“Introduction to Poetry”
by Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light
switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the
shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
“Baseball Dreams”
by Charles Ghigna
Before the bayonet replaced the bat,
Jack Marsh played second base for Yale;
his spikes anchored into the August clay,
his eyes set deep against the setting sun.
The scouts all knew his numbers well,
had studied his sure hands that flew
like hungry gulls above the grass;
but Uncle Sam had scouted too,
Jackie Robinson U.S. Army (1942-1944)
had chosen first the team to play
the season's final game of '44,
had issued him another uniform
to wear into the face of winter moon
that shone upon a snowy plain
where players played a deadly game,
where strikes were thrown with each grenade
and high pitched echoes linger still,
beyond the burned out foreign fields
and boyhood dreams of bunts and steals,
young Jack Marsh is rounding third,
and sliding, sliding safely home.
SHORTSTOP
by Charles Ghigna
The slits of his eyes
hidden in shadows
beneath the bill of his cap,
he watches and waits
like a patient cat
Crack!
to catch what comes
and he pounces
his way.
upon the ball,
his hands flying
above the grass,
flinging his prey
on its way
across the diamond
into a double-play.
The Bat
Theodore Roethke
By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.
He likes the attic of an aging house.
His fingers make a hat about his head.
His pulse beat is so slow we think him
dead.
He loops in crazy figures half the night
Among the trees that face the corner
light.
But when he brushes up against a screen,
We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:
For something is amiss or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human
face.
“Football”
by Louis Jenkins
I take the snap from the center, fake to the right, fade back...
I've got protection. I've got a receiver open downfield...
What the hell is this? This isn't a football, it's a shoe, a man's
brown leather oxford. A cousin to a football maybe, the same
skin, but not the same, a thing made for the earth, not the air.
I realize that this is a world where anything is possible and I
understand, also, that one often has to make do with what one
has. I have eaten pancakes, for instance, with that clear corn
syrup on them because there was no maple syrup and they
weren't very good. Well, anyway, this is different. (My man
downfield is waving his arms.) One has certain responsibilities,
one has to make choices. This isn't right and I'm not going
to throw it.
The worlds’ oldest football was
confirmed to be from the period between
1540 and 1570, and found during the
mid- 1970s in a wall of a room used
Mary, Queen of Scotts. It is dated to be
at least 436 years old.
“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”
By Randall Jarrell
A ball turret was a small space, enclosed in plexiglass, on the underside of the
fuselage of certain WWII bombers, which held a small man and two machine
guns. When the bomber was attacked by a plane below, the gunner would fire his
guns from an upside-down, hunched-up position.
“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”
By Randall Jarrell
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
(Flak is anti-aircraft fire.)
“The Nature Poem”
by Richard Brautigan
The moon
is Hamlet
on a motorcycle
coming down
a dark road.
He is wearing
a black leather
jacket and
boots.
I have
nowhere
to go.
I will ride
all night.
These are the days when Birds come back
THESE are the days when Birds come back-A very few--a Bird or two-To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies resume
The old--old sophistries of June-A blue and gold mistake.
Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee-Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.
Till ranks of seeds their witness bear-And softly thro' the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.
Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze-Permit a child to join.
Thy sacred emblems to partake-Thy consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!
Emily Dickinson (1864) first published as October
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 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.
Preludes
I.
The winter's evening settles down
With smells of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves across your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On empty blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
-- T. S. Eliot
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him, -did you not?
His notice sudden is.
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.
He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,
By Emily
Dickinson
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun, When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.
Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.
Football
by Charles Ghigna
Sweat
Mud
Dirt
Blood
Snow
Rain
Fear
Pain
Win
Yell
Lose
Hell
Tackle
by Charles Ghigna
A grizzly bear in shoulder pads,
he growls at the line of scrimmage,
snarls into the face of the offense,
and glares into the eyes
of the opposing quarterback.
Hike!
And he explodes
over the line,
bursts through
the whirling blitz
of cracking helmets,
his legs churning forward
in a fury of motion
his arms flailing
through the backfield
for anything that moves.
Soccer
by Charles Ghigna
The long kick comes
and out of the pack
the midfielder rises,
his eyes on the ball,
his forehead set like a fist
ready to punch it home.
Hunting Boys
by Charles Ghigna
It happens every year
from autumn to spring—
a dozen or so are lost,
good ole boys, every one:
boys from Butler Country,
Bibb, Clarke,and Cullman,
boys from Bullock and Clay,
boys who stay up late
every November evening
rubbing oil and dreams
into the steel of old guns,
boys who leave warm homes
to walk cold woods, forever.
Ants Never Cry “Uncle”
by Charles Ghigna
Consider the little ant.
He never says, “I can’t.”
And so it comes as no surprise,
He carries things ten times his size.
Balloon Man
by Charles Ghigna
He sells his breath
in shiny rubber bags.
They call him concession-
aire.
The Firefly
by Charles Ghigna
The firefly is quite a sight
Upon the summer wind.
Instead of shining where he goes,
He lights up where he’s been.
Art
by Charles Ghigna
Art is undefinable,
A mystery of creation
Inspired by a pigment
Of your imagination
The Porcupine Poem
by Charles Ghigna
Porcupines can raise their quills, turn around,
and run backward into their prey.
Just when you think
you are done with it,
the poem turns on you,
charges back for more,
pricks you with its
finer points,
reminds you
things are not
what they seem,
that the past is not past
until it turns and shows
its sharp, uncompromising side.
What’s a Poem?
by Charles Ghigna
A whisper,
a shout,
thoughts turned
inside out.
A laugh,
a sigh,
an echo
passing by.
A rhythm,
a rhyme,
a moment
caught in time.
A moon,
a star,
a glimpse
of who you are.
The Red Wheelbarrow
By William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Confession of the Born-Again Purist
by Greg Keeler
Forgive me for I have been
in the company of worms
and have carried them in a can
and have touched them
with my fingers
and have made them to
part in small pieces
and have pierced those pieces
with the barbs of hooks.
And I have had impure thoughts
about the body of a fish
and have desired to make it
part of my body.
Thus I made a pierced piece
of worm to dangle before it
so that it ate hereof,
and I made it to
come unto my hand,
and I smote it
with a large sick
to make it still,
and I slit it with my knife,
and I plucked the entrails
from its belly,
and I made my thumb
to run up its spine,
and I rinsed it
that it might be free of blood,
and I made it to roll
in cornmeal and flour,
and I let it fall in hot grease,
and I held it unto my lips,
and I ate thereof.
Confidence
by J. Ruth Gendler
Confidence ignores “No Trespassing” signs. It is as
if he doesn’t see them. He is an explorer, committed
to following his own direction. He studied mathematics in France and still views his life as a series of
experiments. The only limits he respects are his
own. He is honest and humble and very funny. After
all these years, his sister doesn’t understand why he
still ice skates with Doubt.
Defeat
by J. Ruth Gendler
Defeat sits in his chair staring at the grey doves on
the porch. He holds his hand underneath his heart,
fingers curled tightly into themselves, glued together
in a paralyzed rage. He is unwilling to go forward
and unable to let go. He is not blind or deaf, but it is
unclear who he sees or what he hears. He had a
stroke six years ago and sleeps most of the day. In
response to questions he answers yes or no interchangeably. Speech has lost its meaning.
Mirror
by Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just 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 pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I 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 has drowned a young girl, and in me an old
woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Storm Windows
by Howard Nemerov
People are putting up storm windows now,
Or were, this morning, until the heavy rain
Drove them indoors. So, coming home at noon,
I saw storm windows lying on the ground,
Frame-full of rain; through the water and glass
I saw the crushed grass, how it seemed to stream
Away in lines like seaweed on the tide
Or blades of wheat leaning under the wind.
The ripple and splash of rain on the blurred glass
Seemed that it briefly said, as I walked by,
Something that I should have liked to say to you,
Something . . .the dry grass bent under the pane
Brimful of bouncing water . . . something of
A swaying clarity which blindly echoes
This lonely afternoon of memories
And missed desires, while the wintry rain
(Unspeakable the distance in the mind!)
Runs on the standing windows and away.
My Mistress’ Eyes
My Mistress' Eyes
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is 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 damask'd*, 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.
*damask'd -- patterned with red and white (damask is a patterned fabric)
1. Who wrote the poem? When? Why do you think so?
2. What are the things that the poet compares his "girlfriend"
to?
3. Is this a love poem? Why do you think so?
4. How many lines are there in this poem?
5. Number the lines, starting at 1. Now divide the poem into
sections. How many sections do you have? _____
6. Did you divide the poem by how it rhymes or by meaning?
7. Explain why you picked the divisions that you did.
This is an example of an Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet.
Read the poem carefully and try to decide what are the things
that make this poem a sonnet.
• A sonnet is aaa fourteen-line poem in
iambic pentameter. Iambic refers to the
name of the foot, which is composed of a
weaker syllable followed by an accented
syllable.
• The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three
quatrains (four-line stanzas), rhyming abab
cdcd efef, and a couplet (a two-line stanza),
rhyming gg.
My Mistress' Eyes
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is 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 damask'd*, 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.
*damask'd -- patterned with red and white (damask is a patterned fabric)
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G