fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should...

26
POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW 1. What does the title mean? 2. What does the poem mean? (Content) Think about the meaning of the poem, not just the obvious meaning of each word but what they mean beyond the literal. Do these words suggest something else? • Who is the subject of the poem? • What are they talking about? • Why do you think the author wrote the poem? • When is the poem happening? • Where is the poem happening? • What is the poet’s attitude? • What is the message of the poem? 3. Poetic devices: Tools of the poet (Form) Identify different poetic devices and how they convey the poem’s message. • Simile – comparison using like or as • Metaphor – a direct comparison • Personification – giving human qualities to nonhuman things • Tone – what emotion does the speaker use as he talks • Point of view – who is the telling the poem • Imagery – creating pictures with words • Alliteration – repeating the same letter • Line/Stanza – how does this exemplify the message or the meaning? 4. If you were to teach the poem, what are two questions you could ask about the poem?

Transcript of fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should...

Page 1: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW

1. What does the title mean?

2. What does the poem mean? (Content)Think about the meaning of the poem, not just the obvious meaning of each word but what they mean beyond the literal. Do these words suggest something else?

• Who is the subject of the poem? • What are they talking about? • Why do you think the author wrote the poem? • When is the poem happening? • Where is the poem happening? • What is the poet’s attitude?• What is the message of the poem?

3. Poetic devices: Tools of the poet (Form)Identify different poetic devices and how they convey the poem’s message.• Simile – comparison using like or as • Metaphor – a direct comparison • Personification – giving human qualities to nonhuman things • Tone – what emotion does the speaker use as he talks • Point of view – who is the telling the poem • Imagery – creating pictures with words • Alliteration – repeating the same letter• Line/Stanza – how does this exemplify the message or the meaning?

4. If you were to teach the poem, what are two questions you could ask about the poem?

Page 2: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

ALEX DIMITROV

LIKE A LETTER, I'M NEVER COMING BACK

No signs outside my window,nothing to read into autumn.

The wind with such velocity,it reminds me we’ve said too many things.

Most animals, most animals prefer silence.The distances at which we know each other  tell us little of how the dead know the earth.Do you think restraint is a feeling you can aim with

when it’s bloodless at the center?Do you think you have time?

I’m not sure what’s more important anymore,our American past or future. And today is a thread

I’ve had in my mouth for too long.Its color has dissolved on my tongue.

It no longer remembers the fabric it came from,it no longer wants to remember at all.

Page 3: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

CATE MARVIN

OCEAN IS A WORD IN THIS POEM

One centimeter on the map represents one kilometer on the ground.River I can cover with a finger, but it's not the water I resent. Ocean—even the word thinks itself huge, and only because of what it meant.I remember its lip on a road that ran along the coast of Portsmouth.Waves tested a concrete brim where people stood to see how farthe water went. Sky was huge, but I didn't mind why. The seawas too choppy and gray, a soup thick with salt and distance. Look,sails are white as wedding dresses, but their cut is much cleaner.No, I never planned to have a honeymoon by water, knew it'd temptme to leave your company, drop in. Ocean may allow boats to rideits surface, but its word cannot anchor the white slip of this paper.It cannot swallow the poem. Turbulence is on the wall. The map—I would tear it, forget how I learned land's edge exists. I would sinkinto the depth of past tense, more treacherous than the murk intowhich our vessel went. Now when I pull down the map, eat its imageand paper, I'll swallow what wedding meant. Salt crusts my lips. 

Page 4: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

GABRILLE CALVOCORESSI

SAVE ME JOE LOUIS

When I was small no one stopped the fights.A man could beat you till you died,the crowd leaning in, you on your knees,maybe somewhere someone says, No,

but it's like spoons dropping in kitchens:enough to make someone look up,not enough to get them moving.The ref's just glad it isn't him

trying to stand, shading his facelike he's coming out of the moviesinto winter sun, shock of the worldmade real again — brutal, to be sure,

but America is like that,unrelenting, you get what you ask forin the ring or on the kitchen floor.Someone always wants you to give up,

shake hands, wipe the blood away and talkof lighter things. And you dobecause you've been fighting long enoughto know there's no one here to save you.

Page 5: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

BRENDA SHAUGNESSY

ARTLESS

is my heart. A strangerberry there never was,tartless. Gone sour in the sun,in the sunroom or moonroof,roofless. No poetry. Plain. Nofresh, special recipeto bless. All I’ve ever madewith these handsand life, less substance, more rind.Mostly rim and trim,meatless but making much smokein the old smokehouse,no less. Fatted from the day,overripe and eventoxic at eve. Nonetheless, in the end, if you mustknow, if I must bend,waistless,

 to that excruciation.No marvel, no harvestleft me speechless, yet I find myselfsomehow with heart,aloneless. With heart,fighting fire with fire,

(stanza continued)

Page 6: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

fightless. That loud hub of us,meat stub of us, beating ussenseless. Spectacular in its way,its way of not seeing,congealing dayless but in everydayness.In that hopeful haunting(a lesser way of sayingin darkness) there issilencelessness for the pressing question.Heart, what art you?War, star, part? Or less: playing a part, staying apartfrom the one who loves,loveless.

Page 7: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

TRACY K. SMITH

SCI-FI

     There will be no edges, but curves. Clean lines pointing only forward.

History, with its hard spine & dog-eared Corners, will be replaced with nuance,

Just like the dinosaurs gave way To mounds and mounds of ice.

Women will still be women, but The distinction will be empty. Sex,

Having outlived every threat, will gratify Only the mind, which is where it will exist.

For kicks, we'll dance for ourselves Before mirrors studded with golden bulbs.

The oldest among us will recognize that glow— But the word sun will have been re-assigned

To a Standard Uranium-Neutralizing device Found in households and nursing homes.

And yes, we'll live to be much older, thanks To popular consensus. Weightless, unhinged,

Eons from even our own moon, we'll drift In the haze of space, which will be, once

And for all, scrutable and safe.

 

Page 8: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

MARK BIBBINS

AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE

Someone waits at my door. Because he is dead he has time but I have my secrets—

this is what separates us from the dead. See, I could order take-out or climb down

the fire escape, so it's not as though he is keeping me from anything I need.

While this may sound like something I made up, it is not; I have forgotten how to

lie, despite all my capable teachers. Lies are, in this way, I think, like music and all is the same without them as with. The fluid sky retains regret, then bursts.

He is still there, standing in the hall, insisting he is someone I once knew and wanted, come laden with gifts he cannot return. If I open the door he'll flash and fade

like heat lightning behind a bank of clouds one summer night at the edge of the world. -

Page 9: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

ADA LIMÓN

THE FIRST

Down to the basics of the basics,deep star on the horizon, full blownvision in the mountains. These are the cavedrawings, the beginning of our preciouspieces of self worth, our arms holdingourselves, our arms made of paper,our paper arms holding our beatingorgans inside our paper selves.

Page 10: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

TINA CHANG

IMAGINE, REFUGEE

Dream blood, dream red, dream.The r and then the ea and the dm. Let the letters ride there, then subtract it.The roof of a shelter, the grandeurof smoke, a sun print on a rocket.

I have come to the border town. Take away the I and put it in a shelter dream,now fill it up with bullets, now dreambull. Now take the b out of it which isthe engine that makes it go.

There’s a baby in a basket. There’s a burningbasket lullabye. You know the words.The words are mixed with the soil whenthe soil is lifted with a shovel.

Place the soil on top of the wooden boxeswhose bodies dream oo’s and ah’s,of fireworks branching out in the skyon holiday, pots and pans clanging,children playing by dawn, a dreamnailed down to a box.

Page 11: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

MEGHAN O’ROURKE

MEDITATIONS ON A MOTH

How splendid yellow is.-Vincent van Gogh

 

My poor eye. It has doneso much looking--at the sky, at the dark-frettedtrumpets in the frescoes of the Chrysler Building,at the opium dens of High and Low,where bodies sway like white flowers--amount due, amount due.Is the blue the blue you think of when I tell you?Do ghosts have neuroses?What is the point of the haunting they do?Here--look. No, look.I am trying to rid myself of myself;to see past the tumbling clouds.All evening drums rumble in the corner park.The mobsters convene when the cops leave.What goes down stays down,the street at three A.M. a fantastic absence of color.Outside the studio windowa river slides along its dulcimer bed,aquifers and accordions and Alcatraz.But you have to get up in the morning.The brute blind glare of snow in sun.Look again, and up you may riseto something quite surprising in the distance.

Page 12: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

RANDALL MAN

THE MORTICIAN IN SAN FRANCISCO

This may sound queer, but in 1985 I held the delicate hands of Dan White: I prepared him for burial; by then, Harvey Milk was made monument—no, myth—by the years since he was shot. 

I remember when Harvey was shot: twenty, and I knew I was queer. Those were the years, Levi’s and leather jackets holding hands on Castro Street, cheering for Harvey Milk— elected on the same day as Dan White. 

I often wonder about Supervisor White, who fatally shot Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk, who was one of us, a Castro queer. May 21, 1979: a jury hands down the sentence, seven years— 

in truth, five years— for ex-cop, ex-fireman Dan White, for the blood on his hands; when he confessed that he had shot the mayor and the queer, a few men in blue cheered. And Harvey Milk? 

Why cry over spilled milk, some wondered, semi-privately, for years— it meant “one less queer.” The jurors turned to White. If just the mayor had been shot, Dan may have had trouble on his hands— 

but the twelve who held his life in their hands maybe didn’t mind the death of Harvey Milk; maybe, the second murder offered him a shot at serving only a few years. In the end, he committed suicide, this Dan White. And he was made presentable by a queer.

Page 13: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

MARY RUEFLE

SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION

Ann Galbraithloves Barry Soyers.

Please pray for Lucius Fennwho suffers greatly whilst shaking hands.

Bonny Poltonloves a pug named Cowl.

Please pray for Olina Korskwho holds the record for missing fingers.

Leon Bendrix loves Odelia Jonsonwho loves Kurt who loves Carlos who loves Paul.

Please pray for Cortland Filbywho handles a dead wasp, a conceit for his mother.

Harold loves looking at Londa's hair under the microscope.Londa loves plaiting the mane of her pony.

Please pray for Fancy Dancerwho is troubled by the vibrissa in his nostrils.

Nadine St. Clair loves Ogden Smythewho loves blowing his nose on postage stamps.

Please pray for William Shakespearewho does not know how much we love him, miss him and think of him.

Yukiko Pearl loves the little bits of toffeethat fall to the floor when Jeffrey is done with his snack.

Please pray for the florist Mariekowho wraps roses in a paper cone then punches the wrong code.

Muriel Frame loves retelling the incidentthat happened on the afternoon of November third.

Please pray for our teacher Ursula Twomblywho does not know the half of it.

By the radiator in a wooden chair

(stanza continued)

Page 14: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

wearing woolen stockings sits a little girlin a dunce's cap, a paper cone rolled to a pointand inverted on her hair; she's got her handsin her lap and her head bowed down, her chinis trembling with having been singled out like thisand she is sincere in her fervent wish to die.

Take it away and give it to the Tartarswho roll gloriously into battle.

Page 15: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

MICHAEL EARL CRAIG

THIS I BELIEVE

I don’t know how to behave but I know what I believe. I believe that if I stick my head in the oven I won’t take it out. I believe in corduroy couch cushions. I believe in digging a tunnel with a small silver spoon. I believe in tunneling with this spoon under the city and never giving up. I believe in after-breakfast naps and Russian roulette— Russian roulette while eating ice cream as I watch the evening news. I believe in the evening news. And I believe in celebrity.

I believe in those photos on the web of Putin playing doubles Ping-Pong, outdoors, in his Speedo. (Find those.) I believe in haircuts and bubble gum, and putting my face down into a pillow or cushion, and that when I do this I will see the future, plus other cultures, most of them, and I’ll get work done that couldn’t be done another way.

I believe in tacos and mortification. I believe that all people fall into one of two categories: Doonesbury or Far Side. Well, or Andy Capp. Andy Capp type people. They’re everywhere.

Page 16: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

CRYSTAL WILLIAMS

IN SEARCH OF AUNT JEMIMA

I have sailed the south rivers of China and prayed to hillside Buddhas.I’ve lived in Salamanca, Cuernavaca, Misawa, and Madrid, have stood upon the anointed sands of Egypt and found my soul in their grains.

I’ve read more fiction, non-fiction, biographies, poetry, magazines, essays, and bullshit than imaginable, possible, or even practical. I am beyond well read, am somewhat of a bibliophile. Still, I'm gawked at by white girls on subways who want to know why and how I'm reading T.S Eliot.

I’ve shopped Hong Kong and Bangkok out in heat so hot the trees were looking for shade—I was the hottest thing around. I'm followed in corner stores, grocery stores, any store.

I can issue you insults in German, Spanish, and a little Japanese.I’m still greeted by wannabe-hip white boys in half-assed ghettoese.I've been 250 pounds, 150 pounds and have lived and loved every pound in between. I am still restricted by Nell Carter images of me.

I've eaten rabbit in Rome, paella in Barcelona, couscous in Morocco, and am seated at the worst table by mentally challenged Maitre'ds who think my big ass is there for coffee.

I am still passed up by cabspassed over for jobsignored by politiciansguilty before innocentBlack before human.And I’m expected to know Snoop Dog's latest hit Mike's latest scandalI’m expected to believe in O.J.'s innocence.And I am still expected to walk white babies up and down 92nd streetas I nurse them, sing a hymn and dance a jig.

Sorry,not this sista, sista-girl, miss boo, miss it, miss thang, honey, honey-child, girl, girlfriend.

See, I am not your militant right-on sista wearing dashikis and 'fros with my fist in the air spouting Black Power while smoking weed, burning incense and making love to Shaka—formally known as Tyrone.

I am not your high-yellow saditty college girl flaunting Gucci bags and Armani suits

(stanza continued)

Page 17: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

driving an alabaster colored Beemer with tinted windows and A.K.A. symbols rimming my license plate.

I am not your three-babies-by-fifteen, green dragon lady press on nails whose rambunctious ass is stuffed into too tight lycra with a lollipop hanging out the side of my mouf and a piece of hair caught in a rubber band stuck to the top of my head.

I am not your timberland, tommy hilfiger, 10K hollow-hoop wearin gangsta rappincrack dealinblunt smokinbandanna wearin Bitch named Poochie.I am not your conscious clearer.I am not your convenient Black friend.Notyourprototypenotyoursellout ‘causemassa and the big house is too good.

I am not your Aunt Jemima.In my (8957) days of Black womanhood I’ve learned this: Be careful of what you sayof what you think of what you dobecause you never know who you're talking to.

Page 18: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

ROBERT BLY

THE NIGHT ABRAHAM CALLED TO THE STARS

Do you remember the night Abraham first sawThe stars? He cried to Saturn: "You are my Lord!"How happy he was! When he saw the Dawn Star,

He cried, ""You are my Lord!" How destroyed he wasWhen he watched them set. Friends, he is like us:We take as our Lord the stars that go down.

We are faithful companions to the unfaithful stars.We are diggers, like badgers; we love to feelThe dirt flying out from behind our back claws.

And no one can convince us that mud is not Beautiful. It is our badger soul that thinks so.We are ready to spend the rest of our life

Walking with muddy shoes in the wet fields.We resemble exiles in the kingdom of the serpent.We stand in the onion fields looking up at the night.

My heart is a calm potato by day, and a weepingAbandoned woman by night. Friend, tell me what to do,Since I am a man in love with the setting stars.

Page 19: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

KAYLIN HAUGHT

GOD SAYS YES TO ME

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramaticand she said yesI asked her if it was okay to be shortand she said it sure isI asked her if I could wear nail polishor not wear nail polishand she said honeyshe calls me that sometimesshe said you can do just exactlywhat you want toThanks God I saidAnd is it even okay if I don't paragraphmy lettersSweetcakes God saidwho knows where she picked that upwhat I'm telling you isYes Yes Yes

Page 20: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

SANDRA CISNEROS

MY WICKED WICKED WAYS

This is my father.See? He is young.He looks like Errol Flynn.He is wearing a hatthat tips over one eye,a suit that fits him good,and baggy pants.He is also wearingthose awful shoes,the two-toned onesmy mother hates. Here is my mother.She is not crying.She cannot look into the lensbecause the sun is bright.The woman,the one my father knows,is not here.She does not come till later.

My mother will get very mad.Her face will turn redand she will throw one shoe.My father will say nothing.After a while everyonewill forget it.Years and years will pass.My mother will stop mentioning it.

This is me she is carrying.I am a baby.She does not knowI will turn out bad.

MARY SZYBIST

Page 21: fala.yolasite.comfala.yolasite.com/resources/POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW…  · Web viewpoets you should know

CONVERSION FIGURE

I spent a long time falling toward your slender, tremulous face—

a long time slipping through stars as they shattered, through sticky clouds with no confetti in them.

I fell toward earth's stony colors until they brightened, until I could see the green and white stripes of party umbrellas

propped on your daisied lawn.From above, you looked small as an afterthought, something lightly brushed in. Beside you, blush-pink plates served up their pillowy cupcakes, and your rosy hems swirled round your dark head—

I fell and fell. I fell toward the pulse in your thighs, toward the cool flamingo of your slip fluttering past your knees—

Out of God's mouth I fell like a piece of ripe fruit toward your deepening shadow.

Girl on the lawn without sleeves, knees bare even of lotion, time now to strip away everything you try to think about yourself.

Put down your little dog. Stop licking the cake from your fingers.Before today, what darkness

did you let into your flesh? What stillness did you cast into the soil?

Lift up your head. Time to enter yourself. Time to make your own sorrow.

Time to unbrighten and discard even your slenderness.