Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Final Blog!


We have a mere two days of class left before our presentations begin. I'd like one last blog post from you, a final reflection about the reading you have done this semester. What form it takes is up to you, but I'd like it to be at least 250 words, and it should be done by the end of class Friday.

Reflections like this help me to make this course as personal and challenging as possible. But you need to be honest--don't say things just to make me feel good about the class.

So, in your final blog post, begin with some statistics: As accurately (and honestly) as possible, tabulate how many pages you have read this semester for this class. If you like, you can also break that down by categories: (fiction / non-fiction, or pop fiction / literary fiction).

Then, in a free-written response, contemplate any or all of these questions:

How would you characterize yourself as a reader when you started this class? How independent were you? What kinds of things would you read on your own? How often would you read on your own? Where or why would you read?

During the course of this semester, what kind of reading did you do? Was it easy to find things that interested you? Did you have trouble finding something you could stick with? How did you choose the things you read? Did you have trouble meeting the weekly page quota?

Where and when did you find yourself sitting down to read? Do you tend to read with music on, or in silence? By the computer? Did you find yourself checking your phone a lot, or do you ever lose yourself in the reading? Do you ever talk about the books you read with your family or friends or teachers?

Now, at the end of the semester, have you changed in any way as a reader? Do you read the same types of books you did at the beginning, or have you discovered any new types of writing that you like? Are you more or less likely, do you think, to read independently this summer? What do you think you might read next?

As for poetry . . describe your attitude toward it at the beginning of the semester. Was poetry treated any differently in this course compared to other English classes you've had? Was the type of poetry read here any different? Has your attitude toward poetry changed in any way?

Again, please be honest in your responses.

I've loved teaching you all this semester--thanks for taking the course and making every day a fun one.

Mr. Hill

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

"The Naming of Cats, " T.S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

"Lost," Carl Sandburg

Desolate and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor's breast
And the harbor's eyes.

"Summer," Carlo Betocchi

And it grows, the vain
summer,
even for us with our
bright green sins:

behold the dry guest,
the wind,
as it stirs up quarrels
among magnolia boughs

and plays its serene
tune on
the prows of all the leaves—
and then is gone,

leaving the leaves
still there,
the tree still green, but breaking
the heart of the air.

"Barking," Jim Harrison


The moon comes up.
The moon goes down.
This is to inform you
that I didn’t die young.
Age swept past me
but I caught up.
Spring has begun here and each day
brings new birds up from Mexico.
Yesterday I got a call from the outside
world but I said no in thunder.
I was a dog on a short chain
and now there’s no chain.

Monday, May 23, 2011

"Today," Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

"Abscess," Forrest Gander

Good morning kiss. Their teeth glance. Clack of June
bugs against pane. On the porch a young man
in the full sun rocking.
Jars incubate tomato plants. His mother sweeps the dirt
yard away from flowering vinca and bottle tree.
Straightens up, one-eyed by ragged hens. As her boy
ambles away to the steady pulse
in his skull.
The cattle gate
swinging open behind him.
She takes a headache powder
and it is nineteen and twenty seven.
The James overruns its levee, backs up
the Blackwater. Nineteen and twenty nine: she reads his postcard,
the tobacco crop burns. Nineteen and thirty, drought.
Long limp bags drag through fields. The Lord whistles
for the fly. Revival tents threaten a rain
of scorpions. To cure her hiccups,
the woman sees a hypnotist. Promptly
coughs herself to death. In pungs marked men ride. The son
is blown away. No one returns in this story. No one escapes.
The tribe is glued together for ruination, friends.
There is no more time, there is no way out.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

"A Date," Kevin McFadden

The first seated takes the chance he’ll be
stood up. She’s getting on with the hope she may
get off. One and one make one
in this riddle. Or, more closely, comedy routine:
first, impressions; second, observations.
Impolite to have thirds. Bachelors and bachelorettes
beware: more than tonight they can mess up your order.
Who would go for the lobster expects the claws.
No pets allowed, keep your shirt on, places this strict—
like loony bins—require a jacket, sir. Mark sudden pauses,
gaps in the flap, commas where a sutra might be...
and what shall we make of it, love, perhaps?
What elevator is this anyway, that even the prospect
of going down has made you high?

What’re you on?

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

"That Feeling," Karley Dobis

That feeling that you get,
when your stomach's about to drop,
do you know which feeling I'm talking about?
the one that makes life pop.

That's the feeling that I get,
right inside of me,
and that feeling that I get,
is all I want to be.

I feel it here,
I feel it there,
I get it so much,
it shakes the atmosphere.

The more that I get it,
the more I believe,
that anything is possible,
that I can achieve.

It takes over my mind,
it fills up my soul,
this feeling that I get,
never makes life dull.

I'm not just a golfer,
I have another light,
and this feeling that I get,
is the one when I write.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

"Palindrome," Lisel Mueller

There is less difficulty—indeed, no logical difficulty at all—in
imagining two portions of the universe, say two galaxies, in which
time goes one way in one galaxy and the opposite way in the
other. . . . Intelligent beings in each galaxy would regard their own
time as “forward” and time in the other galaxy as “backward.”
—Martin Gardner, in Scientific American 

Somewhere now she takes off the dress I am
putting on. It is evening in the antiworld
where she lives. She is forty-five years away
from her death, the hole which spit her out
into pain, impossible at first, later easing,
going, gone. She has unlearned much by now.
Her skin is firming, her memory sharpens,
her hair has grown glossy. She sees without glasses,
she falls in love easily. Her husband has lost his
shuffle, they laugh together. Their money shrinks,
but their ardor increases. Soon her second child
will be young enough to fight its way into her
body and change its life to monkey to frog to
tadpole to cluster of cells to tiny island to
nothing. She is making a list:
Things I will need in the past
lipstick
shampoo
transistor radio
Sergeant Pepper
acne cream
five-year diary with a lock
She is eager, having heard about adolescent love
and the freedom of children. She wants to read
Crime and Punishment and ride on a roller coaster
without getting sick. I think of her as she will
be at fifteen, awkward, too serious. In the
mirror I see she uses her left hand to write,
her other to open a jar. By now our lives should
have crossed. Somewhere sometime we must have
passed one another like going and coming trains,
with both of us looking the other way.

Monday, May 16, 2011

"Summer Music," May Swenson

Summer is all a green air—
From the brilliant lawn, sopranos
Through murmuring hedges
Accompanied by some poplars;
In fields of wheat, surprises;
Through faraway pastures, flows
To the horizon's blues
In slow decrescendos.

Summer is all a green sound—
Rippling in the foreground
To that soft applause,
The foam of Queen Anne's lace.
Green, green in the ear
Is all we care to hear—
Until a field suddenly flashes
The singing with so sharp
A yellow that it crashes
Loud cymbals in the ear,
Minor has turned to major
As summer, lulling and so mild,
Goes golden-buttercup-wild.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

"The Cold Within," unknown

Six humans trapped by happenstance
In dark and bitter cold
Each possessed a stick of wood--
Or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs,
But the first one held hers back,
For, of the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.

The next one looked cross the way
Saw one not of his church,
And could not bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of wealth he had in store,
And keeping all that he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For he saw in his stick of wood
A chance to spite the white.

And the last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain,
Giving just to those who gave
Was how he played the game,

Their sticks held tight in death's stilled hands
Was proof enough of sin;
They did not die from cold without--
They died from cold within.

"Dust," Dorianne Lux

Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavor —
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn’t elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That’s how it is sometimes —
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you’re just too tired to open it.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

"What I learned from my mother," Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

"Music, when soft voices die," Percy Bysshe Shelley

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory,
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

"The Unnatural Apologie of Shadows," Nathalie Handal

We say lightning has no wings
when it slides down our houses
We say loss is just a condition
we acquire to bury our pity further
We say the bleeding hands
on the table filled with red wine
imported products and passports
are just reminders of
who we have become
We have no titles no birthright
no groves or Shakespeare
to return to
We apologize for the fear
growing out of our ribs
Apologize for the numbers
still etched on our tongues

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

"Everybody Who is Dead," Frank Stanford


Today's poem: "Everybody Who is Dead," by Frank Stanford

Today's action list:

1. Write one reading log. Only two logs a week needed now.

2. Complete your draft for tomorrow.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

"Your voice, your eyes," Paul Eluard

Anna Karina, from Godard's Alphaville

Your voice, your eyes
your hands, your lips
Our silences, our words
Light that goes
light that returns
A single smile between us both

In quest of knowledge
I watched night create day
while we seemed unchanged
beloved of all, beloved of one alone
your mouth silently promised to be happy
Away, away, says hate
never, never, says love
A caress leads us from our childhood
Increasingly I see the human form
as a lover’s dialogue
The heart has but one mouth
Everything ordered by chance
All words without aforethought
Sentiments adrift
Men roam the city
A glance, a word
Because I love you
Everything moves
To live, only advance!
Aim straight for those you love
I went towards you, endlessly towards the light
If you smile, it is to enfold me all the better
The rays of your arms pierce the mist

For a link to Anna Karina's reading of Eluard, click here.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Action List: 3 May 2011

Robert Desnos

After discussing the Anthology Project, we will not have as much time as we usually do today for our blogging, so here is a simplified action list:

1. Compose one log to catch us up on what you have been reading lately.

Choose one of the following:

a. Read as much as you can of "Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden," the background on how they developed the intelligence to find the world's most wanted man, on the New York Times and make a brief response post (what surprises or interests you the most).

b. Read this article on what it means to be a "wired family," and write a post in response--how much does your family resemble the families described here?

Robert Desnos, in the concentration camp where he eventually died. He had been part of the Paris resistance during the second world war when he was captured.

Monday, May 2, 2011

"I said it to you," Paul Eluard

I said it to you for the clouds
I said it to you for the tree of the sea
For each wave for the birds in the leaves
For the pebbles of sound
For familiar hands

For the eye that becomes landscape or face
And sleep returns it the heaven of its colour
For all that night drank
For the network of roads
For the open window for a bare forehead
I said it to you for your thoughts for your words

Every caress every trust survives.

Friday, April 29, 2011

"Golden Retrievals," Mark Doty

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

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

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

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

Thursday, April 28, 2011

"Dog's Death," John Updike

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, “Good dog! Good dog!”

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest’s bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Period Four Bloggies Voting: 4.27.11

Period four, reply to this post for with your vote for today's Bloggies!

“A Friend,” Karley Dobis

A friend that loved everyone,

And always truly cared,

A friend that I could talk to,

And would always be there.

A friend that would help me,

When I was bound to drown,

A friend that would lift me,

Straight up off the ground.

A friend that I loved so much,

I cried and sobbed and tiered,

A friend who meant the world to me,

And is no longer here.

A friend that was the coolest pet,

And an even better bud,

Ever since my friends been gone,

Life has been a dud.

A friend that had diabetes,

But couldn’t be treated

A friend that had to be put down,

To heaven she was greeted.

A friend that deserved to live,

And to be treated for,

A friend that I wish was here,

And I’d do anything to see once more.

I loved her more than anything,

And now I truly know,

That even when life gets rough,

Pets can make it so-so.

She taught me how laugh,

And that it’s okay to cry,

I’m so sorry she had to go,

It wasn’t her turn to die.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Action List: 27 April 2011

A reminder for period four: blogs are due today.

We'll have a "Bloggies" day today; browse the blogs of our classmates and nominate your favorite blog in a reply to this post. Then, make a post on your own blog about it that links to a couple of your favorite posts there--personal, logs, videos, whatever--and then discuss why you like what they are doing with their little piece of the internet. The top three winners will get to skip tomorrow's vocab test!

After that, take some time to log your recent reading, make a personal post, comment on some poems, and do some silent reading, if you're up for that kind of thing.

"Unmediated Experience," Bob Hicok

She does this thing. Our seventeen-
year-old dog. Our mostly deaf dog.
Our mostly dead dog, statistically
speaking. When I crouch.
When I put my mouth to her ear
and shout her name. She walks away.
Walks toward the nothing of speech.
She even trots down the drive, ears up,
as if my voice is coming home.
It’s like watching a child
believe in Christmas, right
before you burn the tree down.
Every time I do it, I think, this time
she’ll turn to me. This time
she’ll put voice to face. This time,
I’ll be absolved of decay.
Which is like being a child
who believes in Christmas
as the tree burns, as the drapes catch,
as Santa lights a smoke
with his blowtorch and asks, want one?

Monday, April 25, 2011

"The Blue Bowl," Jane Kenyon

Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole.
They fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline, nose.

We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows keener than these.

Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

"Interstate Sonnet," Carl Marcum

A cigarette kiss in the desert. The wind-proof arc
of flame sparks inside the speeding Buick. Menthol:
a break from the monotony of highway nicotine—
most intimate of drugs. Make this mean sorrow
or thermodynamics, whatever small gesture
there is time for. Light another one, the vainglorious

interstate dusk and ash—the long, silver tooth.
This shirtless abandon, this ninety-mile-an-hour
electric laugh. The edges of windshield, haphazard
chatter. The clatter of the hubcap and the thunderclap:
the white-hot retinal memory of your life as a Joshua tree.
Permanence in the passenger seat. This long haul,

this first drag—nothing like cinnamon, nothing
like the iron taste on the back of your mortal tongue.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

"Bright Star," by John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art---
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors---
No---yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever---or else swoon in death.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

My gallery response.

Rachel Dafforn, "Edge."

With Rachel Dafforn’s futuristic, tunic-like dress “Edge,” the muted colors, clean lines, and surprising geometry project a subdued and dignified playfulness. Dafforn crafts her dress with a soft, brushed cotton and corduroy, and her color palette is narrow, ranging from the soft black of the high-waisted black skirt to the mossy green that hides behind a gray top. The unusual triangular cut from this top, combined with the comfortable, wide wale of the corduroy provide an interesting mix of the modern and the traditional. This mixture of style and material makes Dafforn’s dress as fun and friendly as it is earnest and thoughtful.

Round 1 Winners

Period 3: Madison, Karley, Ashley M., Katelyn, Cheyenne, Bri, Noelle, Erica, Sydney, Sunni

Period 4: Ashley, Fawaz, Caroline, Colton, Eric, Leilani, Erin, Jaspreet, Joel, Kathy, Riley

Congratulations, winners, and great job making your readings personal and enjoyable for us as your audience.

Round 2 will be on Monday of next week. Everyone must have their one paragraph response done and printed for that day. Winners must print theirs with an alias, while non-winners simply need their names.

Sonnet Week, Day 2: "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed and Why," Edna St. Vincent Millay


What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Action List: 4.19.2011

Let's go look at some art.

Today's blog assignment asks you to provide a little critical commentary on a piece you like from the HHS Student Art Gallery. Pick either a single piece or an artist, photograph the piece or pieces with your cell phone, and post that image to your blog when you get home.

Below the image(s), make a brief analytical statement about the art in the form of a claim and a couple of sentences that elaborate on that claim. We did this exact thing with the Walton Ford painting "Falling Bough." Your claim should observe the art on the left and identify the tone or thematic effects on the right: [general observation/description] verb [tone/idea].

Don't be lazy on either side of your claim--observe closely and think/feel deeply to really capture the piece you are looking at. If you're looking at an artist's work in general, you can use examples from several of their pieces; the only difference here is that your claim will have more broadly drawn observations and inferences.

If your class does not have time to get to the gallery today, write a brief informal response after watching some of these videos, reading this surprising article about studying and fonts, or checking in with 1000 Awesome Things to see what they've added lately.

Monday, April 18, 2011

"Farewell to Love," Michael Drayton (1563-1631)


Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have giv'n him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

"Spring," Mary Oliver


I lift my face to the pale flowers

of the rain. They’re soft as linen,

clean as holy water. Meanwhile

my dog runs off, noses down packed leaves

into damp, mysterious tunnels.

He says the smells are rising now

stiff and lively; he says the beasts

are waking up now full of oil,

sleep sweat, tag-ends of dreams. The rain

rubs its shining hands all over me.

My dog returns and barks fiercely, he says

each secret body is the richest advisor,

deep in the black earth such fuming

nuggets of joy!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Tuesday Action List

Dan Martensen and Shannan Click at home with their dog.

Hi, everyone. Here are your blog assignments for today. It is important to me that today be a quiet work day; people will be trying to memorize their poems, writing, reading. Let the classroom be a quiet space so that these things can happen with focus and concentration.

Your tasks for today: (don't forget to add the label "Tuesday Response" to your post for action item #2, below)

1. One reading log entry.

2. One brief analytical paragraph about one of the following three homes. This may feel slightly new, but it is just another application of the process we began using with Gene Kelly's dancing, the "Falling Bough" painting, and the ATW essay.

Pick one of the following homes photographed by up-and-coming photographer Todd Selby and write a brief, 100 word response that discusses the effect created by its setting. Your claim should have two parts:

[General observations about Setting] verb [tone words that capture the mood of that home].

It is important that you dig into your tone sheet to find words that accurately convey the tone you're sensing as you look at these homes. Here is a sample claim that could apply to Homestead:

[Homestead High School's long expanses of white halls and bewildering floor plans, punctuated by dashes of colorful Art Club mural projects] create [a sense of cold, clinical formality and oppressed creativity.]

Choose one of these homes:

Pharrell Williams Modern Miami home of the well-known rapper known as Pharrell.

Dan Martensen and Shannan Click
Upstate New York farmhouse of a photographer and his artist wife.

Jamie Isaia and Anthony Malat Interesting Brooklyn apartment of another arty couple.

3. Memorize your show for tomorrow. Do this throughout the day today. Read a few lines, work on your action list, look at a few more lines. At lunch today, try out a few lines for friends. Don't be afraid to take this seriously. As an audience, we want nothing more than to see that you care about what you are saying to us up there.

"Song of the Builders," Mary Oliver

Song of the Builders

On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God -

a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope


it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

About Mary Oliver


from The Poetry Foundation.

"Sleeping in the Forest," Mary Oliver



Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

"At the Galleria Shopping Mall," Tony Hoagland

Just past the bin of pastel baby socks and underwear,
there are some 49-dollar Chinese-made TVs;

one of them singing news about a far-off war,
one comparing the breast size of an actress from Hollywood

to the breast size of an actress from Bollywood.
And here is my niece Lucinda,

who is nine and a true daughter of Texas,
who has developed the flounce of a pedigreed blonde

and declares that her favorite sport is shopping.
Today is the day she embarks upon her journey,

swinging a credit card like a scythe
through the meadows of golden merchandise.

Today is the day she stops looking at faces,
and starts assessing the labels of purses;

So let it begin. Let her be dipped in the dazzling bounty
and raised and wrung out again and again.

And let us watch.
As the gods in olden stories

turned mortals into laurel trees and crows
to teach them some kind of lesson,

so we were turned into Americans
to learn something about loneliness.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

"O Captain, My Captain!" Walt Whitman


O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.


O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; 10
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.


My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 20
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Action List: 3.29.2011

First, some class notes:
1. Reading logs/blogs are due today for period 3.
2. Because the recitation "playbook" is due tomorrow for your memorized poem, please bring a hard copy of it to class, formatted the way I showed you in class. An example and instructions are on the class notes page.

Okay, here is our online fun for today. We're going to browse the online edition of Sunday's youth-dedicated edition of the New York Times Magazine. Please add the label "Tuesday Response" to your post for today and all future Tuesday blog assignments.

For today's blog assignment, you need to read and respond to at least two articles. First, follow the prompts for #1, below. After that, choose one of the following two prompts.

1. (Everyone do this one!) Listen to a few of these interviews of high school seniors about where they see themselves ten years from now. Use headphones if you have them, because they have audio.

Write a brief response that discusses your reaction to the interviews you see: Which student in the article do you relate to the most? Which one is the most interesting? Which one seems the most deluded? Then, in a second paragraph, write your own answer to that question: where do you see yourself in ten years?Next, choose one of the following options:

Respond informally, in at least 250 words, with your thoughts about one of the following articles, and incorporating at least two quotes from the article into your response:

2. "A Soccer Phenom Puts the 'I' in Team," an article with videos about a high school specialist in "free-style" soccer. Don't just watch the video--read the article; it's interesting.

3. "Online Poker's Big Winner," about a 21 year-old multi-millionaire online poker player.

"Late Echo," John Ashbery

Alone with our madness and favorite flower
We see that there really is nothing left to write about.
Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things
In the same way, repeating the same things over and over
For love to continue and be gradually different.

Beehives and ants have to be re-examined eternally
And the color of the day put in
Hundreds of times and varied from summer to winter
For it to get slowed down to the pace of an authentic
Saraband and huddle there, alive and resting.

Only then can the chronic inattention
Of our lives drape itself around us, conciliatory
And with one eye on those long tan plush shadows
That speak so deeply into our unprepared knowledge
Of ourselves, the talking engines of our day.

"Modern Love," John Keats

And what is love? It is a doll dress’d up
For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;
A thing of soft misnomers, so divine
That silly youth doth think to make itself
Divine by loving, and so goes on
Yawning and doting a whole summer long,
Till Miss’s comb is made a pearl tiara,
And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;
Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,
And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.
Fools! if some passions high have warm’d the world,
If Queens and Soldiers have play’d deep for hearts,
It is no reason why such agonies
Should be more common than the growth of weeds.
Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl
The Queen of Egypt melted, and I’ll say
That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

Friday, March 25, 2011

"History of Desire," Tony Hoagland

When you're seventeen, and drunk
on the husky, late-night flavor
of your first girlfriend's voice
along the wires of the telephone

what else to do but steal
your father's El Dorado from the drive,
and cruise out to the park on Driscoll Hill?
Then climb the county water tower

and aerosol her name in spraycan orange
a hundred feet above the town?
Because only the letters of that word,
DORIS, next door to yours,

in yard-high, iridescent script,
are amplified enough to tell the world
who's playing lead guitar
in the rock band of your blood.

You don't consider for a moment
the shock in store for you in 10 A.D.,
a decade after Doris, when,
out for a drive on your visit home,

you take the Smallville Road, look up
and see RON LOVES DORIS
still scorched upon the reservoir.
This is how history catches up—

by holding still until you
bump into yourself.
What makes you blush, and shove
the pedal of the Mustang

almost through the floor
as if you wanted to spray gravel
across the features of the past,
or accelerate into oblivion?

Are you so out of love that you
can't move fast enough away?
But if desire is acceleration,
experience is circular as any

Indianapolis. We keep coming back
to what we are—each time older,
more freaked out, or less afraid.
And you are older now.

You should stop today.
In the name of Doris, stop.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

"For My Daughter," Daivd Ignatow

When I die choose a star
and name it after me
that you may know
I have not abandoned
or forgotten you.
You were such a star to me,
following you through birth
and childhood, my hand
in your hand.

When I die
choose a star and name it
after me so that I may shine
down on you, until you join
me in darkness and silence
together.

"Feeding Hunger," Sandra Lee Smith

"Feeding Hunger"

How do we begin to justify
Hunger of the masses
When we have so much,
And so much is wasted?
My refrigerator is full
As is the pantry;
You can’t get another vegetable
Or pieces of fruit
Or box of cereal
On the shelves.
The children arrive
And know where to find
Juice boxes and bags of chips
To snack on.
The freezer is filled
With frozen bricks of various soups.
We could go, I estimate,
Six months without
Buying groceries.
We eat well
With little waste
But I was well trained
To economize.
Even so,
Much goes to waste
And I think about my mother’s warning
About the starving children
In Europe.
Now China
Or Asia
Or Africa.
Children have been starving somewhere
All of my life.
Yet
Farmers pour milk into ditches
And burn crops.
Feed the Hungry, we are urged.
Millions are at risk of Starvation. You can help.
Eighty Cents a Day can Change a Life forever.
Sponsor a child today!
And yet
Though I sponsor a child
And donate dollars to organizations,
Millions continue to starve
While farmers continue to destroy crops.
What difference will it make
If I throw out a crust of bread?
Who cares?
Who really cares?

-Sandra Lee Smith

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Action List: 3.22.11

My dog Smokey.

Participation News: Grades are updated now, unless your display name is Reach for the Moon--I have misplaced your real name, so you need to let me know if that is your online alias.

Congratulations to Artemis, Mariah Hamil, lyssa, and Count Chocula--these four were consistently the most engaged and thoughtful contributors to our ongoing poetry commentary, providing insights that were well grounded in the poems themselves. Great work. 1% extra credit for the quarter to all of you.
A picture of my friend David on a puzzle he put together.

First, a slight change to the blogging requirements: Our page quotas are going to stay the same, but your blogging requirements are a little bit lighter. From now on, it doesn't matter if you are reading popular fiction or literary fiction--you only need to log your reading three times a week. This is only a change for popular fiction readers, but it should make things a little bit easier to keep up with and still allow you time to be outside more, selling lemonade and catching frogs, now that the weather is turning nicer.

Second: I'm giving you a free week for blogging. Blogs due today are now due next Tuesday, and blogs due next Tuesday are due the week after (the week after Spring Break, btw). Only two weeks of reading and logging will be due, though you will have had three weeks to complete it. Remember, you can't get credit in this class for any books that have been assigned, in any class, any time, at Homestead. So, sorry, but no Frankenstein, David Copperfield, Lord of the Flies. Those are for other classes, right.
A picture of rain that I have been liking a lot lately.

To do today: Pick 2 of the following 3 assignments.
1. Create a personal blog post that looks back at your reading from this past quarter. What was the best reading you did? What writers did you discover? What did you discover about your own taste in reading? What did you not like? What are your plans for your 4th quarter reading? Please Double-check your pages read over the course of the first quarter and update it at the top of this post--tell us how many pages total you've read, and, if you are up to it, break it down by pop and lit sub-totals, too.

2. Best poem of the Quarter. Please make a brief post that identifies what you think of as your favorite poem from the first quarter and what you like about it.

3. Visit this site: 1000 Awesome Things. Read a bunch of them and make a post about awesome things--the ones you agree with from this site, and then name and discuss at least one thing that would be on your personal list.

4. When you are done with these things, read yer book and/or conference with me about your ATW essay.

Monday, March 21, 2011

"All That is Gold Does Not Glitter," JRR Tolkien

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.[1





"Spring," Karla Kuskin

Spring

by Karla Kuskin

Karla Kuskin
I’m shouting
I’m singing
I’m swinging through trees
I’m winging skyhigh
With the buzzing black bees.
I’m the sun
I’m the moon
I’m the dew on the rose.
I’m a rabbit
Whose habit
Is twitching his nose.
I’m lively
I’m lovely
I’m kicking my heels.
I’m crying “Come Dance”
To the fresh water eels.
I’m racing through meadows
Without any coat
I’m a gamboling lamb
I’m a light leaping goat
I’m a bud
I’m a bloom
I’m a dove on the wing.
I’m running on rooftops
And welcoming spring!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

"Don't Quit"

Don't Quit
Unknown

When things go wrong as they sometimes will;
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill;
When the funds are low, and the debts are high;
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh;
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you can never tell how close you are;
It may be near when it seems afar.
So, stick to the fight when you're hardest hit
It's when things go wrong that you mustn't quit.

"I dance for the love," Amy Lee

"I dance for the love"

I dance for the love

I dance even when I feel pain
I dance knowing there's something to gain

I dance for the love

I dance for me
I dance for everyone to see

I dance for the love

I dance as the sunshine
I dance hoping you will be mine

I dance for the love

I dance with words to say
I dance all day

I dance for the love

I dance even when you leave
I dance and still believe

I dance for the love

-Amy Lee

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

"On being asked for a War Poem," W.B. Yeats

On being asked for a War Poem


I THINK it better that in times like these
A poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth
We have no gift to set a statesman right;
He has had enough of meddling who can please
A young girl in the indolence of her youth, 5
Or an old man upon a winter’s night.

"A Dream Within a Dream," Poe

A Dream Within a Dream
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

"Graves," Hayden Carruth

Graves

by Hayden Carruth

Both of us had been close
to Joel, and at Joel’s death
my friend had gone to the wake
and the memorial service
and more recently he had
visited Joel’s grave, there
at the back of the grassy
cemetery among the trees,
“a quiet, gentle place,” he said,
“befitting Joel.” And I said,
“What’s the point of going
to look at graves?” I went
into one of my celebrated
tirades. “People go to look
at the grave of Keats or Hart
Crane, they go traveling just to
do it, what a waste of time.
What do they find there? Hell,
I wouldn’t go look at the grave of
Shakespeare if it was just
down the street. I wouldn’t
look at—” And I stopped. I
was about to say the grave of God
until I realized I’m looking at it
all the time....