(no subject)
I assign the memorization and recital of a poem, by an canonical author, of at least fifty words.
The first step is for the student to find a poemand to submit the title for approval: I am unapologetically elitist in my exclusion of Dear-Abby doggerel and lyrics by rappers.
The next step is the reading. They read the text, and I listen, offering pronunciation guidance, and a discussion of, say, caesura, or how hard a stop a semi-colon should be, seeing as it is a division between two otherwise complete sentences.
The poems they bring.
Some I've read at eulogies. Some have informed my way of life.
I found myself affected to near-weeping as some read poems known to me, or brought to my attention the new.
One Art
--Elizabeth Bishop
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.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
This young man had no idea what he was reading. Yes, he understood the words, but what it actually meant, what it symbolized...
Buffalo Dusk
--Carl Sandburg
THE BUFFALOES are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone.
And some brought power, and words to burnish the day:
82. Song of the Open Road
--Walt Whitman
1
AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune - I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
The earth - that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;
I carry them, men and women-I carry them with me wherever I go;
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
The first step is for the student to find a poemand to submit the title for approval: I am unapologetically elitist in my exclusion of Dear-Abby doggerel and lyrics by rappers.
The next step is the reading. They read the text, and I listen, offering pronunciation guidance, and a discussion of, say, caesura, or how hard a stop a semi-colon should be, seeing as it is a division between two otherwise complete sentences.
The poems they bring.
Some I've read at eulogies. Some have informed my way of life.
I found myself affected to near-weeping as some read poems known to me, or brought to my attention the new.
One Art
--Elizabeth Bishop
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.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
This young man had no idea what he was reading. Yes, he understood the words, but what it actually meant, what it symbolized...
Buffalo Dusk
--Carl Sandburg
THE BUFFALOES are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone.
And some brought power, and words to burnish the day:
82. Song of the Open Road
--Walt Whitman
1
AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune - I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
The earth - that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;
I carry them, men and women-I carry them with me wherever I go;
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)