Poetry
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Poetry Il Postino [The Postman] (Michael Radford, 1994) ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Poetry Watch Clip on YouTube. 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His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. Poetry How NOT to Read a Poem 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. ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Poetry Mrs. D. was an imperious, white-haired woman who not only gave extra credit for every symbol we could find in The House of the Seven Gables (the chickens in the back yard = repressed sexuality, etc.) but concocted a humiliating scheme in which 11-A students would tutor 11-Bers, including me, thereby allowing close acquaintances to be more than ordinarily supercilious and condescending to their about-to-become-former-friend. The highlight of the year, however, was our discussion of Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." The poem, we were told, and we had to regurgitate what we "learned" on a subsequent test, is about Santa Claus; indeed Kris Kringle is the speaker, taking a break "without a farm house near" to contemplate the work that yet lies ahead in delivering all those presents. (The "little horse" is, of course, really a reindeer; he thinks it odd to pause in an empty field because there is no house to deliver presents to; the speaker has "miles to go before [he] sleeps" because he has "promises to keep" to all those little boys and girls, etc.--you get the idea.) Though not yet literary, not yet even a reader, I smelled a rat. Such an approach seemed silly. ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery How NOT to Read a Poem Poetry How silly I realized only recently, while teaching introduction to literature at Middle Tennessee State University. In the required text, Michael Meyer's comprehensive Bedford Introduction to Literature, I was surprised to find an excerpt from Herbert R. Coursen, Jr.'s "The Ghost of Christmas Past: 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,'" an essay, originally published in College English in 1962, four years before I suffered through Mrs. D's class. A parody of poetic interpretation, a "how not to do it" guide, Coursen's essay had evidently been misread by Mrs. D. with all the literalism of the British audience of Swift's "Modest Proposal." She didn't get the joke, and she passed on her lack of discernment to us. All over Western Pennsylvania there are probably hundreds of people now in their fifties who think the poem is about Santa Claus. How NOT to Read a Poem Poetry College English (December 1962). ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery How NOT to Read a Poem 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, Billy Collins Introduction to Poetry from The Apple that Astonished Paris (Fayetteville, Ark: University of Arkansas Press, 1996). 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. How NOT to Read a Poem ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery My husband gives me an A for last night's supper, ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Linda Pastan Marks (1978) My husband gives me an A for last night's supper, an incomplete for my ironing, ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Linda Pastan Marks (1978) My husband gives me an A for last night's supper, an incomplete for my ironing, a B plus in bed. ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Linda Pastan Marks (1978) My husband gives me an A for last night's supper, an incomplete for my ironing, a B plus in bed. My son says I am average, an average mother, but if I put my mind to it I could improve. ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Linda Pastan Marks (1978) My husband gives me an A for last night's supper, an incomplete for my ironing, a B plus in bed. My son says I am average, an average mother, but if I put my mind to it I could improve. My daughter believes in Pass/Fail and tells me I pass. ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Linda Pastan Marks (1978) My husband gives me an A for last night's supper, an incomplete for my ironing, a B plus in bed. My son says I am average, an average mother, but if I put my mind to it I could improve. My daughter believes in Pass/Fail and tells me I pass. Wait 'til they learn I'm dropping out. ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Linda Pastan Marks (1978) Gestalt Shift ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Gestalt Shift ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Gestalt Shift Necker’s Cube ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Gestalt Shift ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Gestalt Shift ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Gestalt Shift ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery Gestalt Shift ENGL 2030—Summer 2013 | Lavery
