The Wrong Custard the Dragon

Since April is National Poetry Month, my students and I did a wide range of activities related to the topic of poetry.  I was running a little behind schedule, so I was disappoint to learn that my favorite Custard the Dragon book was checked out at the library.  They did have, however, another version entitled Custard the Dragon and the Wicked Knight.

I did like this poem/book, but not nearly as well as The Tale of Custard the Dragon.  Despite my stumbling through the oral reading of this book to my students, they sat captivated (but would be too cool to ever admit it).  For many, it was one of their favorite poems that we read together.

"V" is for Voigt

Other than Virgil, I could not think of a poet whose name began with "V." (Keep in mind I jot these barely coherent "ramblings" down before and/or during my morning coffee).  I came across a contemporary poet named Ellen Bryant Voigt.  I loved how . . . musically . . . she read her poem entitled "The Hive" (click Voigt to hear). 

I read more about her, learning she was first trained in music.  She was quoted on The Poetry Foundations website as saying the following:  “I primarily write by my ear. I write by sound first, and then I have to go back and . . . press on every word and figure out the structure of what is being said rather than how it’s being said, but there’s no question to me that sound is the generative force. . . . [Poetry] does its work through music which then allows for exploration of . . . complicated and therefore accurate feelings.”  How beautifully stated!  Her comments are exemplified in her reading her work "The Hive" (above link).

"T" is for Twain

I'm toying with the idea of doing a Mark Twain book read-aloud with my son this summer--The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  I'm not sure my son--who is quite sedentary and indoorsy (is that a word?)--will like the tale.  I digress.  Though he is known for his novels and essays, Twain did write some poetry.  One can start learning about Twain at the "official" web site--click HERE.  The photo below is from that site.

Warm Summer Sun
by Mark Twain

Warm summer sun,
   Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
   Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
   Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
   Good night, good night.

"Q" is for Queyras

I'm weak on poetry, so I've never even heard of this author--Sina Queyras (or any other poets beginning with "Q" on my quick search).  I so need to read more.  Then again, who doesn't?!?!?

Nonetheless, below is a section from her work Eurphoria:

 2

Dear Time, you swallowed us whole, swallowed us lovely, sharp as bones

Crimping sadly under foot my benign, my flotsam and crabs thin as leaves

Your smoothing, your sinking in. Mornings or mooring, or wallowing

Jericho: tapioca air indolent. I am still there, supple and driftwood, you lovely,

You loved me, your memory dark and west, thoughts like tugboats stitching

The horizon, you pulling me, my pudding, my thin crustacean, sideways

In the late afternoon, your gaze, having so soon forgotten the sharpness

Of mornings, the bite of your look serrating the hour: my treasures, all

Of them, for the pleasure of that slice once more, of our dangling,

You and me, the lot of us in some car, driving some hour, mapless.

"P" Is for Pound

Ezra Pound is one of those literary persons I need to read more.  His connections with T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, James Joyce, and William Carlos Williams alone make him a fascinating person.  Click HERE for his biography.  More later.

To Whistler, American

BY EZRA POUND

On the loan exhibit of his paintings at the Tate Gallery.

You also, our first great,

Had tried all ways;

Tested and pried and worked in many fashions,

And this much gives me heart to play the game.

Here is a part that's slight, and part gone wrong,

And much of little moment, and some few

Perfect as Dürer!

"In the Studio" and these two portraits,* if I had my choice I

And then these sketches in the mood of Greece?

You had your searches, your uncertainties,

And this is good to know—for us, I mean,

Who bear the brunt of our America

And try to wrench her impulse into art.

You were not always sure, not always set

To hiding night or tuning "symphonies";

Had not one style from birth, but tried and pried

And stretched and tampered with the media.

You and Abe Lincoln from that mass of dolts

Show us there's chance at least of winning through.

* "Brown and Gold—de Race."

   "Grenat et Or—Le Pettt Cardinal."

Source: Poetry (October 1912).

"N" is for Neruda

I chose this poet for the letter "N" because there is a new children's book out about him. 

I am familiar with the name; however, I am not familiar with his work.  So I'm learning as I go.  (Nearly twenty years have passed since I graduated, and this year is my FIRST year actually working in my field--I've got some catch up to do which this blog is helping me to sort out).  He was a love poet, first and foremost.  Some of his career he focused more politically, but in the end he wrote poetry that spoke to more "common folk" like me.  Below is one example: 

A Dog Has Died

By Pablo Neruda  (1904–1973)

Translated By Alfred Yankauer

My dog has died.

I buried him in the garden

next to a rusted old machine.

Some day I'll join him right there,

but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,

his bad manners and his cold nose,

and I, the materialist, who never believed

in any promised heaven in the sky

for any human being,

I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.

Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom

where my dog waits for my arrival

waving his fan-like tail in friendship.

Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,

of having lost a companion

who was never servile.

His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine

withholding its authority,

was the friendship of a star, aloof,

with no more intimacy than was called for,

with no exaggerations:

he never climbed all over my clothes

filling me full of his hair or his mange,

he never rubbed up against my knee

like other dogs obsessed with sex.

No, my dog used to gaze at me,

paying me the attention I need,

the attention required

to make a vain person like me understand

that, being a dog, he was wasting time,

but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,

he'd keep on gazing at me

with a look that reserved for me alone

all his sweet and shaggy life,

always near me, never troubling me,

and asking nothing.

Ai, how many times have I envied his tail

as we walked together on the shores of the sea

in the lonely winter of Isla Negra

where the wintering birds filled the sky

and my hairy dog was jumping about

full of the voltage of the sea's movement:

my wandering dog, sniffing away

with his golden tail held high,

face to face with the ocean's spray.

Joyful, joyful, joyful,

as only dogs know how to be happy

with only the autonomy

of their shameless spirit.

There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,

and we don't now and never did lie to each other.

So now he's gone and I buried him,

and that's all there is to it.

Leap Year

Wednesday--words, particularly poetry.  Hum?!?!?!  These words instantly came to my mind--I memorized them in the mid-70's when I was little:

Thirty days hath September,

April, June and November.

All the rest have thirty-one,

Except for February alone,

Which has twenty-eight days clear

And twenty-nine in each leap year.



Thank you, Mother Goose, from whom I learned so much!

"M" is for McKay

I read some literature/poetry from the Harlem Renaissance period in school.  When thinking of a poet whose name ended in "M" and considering it is Black History Month, I was pleased when I stumbled across Claude McKay (1890-1948).  This Jamaican born author was shocked at the prevalent racism in America; a portion of his poetry centers on this racism theme.  For more information about McMay, click the following link of a website I visited:  Harlem Shadows. 

Harlem Shadows

by Claude McKay

I hear the halting footsteps of a lass

In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall

Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass

To bend and barter at desire's call.

Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet

Go prowling through the night from street to street!

Through the long night until the silver break

Of day the little gray feet know no rest;

Through the lone night until the last snow-flake

Has dropped from heaven upon the earth's white breast,

The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet

Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street.

Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way

Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace,

Has pushed the timid little feet of clay,

The sacred brown feet of my fallen race!

Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet

In Harlem wandering from street to street.

"L"evine--Current Poet Laureate

The current poet laureate of the United States is Philip Levine.  (New York Times article on the announcement:  Philip Levine--Poet Laureate ).


Love this!  Look into this:  His late poems are full of that tenderness and also of a Hardyesque humbleness in which, while still enthralled by poetry, he hesitates to make too great claims for it. A 1999 poem by Mr. Levine is called “He Would Never Use One Word Where None Would Do” and ends:

Fact is, silence is the perfect water:
unlike rain it falls from no clouds
to wash our minds, to ease our tired eyes,
to give heart to the thin blades of grass
fighting through the concrete for even air
dirtied by our endless stream of words.

"J" is for Rodney "J"ones

I just randomly chose this poet as I was scanning one of my favorite poetry websites.  The poet is Rodney Jones.  I'm not well-read on contemporary poets (though trying to become moreso).  Jones grew up on rural Alabama which is known for poverty and illiteracy--themes related are reflected in his works.  He stated in an interview, "Many of our neighbors were illiterate, but books were the alternative and, even among the illiterate, there was a vital oral tradition: stories, jokes, music, memorized scripture."

LIFE OF SUNDAYS

Down the street, someone must be praying, and though I don’t

Go there anymore, I want to at times, to hear the diction

And the tone, though the English pronoun for God is obsolete—

 

What goes on is devotion, which wouldn’t change if I heard:

The polished sermon, the upright’s arpeggios of vacant notes.

What else could unite widows, bankers, children, and ghosts?

 

And those faces are so good as they tilt their smiles upward

To the rostrum that represents law, and the minister who

Represents God beams like the white palm of the good hand

 

Of Christ raised behind the baptistry to signal the multitude,

Which I am not among, though I feel the abundance of calm

And know the beatitude so well I do not have to imagine it,

Or the polite old ones who gather after the service to chat,

Or the ritual linen of Sunday tables that are already set.

More than any other days, Sundays stand in unvarying rows

That beg attention: there is that studied verisimilitude

Of sanctuary, so even mud and bitten weeds look dressed up

For some eye in the distant past, some remote kingdom

Where the pastures are crossed by thoroughly symbolic rivers.

That is why the syntax of prayers is so often reversed,

Aimed toward the dead who clearly have not gone ahead

But returned to prior things, a vista of angels and sheep,

A desert where men in robes and sandals gather by a tree.

Hushed stores, all day that sense a bell is about to ring—

I recognized it, waking up, before I weighed the bulk of news

Or saw Saturday night’s cars parked randomly along the curb,

And though I had no prayer, I wanted to offer something

Or ask for something, perhaps out of habit, but as the past

Must always be honored unconsciously, formally, and persists

On this first and singular day, though I think of it as last.

 

Listen to this author read his own work at the following link:  Rodney Jones' Life on Sundays

"I" is for Ignatow

I just stumbled across this poem on the Poetry Foundation website--I've never heard of this poet, but he writes about . . . me . . . just a common person.  The few poems I read were brief, no nonsense, and to the point.  I like that in a writer.

I Close My Eyes

By David Ignatow (1914-1997) 

I close my eyes like a good little boy at night in bed,

as I was told to do by my mother when she lived,

and before bed I brush my teeth and slip on my pajamas,

as I was told, and look forward to tomorrow.

I do all things required of me to make me a citizen of sterling worth.

I keep a job and come home each evening for dinner. I arrive at the

same time on the same train to give my family a sense of order.

I obey traffic signals. I am cordial to strangers, I answer my

mail promptly. I keep a balanced checking account. Why can’t I

live forever?

Source: Against the Evidence: Selected Poems 1934-1994 (Wesleyan University Press, 1993)

Please click the following link for more Ignatow poetry and information:  David Ignatow .

"H" for Heaney

Casualty

By Seamus Heaney

 

               I

He would drink by himself

And raise a weathered thumb

Towards the high shelf,

Calling another rum

And blackcurrant, without

Having to raise his voice,

Or order a quick stout

By a lifting of the eyes

And a discreet dumb-show

Of pulling off the top;

At closing time would go

In waders and peaked cap

Into the showery dark,

A dole-kept breadwinner

But a natural for work.

I loved his whole manner,

Sure-footed but too sly,

His deadpan sidling tact,

His fisherman’s quick eye

And turned observant back.

Incomprehensible

To him, my other life.

Sometimes, on the high stool,

Too busy with his knife

At a tobacco plug

And not meeting my eye,

In the pause after a slug

He mentioned poetry.

We would be on our own

And, always politic

And shy of condescension,

I would manage by some trick

To switch the talk to eels

Or lore of the horse and cart

Or the Provisionals.

But my tentative art

His turned back watches too:

He was blown to bits

Out drinking in a curfew

Others obeyed, three nights

After they shot dead

The thirteen men in Derry.

PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,

BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday

Everyone held

His breath and trembled.

Theodor Geisel Saved My Children

Having had a young child attached to my hip for approximately a dozen years, one indispensible tool I'd REQUIRE all parents to have--books by Theodor Geisel . . . a.k.a. Dr. Seuss.  Who hasn't read dozens of his books?!?!?!  I used Ten Apples up on Top for a full week in preschool.  I've read and made the Green Eggs and Ham for my own kids and my students.  My children learned the alphabet through Dr. Seuss ABC book (Big A, little a, what begins with A? . . .).  Cat in the Hat is probably my favorite.  It's sequel, The Cat in the Hat Came Back.  There's One Fish Two Fish, Horton Hatches an Egg, Horton Hears a Who (I still have not seen the movie).  The Foot Book is another one of my favorites that I have memorized. 

I cannot guess how many times the recitation of a Seuss book helped distract my children.  If I wasn't at home, I had the books memorized and would chant them at the store, a restaraunt, the DMV, etc.  His words probably saved them from a number of bad consequences for fit throwing.  His words would instantly calm them down.

Interestingly, my junior high students were just talking about Dr. Seuss the other day in class.  Once a person mentioned one book, the flood gates opened.  Students were listing their favorites as well as reciting them.   

A quick link to a site about Dr. Seuss memorial:  Dr. Seuss

Frost's Fireflies in the Garden

American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) is another one of those poets that is a must in a poetry survey class.  Frost became a "professional" poet at the age of 20 when he was paid $15 for his poem My Butterfly.  He went on to become a very prolific poet.  One of his most famous poems is The Road Not Taken ( click for audio clip ).  Another popular poem and one of my favorites is Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. 

While reading some of his works, I discovered the following poem.  I was not familiar with it; however, the poem's title caught my eye since summer is waning.  What is a summer evening without fireflies?

Fireflies in the Garden

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,

And here on earth come emulating flies,

That though they never equal stars in size,

(And they were never really stars at heart)

Achieve at times a very star-like start.

Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

Wasteland

Thomas Sterns Eliot is perhaps the most influencial American/English poets.  No survey class in poetry would be complete without Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915) and The Wasteland (1922).  I wonder if Eliot could ever image the millions of dollars made off of the play based on his book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1930).  I did read this before I saw an off-Broadway production of CATS (Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1981). 

The following link is a recording of Eliot reading the first of five parts of Wasteland:  T.S. Eliot reads The Wasteland.  I've included the first stanza of the poem.

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering	5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,	10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,	15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

Paul Lawrence Dunbar

Living near Dayton, I would be remiss not to mention Paul Lawrence Dunbar as a poet beginning with the letter "D."  Dunbar, I learned, was the son of two ex-slaves, a classmate of Orville Wright, and a friend of Frederick Douglass.  He did receive attention for his writing while he was alive--though he died at the young age of thirty-three.

The Debt

By Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

This is the debt I pay

Just for one riotous day,

Years of regret and grief,

Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end —

Until the grave, my friend,

Gives me a true release —

Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,

Small was the debt I thought,

Poor was the loan at best —

God! but the interest!

 

The University of Dayton sponsors a website for futher study of Dunbar:  Paul Lawrence Dunbar .

 

 

Wife of Bath

Trying to think of a poet or poem about which to write, I brilliantly (sarcasm) decided to choose an author whose name started with a "C" since last week I chose an author with the last name beginning with a "B."  I could think of a few and then it hit me.  One of my favorites was Chaucer!  My high school English teacher LOVED Chaucer, and he passed some of this love on to me.  I even took a Chaucer course in grad school--though that teacher didn't quite foster the love my former teacher did. 

I used to think that every Englishman "way back then" was prim and proper--until I was introduced to Chaucer's bawdiness.  Love it!  My favorite character in the Canterbury Tales is the Wife of Bath.  Here's her prologue:

    But now, sire,—lat me se—what I shal seyn?
A ha! by God, I have my tale ageyn.
     Whan that my fourthe housbonde was on beere,
I weep algate, and made sory cheere,
As wyves mooten, for it is usage,
And with my coverchief covered my visage;
But for that I was purveyed of a make,
I wepte but smal, and that I undertake!
     To chirche was myn housbonde born a morwe
With neighebores, that for hym maden sorwe,
And Jankyn, oure clerk, was oon of tho.
As help me God, whan that I saugh hym go
After the beere, me thoughte he hadde a paire
Of legges and of feet so clene and faire
That al myn herte I gaf unto his hoold.
He was, I trowe, a twenty wynter oold,
And I was fourty, if I shal seye sooth;
But yet I hadde alwey a coltes tooth.
Gat-tothed I was, and that bicam me weel,
I hadde the prente of seïnte Venus seel.
As help me God, I was a lusty oon,
And faire and riche, and yong, and wel bigon,
And trewely, as myne housbondes tolde me,
I hadde the beste quonyam myghte be.
For certes, I am al Venerien
In feelynge, and myn herte is Marcien;
Venus me gaf my lust, my likerousnesse,
And Mars gaf me my sturdy hardynesse.
Myn áscendent was Taur, and Mars therinne;
Allas, allas! that evere love was synne!
I folwed ay myn inclinacioun
By vertu of my constellacioun,
That made me I koude noght withdrawe
My chambre of Venus from a good felawe.
Yet have I Martes mark upon my face,
And also in another, privee, place.
For God so wys be my savacioun,
I ne loved nevere by no discrecioun,
But evere folwede myn appetit,—
Al were he short, or long, or blak, or whit;
I took no kep, so that he liked me,
How poore he was, ne eek of what degree.

We Real Cool

A few weeks ago I was looking for some specific poetry (hoping to use in my job interview), and I came across one of my favorite poets--Gwendolyn Brooks.  I grew up in Illinois, so we learned about the former poet laureate from Chicago.  There were several poems that came to my mind when I thought about her.  "Bean Eaters" was one of the "standards" we knew.  "Lovers of the Poor" probably holds to top spot in my list of favorites. 

"We Real Cool" was another frequently taught poem.  I was lucky enough to find a site that plays many poems being read--this one by the author herself:  We Real Cool

THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.