Poetry on the Right-to-Life Issues
of Abortion, Infanticide, and Euthanasia:
Commentary from Scansion of the Poems
Jeff Koloze, Ph.D.
Clark State Community College
KolozeJ@clarkstate.edu
JeffKoloze@juno.com
937-328-3862
Metrical feet
iamb (iambic):
- /
(standard foot in English poetry)
trochee (trochaic):
/ -
(shows heaviness)
anapest (anapestic):
- - /
(used for light and happy verse)
dactyl (dactylic):
/ - -
(used for serious and heavy verse)
monosyllabic foot:
/
(used to stress words or syllables)
spondee (spondaic):
/ /
(used for emphatic stress)
pyrrhic foot:
- -
(speeds the reading of the line)
For infanticide, I could have selected
“The Cruel Mother” (anonymous Scottish ballad)
“Mary Hamilton” (18th century Scottish ballad; see
Symonds entry)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Runaway Slave
at Pilgrim’s Point” (1848)
Madison Julius Cawein's "The Infanticide" (1909)
-/ -/ -/ -/ -/
She took her babe, the child of shame and sin,
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And wrapped it warmly in her shawl and went
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From house to house for work. Propriety bent
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A look of wonder on her; raised a din
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Of Christian outrage. None would take her in.
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All that she had was gone; had long been spent.
/-- -/ - - -/ -/
Penniless and hungry by the road she leant,
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No friend to go to and no one of kin.
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The babe at last began to cry for food.
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Her breasts were dry; she had no milk to give.--/ // -/ // -/
She was so tired and cold.--What could she do?--/ /- -/ -/ -/
...The next day in a pool within a wood
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They found the babe. ... 'Twas hard enough to live,
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She found, for one; impossible for two.
Madison Julius Cawein's "The Infanticide" (1909)
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For euthanasia, I could have selected
Willis Gaylord Clark’s “Euthanasia” (1847)
Frances Cornford's “The Watch” (1923)
Linda Pastan's “Ethics” (1980)
David R. Slavitt's “Titanic” (1983)
Dudley Randall's "To The Mercy Killers" (1973)
-/ -/ -/ -/ -/
If ever mercy move you murder me,
// -/ -/ -/ -/
I pray you, kindly killers, let me live.
/- -/ -/ -/ -/
Never conspire with death to set me free,
-/ -/ // -/ -/
but let me know such life as pain can give.
/- /- /- / -/ -/
Even though I be a clot, an aching clench,
-/ -/ -/ -/ -/
a stub, a stump, a butt, a scab, a knob,
-/ -/ -/ -/ -/
a screaming pain, a putrefying stench,
// -/ -/ -/ -/
still let me live, so long as life shall throb.
/- /- // /- --/
Even though I turn such traitor to myself
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as beg to die, do not accomplice me.
/- /- // /-- //
Even though I seem not human, a mute shelf
-/ -/ -/ -/ - of glucose, bottled blood, machinery
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to swell the lungs and pump the heart--even so,
// // -/ /- //
do not put out my life. Let me still glow.
Dudley Randall's "To The Mercy Killers" (1973)
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/- /- /
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/- // /-/ // -/
/- // /--/ -/ -/
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For abortion, I could have selected
Gwendolyn Brooks’ “the mother” (1945)
Anne Sexton's “The Abortion” (1962)
Ai's “Abortion” (1999)
Jan Beatty's "An Abortion Attempt by My Mother" (1995)
/- /- /- -/ /Rolling side to side in my warm mother,
-/ - -/ /- /- //
the juices of life pulsing through my veined skin,
// -- // -/
wild juices of calves' tongues and loose
/- // -/ //
stretchy kid skin like young gray wrens.
// /- /- - - /- //
I drink unborn water in the Garfield back room
--/ /- /- /
in the dark while my mother cries.
-/ - - //
The prodding of wolves' teeth,
// -/ -- /eyes red and ailing, the shaking
-/ /- // -/ -of orange clay and cracked slate, the loosening,
-/ - - /- - /- - //
exposing the underground creatures to full sky,
-/ /- /- - // //
the greased worms are screaming, the dead moles stay dead.
/-- /This is the feeling.
Jan Beatty's "An Abortion Attempt by My Mother" (1995)
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Works Cited
Ai. "Abortion." Vice: New and Selected Poems. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. 4.
Beatty, Jan. "An Abortion Attempt by My Mother." Mad River. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1995. 29.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. "The Mother." Literature for Composition: Essays, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed. Eds.
Sylvan Barnet, Morton Berman, William Burto, William E. Cain, and Marcia Stubbs. New York: Longman,
2000. 430.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point." An Anthology of Interracial Literature:
Black-White Contacts in the Old World and the New. Ed. Werner Sollors. New York: New York UP, 2004.
280-7.
Cawein, M. J. [Madison Julius]. "The Infanticide." New Poems. London: Grant Richards, 1909. 210.
Clark, Willis Gaylord. "Euthanasia." The Poetical Writings of the Late Willis Gaylord Clark. 2nd
complete ed. New York: J. S. Redfield, 1847. 66-7.
Cornford, Frances. "The Watch." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Eds. X. J.
Kennedy, and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 811.
"The Cruel Mother." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Eds. X. J. Kennedy, and
Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 789-90.
Pastan, Linda. "Ethics." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Eds. X. J. Kennedy,
and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 1112-3.
Randall, Dudley. "To the Mercy Killers.“ After the Killing. Chicago: Third World P, 1973. 10.
Sexton, Anne. "The Abortion." All My Pretty Ones. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.
Slavitt, David R. "Titanic." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Eds. X. J. Kennedy,
and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 1132.
Symonds, Deborah A. Weep Not for Me: Women, Ballads, and Infanticide in Early Modern Scotland. University
Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1997.