Week 7--Poem 3: The Sad Mother by Gabriela Mistral

Sleep, sleep, my beloved,
without worry, without fear,
although my soul does not sleep,
although I do not rest.

Sleep, sleep, and in the night
may your whispers be softer
than a leaf of grass,
or the silken fleece of lambs.

May my flesh slumber in you,
my worry, my trembling.
In you, may my eyes close
and my heart sleep.

Week 7--Poem 2:"Libertad! Igualdad! Fraternidad!" by William Carlos Williams

You sullen pig of a man
you force me into the mud
with your stinking ash-cart!

Brother!
--if we were rich
we'd stick out chests out
and hold our heads high!

It is dreams that have destroyed us.

There is no more pride
in horses or in rein holding.
We sit hunched together brooding
our fate.

Well--
all things turn bitter in the end
whether you choose the right or
the left way
and--
dreams are not a bad thing.

Week 7--Poem 1: Blackberry-picking by Seamus Heaney

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just o­ne, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first o­ne and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red o­nes inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green o­nes, and o­n top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting o­n our cache.
The juice was stinking too. o­nce off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Week 6: Poem 3--No More Clichés by Octavio Paz

Beautiful face
That like a daisy opens its petals to the sun
So do you
Open your face to me as I turn the page.

Enchanting smile
Any man would be under your spell,
Oh, beauty of a magazine.

How many poems have been written to you?
How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice?
To your obsessive illusion
To you manufacture fantasy.

But today I won't make o­ne more Cliché
And write this poem to you.
No, no more clichés.

This poem is dedicated to those women
Whose beauty is in their charm,
In their intelligence,
In their character,
Not o­n their fabricated looks.

This poem is to you women,
That like a Shahrazade wake up
Everyday with a new story to tell,
A story that sings for change
That hopes for battles:
Battles for the love of the united flesh
Battles for passions aroused by a new day
Battle for the neglected rights
Or just battles to survive o­ne more night.

Yes, to you women in a world of pain
To you, bright star in this ever-spending universe
To you, fighter of a thousand-and-one fights
To you, friend of my heart.

From now o­n, my head won't look down to a magazine
Rather, it will contemplate the night
And its bright stars,
And so, no more clichés.

Week 6: Poem 2--Ditty of First Desire by Frederico Garcia Lorca

In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart.

And in the ripe evening
I wanted to be a nightingale.
A nightingale.

(Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.)

In the vivid morning
I wanted to be myself.
A heart.

And at the evening's end
I wanted to be my voice.
A nightingale.

Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.

Week 6: Poem 1--The End of the World by Archibald MacLeish

Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe,
And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb
Quite unexpectedly to top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

Week 5 Poem 3: Girl in Love by Ranier Maria Rilke

That's my window. This minute
So gently did I alight
From sleep--was still floating in it.
Where has my life its limit
And where begins the night?

I could fancy all things around me
Were nothing but I as yet;
Like a crystal's depth, profoundly
Mute, translucent, unlit.

I have space to spare inside me
For the stars, too: so full of room
Feels my heart; so lightly
Would it let go of him, whom

For all I know I have started
To love, it may be to hold.
Strange, as if never charted,
Stares my fortune untold.

Why is it I am bedded
Beneath this infinitude,
Fragrant like a meadow,
Hither and thither moved,

Calling out, yet fearing
Someone might hear the cry,
Destined to disappearing
Within another I.

Week 5 Poem 2: These, I, Singing in Spring by Walt Whitman

THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and
joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world--but soon I pass the
gates,
Now along the pond-side--now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there,
pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and
partly cover them--Beyond these I pass,)
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the
silence,
Alone I had thought--yet soon a troop gathers around me,
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or
neck,
They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive--thicker they come,
a great crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
Plucking something for tokens--tossing toward whoever is near me;
Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live-oak in
Florida, as it hung trailing down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me--and returns again,
never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades--this
Calamus-root shall,
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,
And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:
These, I, compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from
me,
Indicating to each o­ne what he shall have--giving something to each;
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
I will give of it--but o­nly to them that love, as I myself am capable
of loving.

Week 5 Poem 1: If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
o­ne thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that o­n that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds o­n your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Week 4 Poem 3: Her Triumph by William Butler Yeats

I did the dragon's will until you came
Because I had fancied love a casual
Improvisation, or a settled game
That followed if I let the kerchief fall:
Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings
And heavenly music if they gave it wit;
And then you stood among the dragon rings.
I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it
And broke the chain and set my ankles free,
Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;
And now we stare astonished at the sea,
And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us.

Week 4 Poem 2: O Solitude! If I Must With Thee Dwell by John Keats

O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,—
Nature's observatory—whence the dell,
In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavilioned, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.
But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refined,
Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

Week 4 Poem 1: Complaint by William Carlos Williams

They call me and I go.
It is a frozen road
past midnight, a dust
of snow caught
in the rigid wheeltracks.
The door opens.
I smile, enter and
shake off the cold.
Here is a great woman
o­n her side in the bed.
She is sick,
perhaps vomiting,
perhaps laboring
to give birth to
a tenth child. Joy! Joy!
Night is a room
darkened for lovers,
through the jalousies the sun
has sent o­ne golden needle!
I pick the hair from her eyes
and watch her misery
with compassion.

Week 3 Poem 3: Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen (written about WWI)

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
o­nly the monstrous anger of the guns.
o­nly the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Week 3 Poem 2: I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone by Rainer Maria Rilke

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough

to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, o­ne close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

Week 3 Poem 1: O, Were I Loved As I Desire To Be! by Lord Alfred Tennyson

O, were I loved as I desire to be!
What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
Or range of evil between death and birth,
That I should fear, - if I were loved by thee!
All the inner, all the outer world of pain,
Clear love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine;
As I have heard that somewhere in the main
Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine.
'I were joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee,
To wait for death - mute - careless of all ills,
Apart upon a mountain, though the surge
Of some new deluge from a thousand hills
Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge
Below us, as far o­n as eye could see.

I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough

to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, o­ne close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

How Come? by Ray LaMontagne

People o­n the street now
Faces long and grim
Souls are feeling heavy
And faith is growing thin
Fears are getting stronger
You can Feel them o­n the rise
Hopelessness got some by the throat you can see it in their eyes
I said how come
How come
Everybody o­n a shoestring
Everybody in a hole
Everybody crossing their fingers and toes
Government man spin his politics till he got you pinned
Everybody trying to reach out to each other
But they don't know where to begin
I said how come
I can't tell
the free world
from living hell
I said how come
How come
all I see
is a child of god
in misery
I said how come the pistol now as profit
The bullet some kind of lord and king
But pain is the o­nly promise that this so called savior is going to bring
Love can be a liar
And justice can be a thief
And freedom can be an empty cup from which everybody want to drink
I said how come
I can't tell
the free world
from living hell
I said how come
How come
all i see
is a child of god
in misery
I said how come
Its just man killing man
Killing man
Killing man
Killing man
Killing man
I don't understand
Its just man killing man

In Trouble and Shame by D.H. Lawrence

I look at the swaling sunset
And wish I could go also
Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar.

I wish that I could go
Through the red doors where I could put off
My shame like shoes in the porch,
My pain like garments,
And leave my flesh discarded lying
Like luggage of some departed traveller
Gone one knows not where.

Then I would turn round,
And seeing my cast-off body lying like lumber,
I would laugh with joy.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysse Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said -- "two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ... near them, o­n the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped o­n these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And o­n the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look o­n my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

With No Experience in Such Matters by Stephen Dunn

To hold a damaged sparrow
under water until you feel it die
is to know a small something
about the mind; how, for example,
it blames the cat for the original crime,
how it wants praise for its better side.

And yet it's as human
as pulling the plug o­n your Dad
whose world has turned
to feces and fog, human as--
Well, let's admit, it's a mild thing
as human things go.

But I felt the o­ne good wing
flutter in my palm--
the smallest protest, if that's what it was,
I ever felt or heard.
Reminded me of how my eyelid has twitched,
the need to account for it.
Hard to believe no o­ne notices.

Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry by Stephen Dunn

I thought this a fitting poem with which to begin. Please respond after reading without duplicating others' responses. If you are unable to comment for some technical reason, please email me at panuck@gmail.com and describe your problem. We need to work out the kinks as soon as possible.

Have fun and good luck.

Relax. This won't last long.
Or if it does, or if the lines
make you sleepy or bored,
give in to sleep, turn o­n
the T.V., deal the cards.
This poem is built to withstand
such things. Its feelings
cannot be hurt. They exist
somewhere in the poet,
and I am far away.
Pick it up anytime. Start it
in the middle if you wish.
It is as approachable as melodrama,
and can offer you violence
if it is violence you like. Look,
there's a man o­n a sidewalk;
the way his leg is quivering
he'll never be the same again.
This is your poem
and I know you're busy at the office
or the kids are into your last nerve.
Maybe it's sex you've always wanted.
Well, they lie together
like the party's unbuttoned coats,
slumped o­n the bed
waiting for drunken arms to move them.
I don't think you want me to go o­n;
everyone has his expectations, but this
is a poem for the entire family.
Right now, Budweiser
is dripping from a waterfall,
deodorants are hissing into armpits
of people you resemble,
and the two lovers are dressing now,
saying farewell.
I don't know what music this poem
can come up with, but clearly
it's needed. For it's apparent
they will never see each other again
and we need music for this
because there was never music when he or she
left you standing o­n the corner.
You see, I want this poem to be nicer
than life. I want you to look at it
when anxiety zigzags your stomach
and the last tranquilizer is gone
and you need someone to tell you
I'll be here when you want me
like the sound inside a shell.
The poem is saying that to you now.
But don't give anything for this poem.
It doesn't expect much. It will never say more
than listening can explain.
Just keep it in your attache case
or in your house. And if you're not asleep
by now, or bored beyond sense,
the poem wants you to laugh. Laugh at
yourself, laugh at this poem, at all poetry.
Come o­n:

Good. Now here's what poetry can do.

Imagine yourself a caterpillar.
There's an awful shrug and, suddenly,
You're beautiful for as long as you live.

Poem of the Day

So, here we are. You've survived this long, but you've got one more semester ahead of you. In order to bolster your poetry skills, there will be a poem of the day (actually it will most likely be every other day) that you will be required to respond to. You must respond to one a week. You can always dissect more (and when you miss classes will be required to!).

Below will be an example of a poem and student responses. Notice how the first one is not as in depth as the following--this is the advantage of first come first served. I expect the responses not to be repetitive. You may respond to what someone else has said and comment, but no "I agree with so-and-so. They said what I wanted to say." Tough. You need to find more because there will always be more to say.

Here's the example poem:

"You Who Never Arrived" by Ranier Maria Rilke

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me-- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house--, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, seperate, in the evening...

And here are some sample responses:

"To me this poem seems to be about a parent, who is speaking to their child, who was never born, perhaps the child died before it was born, or perhaps there never was a child, and this is the parent longing for a child. The fact that the poet is saying how they saw them everywhere and how they would imagine how they would feel about certain things such as songs. It seems that the speaker is desperate for some sign or some indication that the child can communicate with them, and that they are with them, however realistically, they know this not to be true, and are realizing that they may have to learn to live life without the child and move on."

and another:

"I understand the parent approach. Yet I see it as a widow from a arranged marriage with a soldier killed in war. The Beloved is an idea of what could have been. The speaker has an image in her mind of all she hoped for in this beloved; "in the open window,garden, stepped out"all indicate her hope of settling down. Yet that image changes constantly, "surging wave of the next moment" The author plays on your conception of sight with using words like "immense images, vanishing, mirrors, unsuspected" to describe the Beloved then describes herself as too-sudden meaning that his was just an illusion.She is chasing the image of what she thinks it would have been like."

and one more:

"I disagree with the idea of the poem evoking the emotions of a parent for a child. It seems to me to be much more of a romantic narrative, since many of the images and hopes are not for the other figure, but as a part of the speaker and the speaker's experiences. It is beautiful in this way, as the speaker characterizes an unnamed, hopeful future love as everything beautiful in the world, "all/
the gardens I have ever gazed at,/
longing." In this way it seems similar to Whitman's "stranger" poem, in that the speaker is searching for someone who could be anyone and who may have been anywhere, at every time. 'Who knows?/
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us/
yesterday, seperate, in the evening....'"

Notice how the responses become a conversation and collaboration. That is the goal. Also notice the use of proper, standard English. Please don't post material that employs text-talk and re-read and revise your statements. Ultimately, this is supposed to simulate the college experience with online components (as more and more colleges have); so let's practice.

Once the poem is posted, you just need to hit the 'Comment' link below and type away. It might be best to set up an account so we can all know who's doing the writing.