POETRY UNIT ENGLISH 10 NAME:

Transcription

1 POETRY UNIT ENGLISH 10 NAME: 1

2 THIS BE THE VERSE Philip Larkin They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn 5 By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. 10 Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself

3 INFANT JOY William Blake I have no name I am but two days old. What shall I call thee? I happy am Joy is my name, 5 Sweet joy befall thee! Pretty joy! Sweet joy but two days old, Sweet joy I call thee; Thou dost smile. 10 I sing the while Sweet joy befall thee INFANT SORROW William Blake My mother groaned, my father wept, Into the dangerous world I leapt; Helpless, naked, piping loud, Like a fiend hid in a cloud. Struggling in my father's hands, 5 Striving against my swaddling bands, Bound and weary, I thought best To sulk upon my mother's breast

4 MORNING SONG Sylvia Plath Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry Took its place among the elements. Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. In a drafty museum, your nakedness 5 Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls. I'm no more your mother Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow Effacement at the wind's hand. All night your moth-breath 10 Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen: A far sea moves in my ear. One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral In my Victorian nightgown. Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square 15 Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try Your handful of notes; The clear vowels rise like balloons. 4

5 IN THE WAITING ROOM Elizabeth Bishop In Worcester, Massachusetts, I ent with Aunt Consuelo to keep her dentist's appointment and sat and waited for her in the dentist's waiting room. 5 It was winter. It got dark early. The waiting room was full of grown-up people, arctics and overcoats, lamps and magazines. 10 My aunt was inside what seemed like a long time and while I waited and read the National Geographic (I could read) and carefully 15 studied the photographs: the inside of a volcano, black, and full of ashes; then it was spilling over in rivulets of fire. 20 Osa and Martin Johnson dressed in riding breeches, laced boots, and pith helmets. A dead man slung on a pole "Long Pig," the caption said. 25 Babies with pointed heads wound round and round with string; black, naked women with necks wound round and round with wire like the necks of light bulbs. 30 Their breasts were horrifying. I read it right straight through. I was too shy to stop. And then I looked at the cover: the yellow margins, the date. 35 Suddenly, from inside, came an oh! of pain --Aunt Consuelo's voice-- not very loud or long. I wasn't at all surprised; 40 even then I knew she was a foolish, timid woman. I might have been embarrassed, but wasn't. What took me completely by surprise 45 was that it was me: my voice, in my mouth. Without thinking at all I was my foolish aunt, I--we--were falling, falling, 50 our eyes glued to the cover of the National Geographic, February,

6 I said to myself: three days 55 and you'll be seven years old. I was saying it to stop the sensation of falling off the round, turning world. into cold, blue-black space. 60 But I felt: you are an I, you are an Elizabeth, you are one of them. Why should you be one, too? I scarcely dared to look 65 to see what it was I was. I gave a sidelong glance --I couldn't look any higher-- at shadowy gray knees, trousers and skirts and boots 70 and different pairs of hands lying under the lamps. I knew that nothing stranger had ever happened, that nothing stranger could ever happen. 75 Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities boots, hands, the family voice I felt in my throat, or even 80 the National Geographic and those awful hanging breasts held us all together or made us all just one? How I didn't know any 85 word for it how "unlikely"... How had I come to be here, like them, and overhear a cry of pain that could have got loud and worse but hadn't? 90 The waiting room was bright and too hot. It was sliding beneath a big black wave, another, and another. Then I was back in it. 95 The War was on. Outside, in Worcester, Massachusetts, were night and slush and cold, and it was still the fifth of February,

7 ADOLESCENCE--I Rita Dove In water-heavy nights behind grandmother's porch We knelt in the tickling grasses and whispered: Linda's face hung before us, pale as a pecan, And it grew wise as she said: "A boy's lips are soft, 5 As soft as baby's skin." The air closed over her words. A firefly whirred near my ear, and in the distance I could hear streetlamps ping Into miniature suns 10 Against a feathery sky ADOLESCENCE II Rita Dove Although it is night, I sit in the bathroom, waiting. Sweat prickles behind my knees, the baby-breasts are alert. Venetian blinds slice up the moon; the tiles quiver in pale strips. Then they come, the three seal men with eyes as round As dinner plates and eyelashes like sharpened tines. 5 They bring the scent of licorice. One sits in the washbowl, One on the bathtub edge; one leans against the door. Can you feel it yet? they whisper. I don t know what to say, again. They chuckle, Patting their sleek bodies with their hands. 10 Well, maybe next time. And they rise, Glittering like pools of ink under moonlight, And vanish. I clutch at the ragged holes They leave behind, here at the edge of darkness. Night rests like a ball of fur on my tongue

8 Slam, Dunk, & Hook Yusef Komunyakaa Fast breaks. Lay ups. With Mercury's 1 Insignia on our sneakers, We outmaneuvered to footwork Of bad angels. Nothing but a hot Swish of strings like silk 5 Ten feet out. In the roundhouse Labyrinth our bodies Created, we could almost Last forever, poised in midair Like storybook sea monsters. 10 A high note hung there A long second. Off The rim. We'd corkscrew Up & dunk balls that exploded The skullcap of hope & good 15 Intention. Lanky, all hands & feet...sprung rhythm. We were metaphysical when girls Cheered on the sidelines. Tangled up in a falling, 20 Muscles were a bright motor Double-flashing to the metal hoop Nailed to our oak. When Sonny Boy's mama died He played nonstop all day, so hard 25 Our backboard splintered. Glistening with sweat, We rolled the ball off Our fingertips. Trouble Was there slapping a blackjack 30 Against an open palm. Dribble, drive to the inside, & glide like a sparrow hawk. Lay ups. Fast breaks. We had moves we didn't know 35 We had. Our bodies spun On swivels of bone & faith, Through a lyric slipknot Of joy, & we knew we were Beautiful & dangerous

9 MY MISTRESS EYES ARE NOTHING LIKE THE SUN (SONNET 130) WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare

10 TALKING IN BED Philip Larkin Talking in bed ought to be easiest, Lying together there goes back so far, An emblem of two people being honest. Yet more and more time passes silently. Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest Builds and disperses clouds in the sky, And dark towns heap up on the horizon. None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why At this unique distance from isolation It becomes still more difficult to find Words at once true and kind, Or not untrue and not unkind

11 THE SECRETARY CHANT MARGE PIERCY My hips are a desk, From my ears hang chains of paper clips. Rubber bands form my hair. My breasts are wells of mimeograph ink. 5 My feet bear casters. Buzz. Click. My head is a badly organized file. My head is a switchboard where crossed lines crackle. 10 Press my fingers and in my eyes appear credit and debit. Zing. Tinkle. My navel is a reject button. 15 From my mouth issue canceled reams. Swollen, heavy, rectangular I am about to be delivered of a baby Xerox machine. 20 File me under W because I wonce was a woman

12 DULCE ET DECORUM EST WILFRED OWEN Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 5 But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 10 But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under I green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 15 He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 20 If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, 25 The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori

13 ONE ART Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster, Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. 5 The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or 10 next-to-last, of three beloved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster

14 FROM CLEARANCES 3 Seamus Heaney In Memoriam M.K.H., When all the others were away at Mass I was all hers as we peeled potatoes. They broke the silence, let fall one by one Like solder weeping off the soldering iron: Cold comforts set between us, things to share 5 Gleaming in a bucket of clean water. And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes From each other's work would bring us to our senses. So while the parish priest at her bedside Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying 10 And some were responding and some crying I remembered her head bent towards my head, Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives-- Never closer the whole rest of our lives

15 I HEARD A FLY BUZZ Emily Dickinson I heard a Fly buzz when I died The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air Between the Heaves of Storm The Eyes around had wrung them dry 5 And Breaths were gathering firm For that last Onset when the King Be witnessed in the Room I willed my Keepsakes Signed away What portion of me be 10 Assignable and then it was There interposed a Fly With Blue uncertain stumbling Buzz Between the light and me And then the Windows failed and then 15 I could not see to see