Poem: “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley

The Poet’s Occasional Alternative

Grace Paley

I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft a poem would have had some
distance to go days and weeks and
much crumpled paper

the pie already had a talking
tumbling audience among small
trucks and a fire engine on
the kitchen floor

everybody will like this pie
it will have apples and cranberries
dried apricots in it many friends
will say why in the world did you
make only one

this does not happen with poems

because of unreportable
sadnesses I decided to
settle this morning for a re-
sponsive eatership I do not
want to wait a week a year a
generation for the right
consumer to come along

Demarcations by Karl Elder (haikus on punctuation)

Here’s a series of poems I like to use in class before we talk about punctuation (an oft-ignored topic in essay writing). I give my students the haikus without their titles, and then ask them to figure out what punctuation mark each haiku is about. Then, I ask them to write a haiku about one of their favorite punctuation marks.  Then, we discuss punctuation in writing, and how the use of punctuation can impact meaning.

Demarcations
Karl Elder

The Hyphen
Had you a whole line
of them you’d have your own train.
Imagine the freight.

The Colon
Eyes of a dead man
lying on his side, looking
into a bright light.

The Comma
Ah, giant embryo
with tail, what say you—yin or
yang, you little shrimp.

The Semicolon
A Spanish peanut,
a cashew—which’s the best fit
for the appendix?

The Question Mark
Eerie character—
he whose lobe of an artist’s
left ear is severed.

The Exclamation Point
Dah-dit. A signal
in Morse code turned on end: N,
you must solve for it.

The Period
How we’ve come to draw
with such sheer economy
the perfect circle.

Posted by Kate, Blog Editor and Book Reviewer for PCTELA

Three Sorts of Serpents a sonnet by Michael Drayton

My students love this sonnet, and they can’t believe it was written so long ago.
——————————————-
Three Sorts of Serpents Do Resemble Thee
Michael Drayton (1563-1631)

Three sorts of serpents do resemble thee:
That dangerous eye-killing cockatrice,
The enchanting siren, which doth so entice,
The weeping crocodile—these vile pernicious three.

The basilisk his nature takes from thee,
Who for my life in secret wait dost lie,
And to my heart sendst poison from thine eye:
Thus do I feel the pain, the cause, yet cannot see.

Fair-maid no more, but Mer-maid be thy name,
Who with thy sweet alluring harmony
Hast played the thief, and stolen my heart from me,
And like a tyrant makst my grief thy game:

Thou crocodile, who when thou hast me slain,
Lamentst my death, with tears of thy disdain.

Today’s poem: “Business” by Naomi Shihab Nye

I used this poem in conjunction with The Kite Runner, but I could see it used for any text that touches on the topic of refugees.

Business
Naomi Shihab Nye

“Syrian refugees go about their business in a refugee camp in Mafraq, Jordan…”

Ropes on poles, jeans & shirts flapping in wind.
He sits on a giant bag of rice, head in hands.
Too much or too little, rips & bursts & furrows.
Something seared in a pan.
If you knew a mother, any mother, you would care
for mothers, yes? No.
What it is to be lonesome for stacked papers
on a desk, under glass globe,
brass vase with standing pencils,
new orders.
How quickly urgencies of doing disappear.
And where is the child from the next apartment,
whose crying kept him awake
these last terrible months?
Where do you file this unknowing?

Ode to a Drone by Amit Majmudar

Here’s a great poem for teaching Odes because it is just delicious to read aloud. I’ve also used it along with Margaret Atwood’s “A Drone Scans the Wreckage.”  Additionally, I’ve paired “Ode to a Drone” with The Kite Runner in the past.

 

Ode to a Drone

Amit Majmudar

Hell-raiser, razor-feathered

risers, windhover over

Peshawar,

 

power’s

joystick-blithe

thousand-mile scythe,

 

proxy executioner’s

proxy ax

pinged by a proxy server,

 

winged victory,

pilot cipher

unburdened by aught

 

but fuel and bombs,

fool of God, savage

idiot savant

 

sucking your benumbed

trigger-finger

gamer’s thumb

A Sonnet for Your Sunday: “To Failure” by Philip Larkin

A Sonnet that doubles as an Ode. I love to teach this poem to my students. They enjoy unpacking the metaphors and they also enjoy talking about the topic.

To Failure
Philip Larkin

You do not come dramatically, with dragons
That rear up with my life between their paws
And dash me butchered down beside the wagons,
The horses panicking; nor as a clause
Clearly set out to warn what can be lost,
What out-of-pocket charges must be borne
Expenses met; nor as a draughty ghost
That’s seen, some mornings, running down a lawn.

It is these sunless afternoons, I find
Install you at my elbow like a bore
The chestnut trees are caked with silence. I’m
Aware the days pass quicker than before,
Smell staler too. And once they fall behind
They look like ruin. You have been here some time.

 

Happy Poetry Month. Here’s “Invictus” to start your month.

Meeting as a PCTELA board this morning to discuss matters of business and the fall 2017 conference. I asked our board some favorite poems, and Julie Mihalic Dinaples replied that “Invictus” was her favorite.

Invictus
William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Emily Dickinson: A Light Exists in Spring

Emily Dickinson

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human naturefeels.

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.

 

Students: submit poems by March 15

The National Federation of State Poetry Societies will be closing their student contest in 3 days on March 15, but there’s still time to submit to this free contest.

From their website:

No entry fee required.  Open only to students in grades 9 through 12.
Sponsored by Kay Kinnaman Sims and Nancy Baass.

Subject: Any

Form: Any

32 line limit.

1st Prize: $50. 2nd Prize: $30. 3rd Prize: $20
For contest rules head here.

As we’ve posted about before, having a real, live audience can encourage students to produce their best work. And having a cash prize doesn’t hurt, either!

A Poem for March: Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

Dear March – Come in –
How glad I am –
I hoped for you before –
Put down your Hat –
You must have walked –
How out of Breath you are –
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest –
Did you leave Nature well –
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me –
I have so much to tell –

I got your Letter, and the Birds –
The Maples never knew that you were coming –
I declare – how Red their Faces grew –
But March, forgive me –
And all those Hills you left for me to Hue –
There was no Purple suitable –
You took it all with you –

Who knocks? That April –
Lock the Door –
I will not be pursued –
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied –
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame –

Photo taken at Emily Dickinson’s gravesite in July 2016.