"Wild Geese," Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

"First Kiss," by April Lindner

First Kiss

This collision of teeth, of tongues and lips,
is like feeling for the door
in a strange room, blindfolded.
He imagines he knows her
after four dates, both of them taking pains
to laugh correctly, to make eye contact.
She thinks at least this long first kiss
postpones the moment she'll have to face
four white walls, the kitchen table,
its bowl of dried petals and nutmeg husks,
the jaunty yellow vase with one jaunty bloom,
the answering machine's one bloodshot eye.

Wednesday Action List: 2.23

1. First, a blog post; title it "2.23 Diction Exercise." On your own, using the prose excerpt on the other side of the passage you observed with a partner on Monday, do the following:

(a) List the 8-10 words that strike you as most representative of the passage's diction.

(b) Characterize each of the four elements of diction, listing at least two adjectives to describe each element.

Be creative with how you describe each element. For example, if the language is concrete, you might, depending on the language, describe it as "crunchy," "bold," or even "brittle." You get to decide.

(c) Draft a full claim that uses 2-3 of the adjectives you came up with and then completing the right side using the class tone sheet.

2. At the end of the exercise, browse our class blogs and read at least 8 claims. Pick the claim that you think sounds the most original and forceful and leave a comment to this post with the name of the blog where you found it.

3. Compose either a reading log, a personal post, or a comment for a poem from the past week. Or all three.

"Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River," Robert Bly

At the Poetry Foundation.

"Modern Love"

"Modern Love"

by 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.

"Grammar," Tony Hoagland

At Poetry 180.

Eric's poem: "Ishtar" - Unknown, 4000 B.C.

(translated from the Babylonian Cuneiform by Lewis Spence)

The unconsecrated foe entered my courts,
placed his unwashed hands upon me,
and caused me to tremble.
Putting forth his hand
He smote me with fear.

He tore away my robe
and clothed his wife therein;
he stripped off my jewels
and placed them upon his daughter.

Like a quivering dove upon a beam
I sat.
Like a fleeing bird from my crranny
swiftly I passed

from my temple.
Like a bird
they caused me to fly.

Tuesday's Poem: "Once Upon a Time"

Comments here. The poem should be in your poetry journals.

Why no chords? Why the white keys? Why the Mediterranean?

Tuesday Action List 2.15.11

Today is an open comment day for our class blog: you can comment on any poem or poems we have read from the entire semester so far. After today, comments will be restricted to poems posted within the last week and all older poems will be "closed" to comments.

So, make sure you understand the comment rubric and get commenting.

Other options today:

* Make a reading log post.

* Read my last post on my blog about an awkward Facebook experience I had recently and then make a personal post about your most awkward or interesting fb or online story.

* Browse any of the linked online sources for poetry to find a poem to recite to class, and then claim a day on the class calendar.

Have fun.

"Animals, " by Frank O'Hara

ANIMALS
            
            
     Have you forgotten what we were like then
     when we were still first rate
     and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
  
     it's no use worrying about Time
     but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
     and turned some sharp corners
  
     the whole pasture looked like our meal
     we didn't need speedometers
     we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
  
     I wouldn't want to be faster
     or greener than now if you were with me O you
     were the best of all my days
   
                         
     [1950]

Why "an apple in its mouth"?
Why are the corners described as "sharp"?
Why "cocktails out of ice and water?"
What it the deal with "Time" here?
Does it matter to the poem that O'Hara was gay?
Who do you think he is talking to?

Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.

If you'd like do conduct your first solo close reading on the Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire clips, you can find them here:

Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor: "Moses Supposes," from Singin in the Rain.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers: "Night and Day," from The Gay Divorcee, I think.

Friday's Poem, "Eating Together"

"Eating Together," by Li Young-Lee.

What attitude toward death do you feel is depicted by the closing image here?

How does it compare to the attitude toward death in Thursday's poem, "The Death Deal"?

Why are they eating fish? What associations do you have with fish?

Period Four: "Falling Bough" voting

Leave a comment here with the alias of the two most impressive paragraphs.

Also see if you can guess which one is Hill's.

Period Three: "Falling Bough" Voting

Leave a comment here with the alias of the two most impressive paragraphs.

Walton Ford image.

Here is a link to "Falling Bough."

After you complete your paragraph, save it to your period's sub-folder under Hill/Homework.

Your solo close-reading paragraphs should be posted, along with a link or image of the work you are analyzing, to your class blog by Tuesday.

Thursday's poem: "The Death Deal"

"The Death Deal," by Ron Padgett. At The Writer's Almanac.

So, what is the deal with the last line here? What does that do to the poem? What relationship, if you see any, do you think that line has to the idea of him struggling "against this eventuality"?

Describe the line lengths here and line breaks. What effect does that choice have, as you read it?

What else?

Wednesday's Poem: Abbey's, period 4.

The Empty Reality

Peace is fine, If all is well, Give me a call, Because I can tell, When you don't tell me every thing there is to know... You've got a way of letting it show. The empty reality you call your life, Is a shame to human life, Bringing all thats well to dispise... You. The pent up anger that lerks inside me, Is really you just sitting beside me, Peace is but a word of rage. You take a dagger to my heart, A knife to my soul, You eat my sanity in a silver metal bowl. Why? What did I ever do... To you. My best friend starts to betray me, She says your going out, She said you were the answer, But my head is filled with doubt, Today we never speak, I blame this all... On you. Is it me that is wrong? All the proof is there... In all due respect you were a horrible pair, I don't wish you death, I wish you years of pain, But that still won't add up, to my year of me going insane. But its time to move on, Whats done is done, I admit, you have one. Are you happy that you took my life and friends? But in years to come, when wisdom comes with age, Who will see that its an eye for an eye? You. Jessica Charlie

Wednesday's Poem: "This Poem Doesn’t Care That It Isn’t a Sonnet "

This Poem Doesn’t Care That It Isn’t a Sonnet

This poem doesn’t care about the movie Avatar,
doesn’t care about iPods or Notebooks or
the divorce of reality from reality; it isn’t
thinking of animal shelters, three million plus
deaths per year; this poem isn’t thinking
of oil or children or ice melting with climate
that is here or not here; this poem has nothing
to do with the bodies of women which have
ceased to move on cots or sidewalks; this poem
doesn’t know the legal age of marriage for
girls in Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia etc.;
it has stopped looking for the name of the one
killed in a bus by a bomb, in a car by a sniper,
on the path by a tripwire, in a house, in a crib.
This poem isn’t waiting for pain’s reprieve,
for grief to pack up its tools for another heart’s
pale. It is hungry for milk, for the messages
of pillow and sheet; it wants the drowse
of the egg in the open nest, a plain thing, in-
effable brim of shade, yellow apples ripening.


Laurie Lamon
from Willow Springs #67

Tuesday's Poem: "At North Farm"

At North Farm

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you,
At incredible speed, traveling day and night,
Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through narrow passes.
But will he know where to find you,
Recognize you when he sees you,
Give you the thing he has for you?

Hardly anything grows here,
Yet the granaries are bursting with meal,
The sacks of meal piled to the rafters.
The streams run with sweetness, fattening fish;
Birds darken the sky. Is it enough
That the dish of milk is set out at night,
That we think of him sometimes,
Sometimes and always, with mixed feelings?

John Ashbery

Some questions: Why is that third line so long? Why is Ashbery so vague with the details here ("Somewhere," "Sometimes," "the thing he has for you," etc.). Does the tone change anywhere in this poem? Where? Why a bowl of milk? What does that suggest about who or what he might be expecting? Who do you think is traveling?

Tuesday Action List 2.8.11

Isn't this a crazy image? Kind of sad, maybe, but still fascinating. A large coyote was hit by a car in Colorado, and this image is what was left after she had been showered by the salt spray of passing vehicles. It's haunting, I think. Someone needs to write a book of poems so that this can be the cover. Anyway . . . here is today's action list.

Do this today:

1. Visit one of the following sites and make an informal response about it to your blog.

(A) Read or Listen to a few stories at the "Three Minute Fiction" site run by National Public Radio.

(B) Read this article from the New York Times about recent research on teenage driving.

(C) Browse a story or two (or watch a video or two) at StoryCorps.

2. Leave friendly comments on at least two blogs from our class. Try leaving comments on the blogs of people you don't know.

3. If you have time, make a reading log post. If your blog is due today (period 4), update your page totals, showing how much you have read "currently," for the last two weeks (back to January 25) and what your page total for the semester is so far. OR you could leave comments about some of the poems we've looked at recently . . .

Monday's poem, 2.7.11

Connie Wanek, "After Us"

Dancing Videos for Close Reading exercise.

Gene Kelly "Moses Supposes"

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers "Night and Day"

Friday's Poem, 2.4.11

Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man."