LIT207 Final

And One for My Dame

Anne Sexton

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? — Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,— The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

Anthem for Doomed Youth - Wilfred Owen *it's a sonnet

Thrall

Carolyn Kizer

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

Dylan Thomas

One Art

Elizabeth Bishop

We Real Cool

Gwendolyn Brooks

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

In the Station of a Metro - Ezra Pound *Superpositioning *He is talking about the bright colors that he sees ...the people on the platform across *Compares it to flowers *Mortality of humans

Cross

Langston Hughes

Those Winter Sundays

Robert Hayden

Pike

Ted Hughes

LIKE a skein of loose silk blown against a wall She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anemia. And round about there is a rabble Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. They shall inherit the earth. In her is the end of breeding. Her boredom is exquisite and excessive. She would like some one to speak to her, 10 And is almost afraid that I will commit that indiscretion.

The Garden - Ezra Pound *Garden of Eden *Garden of Kensington (England) *Naturalism

A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

The Noiseless Patient Spider - Walter Williams *Compares spider to us - trying to get from place to place *Reference to "Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God" with dangling spider of firest of hell "ductile" - meaning it sticks from thing to thing

My Papa's Waltz

Theodore Roethke

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here. Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in. I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions. I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.

Tulips - Sylvia Plath *Suffering from nervous collapse *Tulips serve as something that remind her of passion *She feels nothing...because of her medication

Musée des Beaux Arts

W.H. Auden

The Noiseless Patient Spider

Walt Whitman

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer

Walt Whitman

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

Walt Whitman

next to of course god America i

e.e. Cummings

next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country 'tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beaut- iful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute? He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

"next to of course god America i" - e.e. cummings *about irony - it's not what he says that is true. It's about what he doesn't say

A born salesman, my father made all his dough by selling wool to Fieldcrest, Woolrich and Faribo. My husband, as blue-eyed as a picture book, sells wool: boxes of card waste, laps and rovings he can pull to the thread and say Leicester, Rambouillet, Merino, a half-blood, it's greasy and thick, yellow as old snow. And when you drive off, my darling, Yes, sir! Yes, sir! It's one for my dame, your sample cases branded with my father's name, your itinerary open, its tolls ticking and greedy, its highways built up like new loves, raw and speedy.

And One for My Dame - Anne Sexton *Refers to nursery rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep *declarations of a woman's action around the house Line 37 - he is cheating on her

Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt, And lived in a small house near a fashionable square Cared for by servants to the number of four. Now when she died there was silence in heaven And silence at her end of the street. The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet — He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before. The dogs were handsomely provided for, But shortly afterwards the parrot died too. The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece, And the footman sat upon the dining-table Holding the second housemaid on his knees — Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived.

Aunt Helen - T.S. Eliot *Narrator - Aunt Helen's nephew *Ironic *Has four servants *The People were were not left money killed the dogs and the parrot our of spite *Like "Portrait of a woman"

My old man's a white old man And my old mother's black. If ever I cursed my white old man I take my curses back. If ever I cursed my black old mother And wished she were in hell, I'm sorry for that evil wish And now I wish her well My old man died in a fine big house. My ma died in a shack. I wonder where I'm going to die, Being neither white nor black?

Cross - Langston Hughes *Father is white, mother is black *He's a cross - half and half *He is bearing his cross *"too good" for black community, "not good enough" for white community

But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you, A man in black with a Meinkampf look And a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do. So daddy, I'm finally through. The black telephone's off at the root, The voices just can't worm through. If I've killed one man, I've killed two—— The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now. There's a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

Daddy - Sylvia Plath *About the death of her father *As a child, she felt like it was her fault her father died *Transfers anger fr her father to Ted Hughes (ex husband) *Line 61 - nervous breakdown at work (woman in a man's world) *Compares ted to Hitler

Remember how we picked the daffodils? Nobody else remembers, but I remember. Your daughter came with her armfuls, eager and happy, Helping the harvest. She has forgotten. She cannot even remember you. And we sold them. It sounds like sacrilege, but we sold them. Were we so poor? Old Stoneman, the grocer, Boss-eyed, his blood-pressure purpling to beetroot (It was his last chance, He would die in the same great freeze as you) , He persuaded us. Every Spring He always bought them, sevenpence a dozen, 'A custom of the house'.

Daffodils - Ted Hughes *favorite flower of Romantic poets *naturalistic poem - contrasts with Wordsworth's poem about Love *reflection upon marriage to wife before she died *They would sell the flowers together *Wedding scissor - only work when they are together, and they work together and separate things

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-- A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite. What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?-- If design govern in a thing so small.

Design - Robert Frost *Sonnet (octave and sestet) *Octave about spider collecting food *white = purity *AKA Intelligent Design *Sometimes we assume things are bad even though they are just doing their job...aka spiders compared to witches in Macbeth even when they are just doing their job

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.

Do Not Go Gentle into that Night - Dylan Thomas *Villanelle (5 stanza, three lines and one stanza, four lines) *about not giving into death too easily

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 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 a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

Dulce Et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen *Mustard gas attack *Narrative *Drowning on his own saliva

In a Station of the Metro

Ezra Pound

Portrait d'une Femme

Ezra Pound

The Garden

Ezra Pound

The River-Merchant's Wife: a Letter

Ezra Pound

the rites for Cousin Vit

Gwendolyn Brooks

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours." Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: "Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Mending Wall - Robert Frost *Things that break down walls: Nature, Creatures, Humans *Every Spring the two farmers put up walls *Poem is actually about boundaries (Perimeter and Parameter)

Letters from a Father

Mona Van Duyn

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Musée de Beaux Arts - W.H. Auden *The old masters - the painters who would try to figure out a way to encapsulate what it means to be a human -Describing The Fall of Icarus by Brughel *Meant to show that life goes on

The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

My Papa's Waltz - Theodore Roethke *form follows function - written in four stanzas and rhythmically like a waltz *Father is drunk - known by smell of breath *Kid still thinks his dad is a hero, but mom is probably frowning because of abuse

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. The art of losing isn't hard to master.

One Art - Elizabeth Bishop *Villanelle *about losing her main squeeze

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Owen

Pike, three inches long, perfect Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold. Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin. They dance on the surface among the flies.

Pike - Ted Hughes *The poem will be about something evil *the fish are eating each other *evil is outlasting the good - the monastery mentioned in the poem is not there any longer...but the evil is

our mind and you are our Sargasso Sea, London has swept about you this score years And bright ships left you this or that in fee: Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things, Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price. Great minds have sought you — lacking someone else. You have been second always. Tragical? No. You preferred it to the usual thing:

Portrait d'une Femme - Ezra Pound *About young woman and her portrait *Doesn't always complement her *"Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea (your mind is the sea of garbage)

Design

Robert Frost

Mending Wall

Robert Frost

Daddy

Sylvia Plath

Tulips

Sylvia Plath

Who were the main contributors to "confessional poetry?"

Sylvia Plath and Ann Sexton

Aunt Helen

T.S. Eliot

The Love Song of J Alfred Prufock

T.S. Eliot

Daffodils

Ted Hughes

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?

The Love Song of J. Alefred Prufock - T.S. Eliot *WWI *Fog - talks about the fog in our brains *living is life in routine

At fourteen I married My Lord you. I never laughed, being bashful. Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back. At fifteen I stopped scowling, I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever. Why should I climb the look out? If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang, Please let me know beforehand, And I will come out to meet you As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

The River-Merchant's Wife: a Letter - Ezra Pound *description shows she is a young child *a wife's letter to her husband *married when she was 14 (line 7) *was resentful at first, but grows to love him *arranged marriages can be a good thing

Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack 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?

Those Winter Sundays - Robert Hayden *Free verse *About love unspoken and love shown *Father is tired from week, but still gets up early to polish shoes/warm house *Narrator is reflecting now, as a father, about the ways that children take their father's love for granted

The room is sparsely furnished: A chair, a table, and a father. He sits in the chair by the window. There are books on the table. The time is always just past lunch. You read aloud to him "La Belle Dame sans Merci," You feed him his medicine. You tell him you love him. You wait for his eyes to close at last So you may write this poem.

Thrall - Carolyn Kizer *Title suggest you have no control to what you are doing or seeing or thinking *About Carolun herself, but she is keeping distance as to not be too much *Has to do with revenge, because she waits for him to sleep before she kills him

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

We Real Cool - Gwendolyn Brooks *Heroic Couplets *Enjambment *she can be compared to Phyllis Wheatley *Internal rhymes "Banned because of "Jazz June" - suggests sexual woman/prostitute

When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer - Walt Whitman *Similar to "Science - A sonnet" by Poe *Anaphora *First Half is set up, Second Half is lecturing *Irony

All over bouquets of roses, O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies, But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, For you and the coffins all of you O death.)

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd - Walt Whitman *About death of Abraham Lincoln *"Sacred death: references Christ" *Roses and Lilies represent Jesus

Anthem for Doomed Youth

Wilfred Owen

Carried her unprotesting out the door. Kicked back the casket-stand. But it can't hold her, That stuff and satin aiming to enfold her, The lid's contrition nor the bolts before. Oh oh. Too much. Too much. Even now, surmise, She rises in the sunshine. There she goes, Back to the bars she knew and the repose In love-rooms and the things in people's eyes. Too vital and too squeaking. Must emerge. Even now she does the snake-hips with a hiss, Slops the bad wine across her shantung, talks Of pregnancy, guitars and bridgework, walks In parks or alleys, comes haply on the verge Of happiness, haply hysterics. Is.

the rites for Cousin Vit - Gwendolyn Brooks *Sonnet *Brooks is an African American woman *Uses proper English - wants to be accepted by all crowds *line 14 - "IS" represents the living spirit of Cousin Vit