  rhyme used? What’s the effect?
Rhythm Rhyme
S	How does the structure of the poem affect the meaning?
Structure

Template --
Title of Poem: ________________________________________________

A	What is this poem about?
About
R	How does the use of repeated words affect the poem’s meaning?
Repeated Words
T	What is the tone of the poem? How do you know?
Tone
W	What effect do the words have on the meaning?
Words
A	What examples of alliteration are there? What’s the effect?
Alliteration
R	How are rhythm and  rhyme used? What’s the effect?
Rhythm Rhyme
S	How does the structure of the poem affect the meaning?
Structure