1. From: Lilian
http://oldpoetry.com/poetry/2056
Alfred, Lord Tennyson English (1809-1892)
http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson
http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/tennyson.html
| 1.
From
Lilian Alfred,
Lord Tennyson 2. St. Clement's Day Song Anonymous 3. What's in My Journal William Stafford 4. There is another sky Emily Dickinson 5. Lover Release Agreement J. Allyn Rosser 6. By the Shores of Pago Pago Eve Merriam 7. When We Two Parted George Gordon, Lord Byron 8. "ABC" Robert Pinsky 9. A Boy in a Bed in the Dark Brad Sachs 10. Animal Sounds Off Pavement John Rybicki 11. Things Lisel Mueller | 12.
The Rider Naomi
Shihab Nye |
1.
From: Lilian
http://oldpoetry.com/poetry/2056
Alfred,
Lord Tennyson English (1809-1892)
http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson
http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/tennyson.html
Airy,
fairy Lilian,
Flitting, fairy Lilian,
When I ask her if she love me,
Claps
her tiny hands above me,
Laughing all she can;
She'll not tell me if she
love me,
Cruel little Lilian.
2.
St. Clement's Day Song
http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/wayland_smith.html
http://www.coventgarden.uk.com/stclem9.html
WA
11/27/2004:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2004/11/22/
Listen:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/play/audio.php?media=/2004/11/22_wa&start=00:00:26:31.0&end=00:00:31:31.0
Anonymous
Clementsing,
clementsing, apples and pears,
One for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him that
made us all!
Up with your stockings and down with your shoes,
If you haven't
got apples, money will do.
Put your hand in your pocket and fetch out your
keys,
Go down in the cellar and fetch out what you please,
An apple, a pear,
a plum or a cherry,
A bottle of wine to make us all merry.
The roads are
so dirty, our boots are so thin,
Our pockets are empty and got nothing in.
3.
What's in My Journal
WA 1/17/2005:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2005/01/17/
Listen:
http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/almanac/2005/01/17_wa?start=00:00:00:07.0&end=00:00:05:07.0
William
Stafford American (1914-1993)
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stafford/about.htm
Odd
things, like a button drawer. Mean
Things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But
marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards.
Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues
that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the
kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that
yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's
terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.
4.
There is another sky
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=3053&poem=130734
Emily
Dickinson American (1830-1886)
http://www.poemhunter.com/emily-dickinson/biography/poet-3053/
There
is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though
it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent
fields –
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here
is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I
hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!
5. Lover
Release Agreement
http://wiredforbooks.org/jallynrosser/lover_release_agreement.htm
J.
Allyn Rosser American
http://wiredforbooks.org/jallynrosser/
Listen:
http://wiredforbooks.org/jallynrosser/Lover_Release_Agreement.ram
Against
his lip, whose service has been tendered
lavishly to me, I hold no lien.
Here's
his heart, which finally has blundered
from my custody. Here's his spleen.
Hereafter
let your hair and eyes and breasts
be venue for his daydreams and his nights.
Here
are smart things I've said, and all the rest
you'll hear about. Here are all
our fights.
Now, whereas I waive rights to his kiss,
the bed you've shared
with him has rendered null
his privilege in mine. Know that, and this:
undying
love was paid to me in full.
No matter how your pleasures with him shine,
you'll
always be comparing them to mine.
6.
By the Shores of Pago Pago
WA 1/6/2005:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2005/01/03/
Listen:
http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/almanac/2005/01/03_wa?start=00:00:15:57.0&end=00:00:20:57.0
Eve
Merriam American (1916-1992)
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=160
Mama's
cooking pots of couscous,
Papa's in the pawpaw patch,
Bebe feeds the motmot
bird,
and I the aye-aye in its cage,
Deedee's drinking cups of cocoa,
while
he's painting dada-style,
Gigi's munching on a bonbon
(getting tartar on
her teeth),
Toto's
drumming on a tom-tom,
Fifi's kicking up a can-can,
Jojo's only feeling
so-so
and looking deader than a dodo,
Mimi's
dressing in a muumuu,
Nana's bouncing with her yo-yo,
stirring batter for
a baba,
Zaza doesn't make a murmur,
Kiki
hopes her juju beads
will help to ward off tsetse flies,
Lulu's looking
very chichi
in a tutu trimmed with froufrou:
does
all this mean our family's cuckoo?
7.
When We Two Parted
WA
1/22/2005:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2005/01/17/
Listen:
http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/almanac/2005/01/17_wa?start=00:00:26:31.0&end=00:00:31:31.0
George
Gordon, Lord Byron English (1788-1824)
http://www.online-literature.com/byron/
When
we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for
years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour
foretold
Sorrow to this.
The
dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow –
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I
hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They
name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me –
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well
–
Long, long I shall rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In
secret we met –
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should
I greet thee?
With silence and tears.
8. "ABC"
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/t_txtpinsky.html
Listen:
http://wiredforbooks.org/robertpinsky/abc.ram
Robert
Pinsky American (1940- )
http://wiredforbooks.org/robertpinsky/
Any
body can die, evidently. Few
Go happily, irradiating joy,
Knowledge,
love. Many
Need oblivion, painkillers,
Quickest respite.
Sweet
time unafflicted,
Various world:
X = your zenith.
9.
A Boy in a Bed in the Dark
WA: 1/18/2005:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2005/01/17/
Listen:
http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/almanac/2005/01/17_wa?start=00:00:05:23.0&end=00:00:10:23.0
Brad
Sachs American
http://www.bradsachs.com/bio.htm
Born with a cleft palate,
My two-year-old brother,
Recovering from yet
another surgery,
Toddled into our bedroom
Toppled a tower of blocks
That
I had patiently built
And in a five-year-old's fury
I grabbed a fallen block
And
winged it at him
Ripping open his carefully reconstructed lip.
The next
hours were gruesomely compressed
Ending with a boy in a bed in the dark
Mute
with fear
Staring out into the hallway with horror
As the pediatrician went
in and out of the bathroom
With one vast blood-soaked towel after another
Shaking
his head worriedly.
My brother's howls
And my parents' cooed comfort
Became
the soundtrack to this milky movie
That plays
In my darkest theatre,
The
one that I sidle past each night
With a shudder
And a throb in my fist
10. Animal Sounds Off Pavement
John Rybicki American
http://www.thevincentbrothersreview.org/rybicki.htm
Never
tame your words,
teach them to sit, clip
their chin hairs. Or cup your hands
beneath
their lolly tongues,
catch their drool. You must be a madman
held in cloth
skin,
ballerinas dancing in your mouth.
When the hounds wail
inside your
body no one
must hear them.
11.
Things
WA 2/8/2005:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2005/02/07/
Listen:
http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/almanac/2005/02/07_wa?start=00:00:05:23.0&end=00:00:10:23.0
Lisel
Mueller German (1924- )
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45442B7C000C0E03
What
happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock
a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never
suffer fatigue.
We
fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside
bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,
and
because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle
a long, slender neck.
Even
what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the
storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.
12.
The Rider
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/165.html
Naomi
Shihab Nye Palestinian-American (1952- )
http://www.barclayagency.com/nye.html
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/newsite/authors/NYEnaomishihab.htm
A
boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn't catch
up to him,
the
best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.
What
I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates
to bicycles.
A
victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while
you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never
felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.
13.
The Waning Moon
http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/680/
Percy
Bysshe Shelley English (1792-1827)
http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/
And
like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil,
Out
of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The
moon arose up in the murky east,
A white and shapeless mass.
14.
Nothing is Lost
WA 1/15/2005:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2005/01/10/
Listen:
http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/almanac/2005/01/10_wa?start=00:00:26:31.0&end=00:00:31:31.0
Noel
Coward English (1899-1973)
http://www.musicals101.com/noelbio.htm
http://www.britishdrama.org.uk/coward.html
Deep
in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of
all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows
and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each
sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed
to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications
of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats,
the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting
to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting
for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An
echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And
doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.
15.
96 Vandam
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/150.html
Gerald
Stern American (1925- )
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/231
I
am going to carry my bed into New York City tonight
complete with dangling
sheets and ripped blankets;
I am going to push it across three dark highways
or
coast along under 600,000 faint stars.
I want to have it with me so I don't
have to beg
for too much shelter from my weak and exhausted friends.
I want
to be as close as possible to my pillow
in case a dream or a fantasy should
pass by.
I want to fall asleep on my own fire escape
and wake up dazed and
hungry
to the sound of garbage grinding in the street below
and the smell
of coffee cooking in the window above.
16.
Selection from: Walden, p. 64
Henry David Thoreau American
(1817-1862)
http://www.transcendentalists.com/1thorea.html
I
went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only
the
essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and
not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish
to
live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation,
unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the
marrow
of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all
that was
not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner,
and
reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get
the
whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world;
or
if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account
of it
in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange
uncertainty about it,
whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat
hastily concluded
that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify
God and enjoy him forever."
17. Runaway
http://www.poetry.com/Publications/display.asp?ID=P2834038&BN=312&PN=1
Kenny
Schwanz American
I
saw the hubcap
by the side of the road
dull like life
round like the
world
It must
have spent a lifetime
coming and going
scrambling in circles
never getting
away
Then somehow
one day
at this busy crossroads
it beat the system
that gave it meaning
And
now it lies
by the side of the road
and perhaps it's happier
to rest
and rust
18.
For My Daughter in Reply to a Question
WA 2/11/05:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2005/02/07/
Listen:
http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/almanac/2005/02/07_wa?start=00:00:21:14.0&end=00:00:26:14.0
David
Ignatow American
http://www.webdelsol.com/ignatow/
We're
not going to die.
We'll find a way.
We'll breathe deeply
and eat carefully.
We'll
think always on life.
There'll be no fading for you or for me.
We'll be
the first
and we'll not laugh at ourselves ever
and your children will be
my grandchildren.
Nothing will have changed
except by addition.
There'll
never be another as you
and never another as I.
No one ever will confuse
you
nor confuse me with another.
We will not be forgotten and passed over
and
buried under the births and deaths to come.
19. The Wheel
http://www.csun.edu/~hceng029/yeats/yeatspoems/TheWheel
W.
B. Yeats Irish (1865-1939)
http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/
Through
winter-time we call on spring,
And through the spring on summer call,
And
when abounding hedges ring
Declare that winter's best of all;
And after
that there's nothing good
Because the spring-time has not come –
Nor
know that what disturbs our blood
Is but its longing for the tomb.
20. The Clod and the Pebble
http://www.online-literature.com/blake/614/
William
Blake English (1757-1827)
http://www.online-literature.com/blake/
"Love
seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another
gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble
of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love
seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's
loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."
21.
Mentor
For Robert Francis
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/163.html
Timothy
Murphy American (1951- )
http://www.versedaily.org/abouttimothymurphy.shtml
http://www.waywiser-press.com/murphy.html
Had
I known, only known
when I lived so near,
I'd have gone, gladly gone
foregoing
my fear
of the wholly grown
and the nearly great.
But I learned alone,
so
I learned too late.
WA
= Writer's Almanac
of Minnesota Public
Radio, hosted by Garrison
Keillor
Page numbers are for the Freshman English textbook,
Laura Stark Johnson.
Reading in the
Content Areas: Literature 2. 2003. Taipei: Crane. 96pp..
Click
on the Minnesota lady's slipper
(image
source) to hear the poem read by Karen
Chung in General
American;
Click on the double-manual harpsichord
(image
source) to hear the poem read by Colin Whiteley in Standard British
English (RP).