Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Adolescence-III By Rita Dove

With Dad gone, Mom and I workedThe dusky rows of tomatoes. As they glowed orange in sunlightAnd rotted in shadow, I tooGrew orange and softer, swelling outStarched cotton slips.The texture of twilight made me think ofLengths of Dotted Swiss. In my roomI wrapped scarred knees in dressesThat once went to big-band dances; I baptized my earlobes with rosewater. Along the window-sill, the lipstick stubsGlittered in their steel shells.Looking out at the rows of clayAnd chicken maure, I dreamed how it would happen:He would meet me by the blue spruce, A canrnation over his heart,saying,"I have come for you, Madam;I have loved you in my dreams."At his touch, the scabs would fall away. Over his shoulder, I see my father coming toward us: He carries his tears in a bowl,And blood hangs in the pine-soaked air.

Rita Dove:She often gives public readings of her poems and intends them to be read aloud.

This poem is the third in a series of three poems about being young that she has written.The Language of Literature. McDougall Littel,

Harlem By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry uplike a raisen in the sun?Or fester kuje a sore-And then run?Does it sink like rotten meat?Ir crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?

Langston Hughes incorproated patterns of African-American music into his poetry. He was born in Missouri and began writing poems in the eighth grade.

Life for My Child is Simple By Gwendolyn Brooks

Life for my child is simple, and is good. He knows his wish. Yes, but that is not all.Because I know mine too.And we both want joy of undeep and unabiding things,Like kicking over a chair or throwing blocks out of a windowOr tipping over an ice box panOr snatching down curtains or fingering an electric outletOr a journey or a friend or an illegal kiss.No. There is more to it than that.It is that he has never been afraid.Rather, he reaches out and lo the chair falls with a beautiful crash,And the blocks fall, down on the people's heads,And the water comes slooshing sloppily out across the floor.And so forth.Not that success, for him, is sure, infallible.But never has he been afraid to reach.His lesions are legion.But reaching is his rule.Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the effects of racism and poverty.

The Language of Literature. McDougall Littel,

I, Too By Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother, They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh, And eat well,And grow strong.Tomorrow, I'll be at the tableWhen company comes.Nobody'll dareSay to me, "Eat in the kitchen,"Then.Besides, They'll see how beautiful I amAnd be ashamed-I, too, am

AmericaThe Language of Literature. McDougall Littel,

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.Whatever I see I swallow immediatelyJust as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.I am not cruel, only truthful-The eye of a little god, four-cornered.Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.It is pin, with speckles. I have looked at it so longI think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.Faces and darkness separate us over and over.Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is.Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.I am important to her. She comes and goes.Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.In me she was drowned a young girl, and in me an old womanRises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Sylvia Plath wrote openly and honestly about the reality of her life. Her poems read liek confessions that exposed their troubled lives.

The Language of Literature. McDougall Littel,

Lucinda Matlock by Edgar Lee Masters

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick.
I made the garden, and for the holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed-
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you-
It takes life to love Life.

Edgar Lee Masters was born in 1868 and died in 1950.
He moved a lot when he was young with his family.
He also worked with his father for a while in a Law business.

The Poems I wrote.

This Antholy is made up of peoms I found from several books. Some of them I found to be quite interesting and I liked what they had to tell about. Some of them were a lot shorter than others. Some of the poems I got from the English book. I liked this project because it was pretty easy for the most part. I liked hearing all the different kinds of poems by different writters with different writting styles.

Samantha by Samantha Mossbruger

Samantha
Lover of friends, family, and food.
Sister of Marissa.
Fearful of Bees and Lightning.
Likes music, and fun things.
Dislikes school, and mean people.
Mossbruger.

Ironing Their Clothes by Julia Alvarez

With a hot glide up, then downm, his shirts,
I ironed out my father's back, cramped
and worried with work. I stroked the yoke,
the breast pocket, collar and cuffs,
until the rumped heap relaxed into the shape
of my father's broad chest, the shoulders shrugged off
the world, the collasped arms spread for a hug.
And if there'd been a feace above teh buttondown neck,
I wold have pressed the forehead out, I would
have made a boy again out ofthat tired man!

If I clung to her skirt as she sorted the wash
or put out a line, my mother frowned,
a crease down each side of her mouth.
this is no time for love! But here
I could linger over her wrinked bedjacket,
with the hot tip. Here i caressed complications
of darts, scallops, ties pleats which made
her outfits test of the patience of my passion.
Here I could lay my dreaming iron on her lap...

The smell of baked cotton rose from the board
and blew with a breeze out of the window
to the family wardreope drying on the clothesline,
all needing a touch of my iron. Here I could tickle
the underamrs of my big sister's petticoat
or secretly pat the backside of her pajams.
For she too would have warned me not to muss
her fresh blouses, starched jumpers, amd smocks,
all that my careful hand had ironed out,
forced to express my excess love on cloth.


Julia Alvarez was born in 1950.
She arived to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1960 when she was 10 years old.
She claims she discoverd her talent from moving to the United States.

A Black Man Talks of Reaping by Arna Bontemps

I have sown beside all waters in my day.
I planted deep, within my heart the fear
That wind or fowl would take the grain away.
I planted safe against this stark, lean year.

I scatteed seed enough to plant the land
In rows from Canada to Mexico,
But for my reaping only what the hand
Can hold at once is all that I can sohw.

Yet what i sowed and what the orchard yields
My brother's sons are gathering stalk and root,
Small wonder then my children glean in fields
They have not sown, and feed on bitter fruit.

Arna Bontemps wrote novels and plays as well as poetry.
He was born in Alexandria, Louisiana, the son of a teacher and a brick man.
He attended Pacific Union College.

If We Must Die by Claude Mckay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs,
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying but fighting back!


Claude Mckay was born in Jamaica in 1889.
He was educated by his older brother who possessed a library of English novels.
He died in 1948.

My City by James Weldon Johnson

When I come down to sleep death's endless night,
The threshodl of the unknown dark to cross,
What to me then will be the keenest loss,
When this bright world blurs on my fading sight?
Will it be that no more I shall see the tress
Or smell the flowers or hear the singing birds
Or watch the flashing streams or patient herds?
No, I am sure it will be none of these.

But, ah! Manhattan's sights and sounds, her smells,
Her crowds, her throbbing force, the thriss that comes
From being of her a part, her subtle spells,
Her shining towers, her avenues, her slums-
O God! the stark, unutterable pity,
To be dead, and neveragain behold my city.

James Weldon Johnson was born in Florida, on June 17th, in 1871.
He was Named James William Johnson but he changed his middle name to Weldon in 1913.
He was also and educater and a song writter.

Where Go the Boats by Robert Louis Stevenson

Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating--
Where will all come home?

On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.

Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.


Robert Louis Stevenson was Scottish. He was born in November, 1850 and died in December, 1894.
He was known especially for his novels of adventure.

Jungle by Me

The leaves are green,
The air is damp,
It would be a nice place to camp,
In a jungle, under a tree.

Snowflake by William Baer

Timing's everything. The vapor rises
high in the sky, tossing to and fro,
then freezes, suddenly, and crystalizes
into a perfect flake of miraculous snow.
For countless miles, drifting east above the world, whirling about in a swirling free-
for-all, appearing aimless, just like love,
but sensing, seeking out, its destiny.
Falling to where the two young skaters stand,
hand in hand, then flips and dips and whips
itself about to ever-so-gently land,
a miracle, across her unkissed lips:
as he blocks the wind raging from the south,
leaning forward to kiss her lovely mouth.


William Baer one the T.S. Elliot Prize for Poetry.
He got a Ph. D. in English from the University of South Carolina.
He currently teaches creative writing, cinema, and world cultures at the Univeristy of Evansville.

Please Mrs Butler by Allan Ahlberg

Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps copying my work, Miss.
What shall I do?

Go and sit in the hall, dear.
Go and sit in the sink.
Take your books on the roof, my Lamb.
Do whatever you think.

Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps taking my rubber, Miss.
What shall I do?

Keep it in your hand, dear.
Hide it up your vest.
Swallow it if you like, my love.
Do what you think best.

Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps calling me rude names, Miss.
What shall I do?

Lock yourself in the cupboard, dear.
Run away to sea.
Do whatever you can, my flower.
But don't ask me!


Allan Ahlberg was born in 1938.
He's Brittain's best loved children's writter.
Allan Ahlberg is the auther of over 100 books.

Design by Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fatand white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
and dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

Telephone Poem by Nikki Giovanni

Cans and strings and backyard trees
giggles coming up through the wire
summer mud pies and lemonade stands
Hand Up No You Hang Up

Potatoes must be piled mile high
Then yhou add the leaves
Daddies always light the fires
Hang Up No You Hang Up

Marrage children Divorce Jobs
Ambitions eat our days away
Girl I miss our silly times
Hang Up No You Hang Up

Nikki Giovanni is the author of thirteen books of poetry.
She recied the Langston Hughes medal for Outstanding Poetry.
She is now a professor of Engish at Virginia Polytechnic.

About Robert Frost

Robert Frost was born in 1874 and died in 1963. He was a four-time Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, teacher and lecturer. He was born in California, his mother was a teacher and his father was a teacher and a journalist. Becuase of both of his parents being teachers, he was exposed at an early age to numous books and poems and had a head start on his education and poem writting skills.

Elevator Music by Henry Taylor

A tune with no more substance than the air,
perfomred a unedmater instruments,
is proper to this shortlift from the earth.
It hovers as we draw into ourselves.
and turn our reverent eyes toward the light.
that doesn't count us to our various destinies..
we're all in this together, the song says,
and later we'll descend. The melody
Is like a name we don't recall just now
that still keeps on insisting it is there.

Henry Taylor was thew winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
He has received the Wittner Bynner Prize for Poetry from the American Academy.
Taylor has also been elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
He currently teaches and directs at American University in Washington, DC. in the creative writting program.

The Road Not taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had taken trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way;
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leafe subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Dust of Snow by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saed some part
Of a day I had rued.

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what i've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for the destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
plums
that were in
the ice box

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

The Orange by Wendy Cope

At lunchtime i bought a huge orange-
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and DAve-
They got quarters and I had half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do.
Just lately. the shopping, a walk in the park,
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list.
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.


Wendy Cope was born in 1945.
She taught in primary schools in London.
She also writes a lot of childrens poems.