Poems for ENG4U1
1. Using Critical and Literary Lenses(p. 1-2)
2. Renaissance Poems(p. 3-4)
3. Neo-classical Poems(p. 5-7)
4. Romantic Poetry(p. 8)
5. Victorian Poetry(p. 9-11)
6. Why Knowing the Canon is Important(p. 12-18)
7. Modern Poetry(p. 19-23)
8. Post-Modern Poetry(p. 24-28)
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel
bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as
I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth; 5
Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the
better claimBecause it was grassy and wanted wear,Though as for
that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,10
And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden
black.Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way
leads on to wayI doubted if I should ever come back.15
I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere 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. 20
Paper Matches
By Paulette Jiles
My aunts washed dishes while the unclessquirted each other on
the lawn withgarden hoses. Why are we in here,I said, and they are
out there?Thats the way it is,5said Aunt Hetty, the shriveled-up
one.I have the rages that small animals have,being small, being
animal.Written on me was a message,At Your Service,10like a book of
paper matches.One by one we were taken outand struck.We come
bearing supper,our heads on fire.15
SONNET CXVI
By William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love
is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the
remover to remove:O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 5That looks on
tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering
bark,Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.Love's not
Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's
compass come: 10Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But
bears it out even to the edge of doom.If this be error and upon me
proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
SONNET XVIII
By William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and
more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And
summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye
of heaven shines, 5And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;And
every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature's
changing course untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor
lose possession of that fair thou owest; 10Nor shall Death brag
thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou
growest:So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives
this and this gives life to thee.
NOTE:
Shakespearean/English Sonnet ABAB CDCD / EFEF GG, iambic
pentameter
Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet ABBA ABBA / CDD CDD or CDD ECE or CDD
CCD, mixed meter
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Christopher marlowe
Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures
prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields Woods or steepy
mountain yields
And we will sit upon the rocks, 5Seeing the shepherds feed their
flocks By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing
madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant
posies, 10A cap of flower, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves
of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we
pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold 15With buckles of the purest
gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my
love. 20
The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each
May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me
and be my love.
To a Mouse, on turning up her nest with a plow
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By robert burns
Tiny, sleek, cowering, fearful mouse, O, what a panic is in your
breast! You need not start away so hasty, With pattering noises! I
would be loath to run and chase you, With my murdering spade!
I'm truly sorry that my world, Has broken into your world, And
justifies your ill opinion of men, Which makes you startle At me,
you poor, earth-born companion, And fellow mortal!
I doubt not that at times you may steal; What then? poor little
animal, you must live! An occasional ear of corn out of twenty
-four sheaves Is a small request; I'll be blest with the rest of
the corn, And never miss the ear you took!
Your tiny house, too, in ruin! Its fragile walls the winds are
strewing! And nothing, now, to build a new one, Out of densely
growing grass! And bleak December's winds are following, Both harsh
and keen!
You saw the fields were bare and desolate, And weary winter
coming fast, And cozy here, beneath the wind, You thought to dwell
Till crash! the cruel plowshare passed Right through your cell.
That little heap of leaves and stubble, Has cost you many a
weary nibble! Now you are turned out, for all your trouble, Of
house and home, To endure the winter's sleety dribble, And
hoarfrost cold!
But, Mousie, you are not alone, In proving foresight may be
vain; The best-laid schemes of mice and men Go often astray, And
leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!
Still you are blest, compared with me The present only touches
you: But, Oh! I backward cast my eye. On prospects dreary! And
forward, though I cannot see, I guess and fear!
[Why should a foolish marriage vow]
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By john dryden
Why should a foolish marriage vow,
Which long ago was made,
Oblige us to each other now
When passion is decay'd?
We loved, and we loved, as long as we could, 5
Till our love was loved out in us both:
But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:
'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.
If I have pleasures for a friend,
And farther love in store, 10
What wrong has he whose joys did end,
And who could give no more?
'Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me,
Or that I should bar him of another:
For all we can gain is to give our selves pain, 15
When neither can hinder the other.
The Tyger
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By william blake
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What
immortal hand or eye,Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.5Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On
what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy
heart? 10And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? &
what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp, 15Dare its deadly terrors
clasp!
When the stars threw down their spearsAnd waterd heaven with
their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb
make thee? 20
Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What
immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Sick Rose
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By william blake
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the
night In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed 5Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
The World Is Too Much With Us
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By william Wordsworth
THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;5
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 10
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Ozymandias*
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Percy B. Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: "Two vast and
trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the
sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled
lip and sneer of cold command5Tell that its sculptor well those
passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless
things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.And on the
pedestal these words appear:`My name is Ozymandias, King of
Kings:10Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside
remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and
bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away".
*Greek name for RamesesII, 13th C. B.C.E. Pharaoh of Egypt.
A Daughter of Eve
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Christina Rossetti
A fool I was to sleep at noon,And wake when night is
chillyBeneath the comfortless cold moon;A fool to pluck my rose too
soon,A fool to snap my lily.5
My garden-plot I have not kept;Faded and all-forsaken,I weep as
I have never wept:Oh it was summer when I slept,It's winter now I
waken.10
Talk what you please of future springAnd sun-warm'd sweet
to-morrow:Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,No more to laugh, no
more to sing,I sit alone with sorrow. 15
My Last Duchess
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By robert browning
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fr Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said5
'Fr Pandolf' by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)10
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps15
Fr Pandolf chanced to say, 'Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much,' or 'Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:' such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough20
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast,25
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace -- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -- good! but thanked
Somehow -- I know not how -- as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill35
In speech -- (which I have not) -- to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark' -- and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set40
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
-- E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;45
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence50
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,55
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
[Im nobody!]
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Emily dickenson
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd advertise -- you know!
How dreary to be somebody!5
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
[The pedigree of honey]
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Emily dickenson
The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
My Ladys Presence Makes the Roses Red
BY HENRY CONSTABLE
My lady's presence makes the roses red,Because to see her lips
they blush for shame.The lily's leaves, for envy, pale became,And
her white hands in them this envy bred.The marigold the leaves
abroad doth spread,5Because the sun's and her power is the same.The
violet of purple colour came.Dyed in the blood she made my heart to
shed.In brief: all flowers from her their virtue take;From her
sweet breath their sweet smells do proceed;10The living heat which
her eyebeams doth makeWarmeth the ground and quickeneth the seed.
The rain, wherewith she watereth the flowers, Falls from mine eyes,
which she dissolves in showers.
SONNET XXX
By William Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far 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,5But no such roses see I in her
cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delightThan in the
breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet
well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound;10I 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 rareAs any she belied
with false compare.
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Rupert Brooke 18871915
Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights
Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.
Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!
Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,
Settled at Balham by the end of June. 5
Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,
And in Antofagastas. Still he went
Cityward daily; still she did abide
At home. And both were really quite content
With work and social pleasures. Then they died. 10
They left three children (besides George, who drank):
The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell,
William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,
And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.
Notes
5] Balham: district in Wandsworth, Greater London.
6] Can. Pacs. B. Debentures: securities or bonds in (possibly)
Canada Packers.
7] Antofagastas: Antofagasta is a city in Chile.
Two Fish
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By KATHA POLLITT
Those speckled trout we glimpsed in a pool last year
you'd take for an image of love: it too should be
graceful, elusive, tacit, moving surely
among half-lights of mingled dim and clear,
forced to no course, of no fixed residence, 5
its only end its own swift elegance.
What would you say
if you saw what I way the other day:
that pool heat-choked and fevered where sick blue
bubbled green scum and blistered water lily?10
A white like a rolled-back eye or fishs belly
I thought I saw far out but doubtless you
prefer to think our trout had left together
to seek a place with less inclement weather.
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Christopher marlowe
Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures
prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields Woods or steepy
mountain yields
And we will sit upon the rocks, 5Seeing the shepherds feed their
flocks By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing
madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant
posies, 10A cap of flower, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves
of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we
pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold 15With buckles of the purest
gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my
love. 20
The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each
May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me
and be my love.
The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Sir Walter Ralegh (1600)
If all the world and love were young, And truth in every
Shepherds tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move, To live
with thee, and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold, 5When Rivers rage and
Rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb, The rest complains of
cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields, To wayward winter
reckoning yields, 10A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancys
spring, but sorrows fall.
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle,
and thy posies Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten: 15In folly
ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds, The Coral clasps and amber
studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy
love. 20
But could youth last, and love still breed, Had joys no date,
nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move To live
with thee, and be thy love.
Ralegh Was Right
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By William Carlos Williams (1944)
We cannot go into the countryfor the country will bring us no
peaceWhat can the small violets tell usthat grow on furry stems in
the long grass amoung lance shaped leaves?5
Though you praise us and call to mind the poets who sung of our
lovelinessit was long ago!long ago! when country people 10would
plow and sow with flowering minds and pockets at ease if ever this
were true.
Not now. Love itself a flower with roots in a parched
ground.15Empty pockets make empty heads.Cure it if you can but do
not believe that we can live today in the countryfor the country
will bring us no peace20
Dover Beach
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By matthew arnold
The sea is calm tonight, The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone;
the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the
tranquil bay. 5Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the
moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles
which the waves draw back, and fling, 10At their return, up the
high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous
cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago 15Heard it on the Agean, and it brought Into
his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in
the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
20
The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's
shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only
hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25Retreating, to the
breath Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear And naked
shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which
seems 30To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so
beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on
a darkling plain 35Swept with confused alarms of struggle and
flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
The Dover Bitch
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By anthony hecht
A Criticism of Life: for Andrews Wanning
So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc.'5
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in a fairly good translation
And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,
But all the time he was talking she had in mind
The notion of what his whiskers would feel like10
On the back of her neck. She told me later on
That after a while she got to looking out
At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad,
Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds
And blandishments in French and the perfumes.15
And then she got really angry. To have been brought
All the way down from London, and then be addressed
As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort
Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.
Anyway, she watched him pace the room20
And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit,
And then she said one or two unprintable things.
But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,
She's really all right. I still see her once in a while
And she always treats me right. We have a drink`25
And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year
Before I see her again, but there she is,
Running to fat, but dependable as they come.
And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour.
Dulce et Decorum Est*
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Wilfred Owen (1917)
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing
like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we
turned out backs,And towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men
marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,5But limped on,
blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even
to the hootsOf gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumblingFitting the clumsy
helmets just in time,10But someone still was yelling out and
stumblingAnd 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 sight15He plunges at me,
guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could paceBehind the wagon
that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his
face,His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,20If you could
hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the
froth-corrupted lungsBitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on
innocent tongues,--My friend, you would not tell with such high
zest25To children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie:
Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.**
* It is sweet and proper
** It is sweet and proper to die for ones country. Line from an
ode to military duty by Horace, 1st Century A.D. Roman poet.
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner*
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
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.
5
* A ball turret was a plexi-glass ball suspended from the
underside of some fighter planes during World War II. A man,
generally a small one, would crawl into the turret and use a
machine gun to fire at enemy aircraft.
A Virginal*
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Ezra pound
No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.I will not spoil my
sheath with lesser brightness,For my surrounding air hath a new
lightness;Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitlyAnd
left me cloaked as with a gauze of aether;5As with sweet leaves; as
with subtle clearness.Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearnessTo
sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.No, no! Go from
me. I have still the flavour,Soft as spring wind that's come from
birchen bowers.10Green come the shoots, aye April in the
branches,As winter's wound with her sleight hand she staunches,Hath
of the trees a likeness of the savour:As white their bark, so white
this lady's hours.
* Piano-like instrument popular among woman during the
Renaissance.
One Perfect Rose
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By dorothy parker (1937)
A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.All tenderly his
messenger he chose;Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet
-One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;5'My fragile leaves,' it
said, 'his heart enclose.'Love long has taken for his amuletOne
perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yetOne perfect limousine, do you
suppose?10Ah no, it's always just my luck to getOne perfect
rose.
Sonrisas
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Pat mora (1986)
I live in a doorwaybetween two rooms. I hearquiet clicks, cups
of blackcoffee, click, click like factsbudgets, tenure,
curriculum,5from careful women in crisp beigesuits, quick beige
smilesthat seldom sneak into their eyes.I peekin the other room
seoras10in faded dresses stir sweetmilk coffee, laughter whirlswith
steam from fresh tamalessh, sh, mucho ruido,*they scold one
another,15press their lips, trap smilesin their dark, Mexican
eyes.
* lots of noise
Theme for English B
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Langston Hughes
The instructor said,
Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of
you--- Then, it will be true. 5
I wonder if it's that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in
Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham*, then here to
this college** on the hill above Harlem. I am the only colored
student in my class. 10The steps from the hill lead down into
Harlem through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas, Eighth Avenue,
Seventh, and I come to the Y, the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the
elevator up to my room, sit down, and write this page: 15
It's not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two,
my age. But I guess I'm what I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I
hear you: hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me---who? 20Well, I like to eat, sleep,
drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand
life. I like a pipe for a Christmas present, or records---Bessie,
bop, or Bach. I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like 25the
same things other folks like who are other races. So will my page
be colored that I write? Being me, it will not be white. But it
will be a part of you, instructor. 30You are white--- yet a part of
me, as I am a part of you. That's American. Sometimes perhaps you
don't want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of
you. 35But we are, that's true! As I learn from you,I guess you
learn from me--- although you're older---and white--- and somewhat
more free. 40
This is my page for English B.
* Cities in North Carolina **Columbia University
Erosion
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Linda Pastan
We are slowlyundermined. Grainby grain. . . .inch by inch. . .
.slippage.5It happens as we watch.The waves move their long rowof
scythes over the long beach.
It happens as we sleep,the way the clock's hands10move
continuouslyjust out of sight,but more like an hourglassthan a
clock,for here sand15is running out.
We wake to water.Implacably lovelyis this viewthough it will
swallowus whole, soon20there will benothing leftbut view.
We have tried a seawall.We have tried prayer.We have planted
grasses25on the bank, small tentacleshooks of green that catchon
nothing. For the winddoes its work, the waterdoes sure work.30
One day the sea will simply take us. The childrenpress their
faces to the glassas if the windows were portholes,and the house
fills35with animals: two dogs,a bird, catswe are becomingan ark
already.
The gulls will followour wake.40We are made of water anyway,I
can feel it in the yieldingof your flesh, though sometimesI think
that you are sand,moving slowly, slowly45from under me.
The Expensive Life
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By phillip whalen
Tying up my plastic shoesI realize I'm outside, this is the park
& I am freeFrom whatever pack of nonsense & old tape
loopsPlay with the Ayer's dogs, Barney & DaphneThey don't ask
me why I shave my head5"Cut the word lines," Burroughs
recommendsDaphne & Barney fatter than ever & only I am
dieting(Crease along the dotted lines)Loops of tacky thinking fall
unloosed. The sunGetting hotter than my flannel shirt
requires10What about THE BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN CHINA?Won't read it
now... too blind to see itAlmost too blind to write this, in my
room no flowersThe service station wants four bits for compresssed
airAt only 16 pounds per square inch15I can see the farthest
mountain.
Chanson dOutre Tombe
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By phillip whalen
They said we was nowhereActually we are beautifully embalmedin
PennsylvaniaThey said we wanted too much.Gave too little, a swift
hand-job5no vaseline.We were geniuses with all kindsembarrassing
limitationso if only we would realize our potentialo if only that
awful self-indulgence10& that shoddy politics of
irresponsibilityo if only we would grow up, shut up, die& so we
did & do & chant beyondthe cut-rate grave diggedby
indignant reviewers15o if we would only lay down & stayTHERE-In
California, PennsylvaniaWhere we keep leaking our nasty
radioactivewaste like old plutonium factoryWrecking your white
expensive world20
You Too? Me Too Why Not? Soda Pop
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By Robert hollander (1968)
I am
look
ing at
the Co
caCola
bottle
which is
green wi
th ridges
just like
c c c
o o o
l l l
u u u
m m m
n n n
s s s
and on itself it says
COCA-COLA
reg.u.s.pat.off.
exactly like an art pop
statue of that kind of
bottle but not so green
that the juice inside
gives other than the co
lor it has when I pour
it out in a clear glass
glass on this table top
(Its making me thirsty
all this winking and
beading of Hippocrene
please let me pause
drinking the fluid in)
ah! It is enticing how
each color is the same
brown in green bottle
brown in uplifted glass
making each utensil on
the table laid a brown
fork in a brown shade
making me long to watch
them harvesting the crop
which makes the deep-aged
rich brown wine of America
that is to say which makes
soda pop
[l(a]
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
BY e. e. cummings
l(aleaffalls)oneliness
Barbie Doll
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By MArge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usualand presented dolls that did
pee-peeand miniature GE stoves and ironsand wee lipsticks the color
of cherry candy.Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:5You
have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,possessed strong arms and
back,abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.She went to and fro
apologizing.10Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,exhorted to come on hearty,exercise,
diet, smile and wheedle.Her good nature wore out15like a fan
belt.So she cut off her nose and her legsand offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she laywith the undertaker's
cosmetics painted on,20a turned-up putty nose,dressed in a pink and
white nightie.Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.Consummation
at last.To every woman a happy ending. 25
Mirror
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
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.
5Most 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 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, 10Searching 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. 15Each 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.
Call Me
Sonnet Reversed
Sonnet Reversed
By frank ohara
The eager note on my door said "Call me,"call when you get in!"
so I quickly threwa few tangerines into my overnight
bag,straightened my eyelids and shoulders, and
headed straight for the door. It was autumn5by the time I got
around the corner, oh allunwilling to be either pertinent or
bemused, butthe leaves were brighter than grass on the
sidewalk!
Funny, I thought, that the lights are on this lateand the hall
door open; still up at this hour, a10champion jai-alai player like
himself? Oh fie!for shame! What a host, so zealous! And he was
there in the hall, flat on a sheet of blood thatran down the
stairs. I did appreciate it. There are fewhosts who so thoroughly
prepare to greet a guest15only casually invited, and that several
months ago. Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights
Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.
Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!
Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,
Settled at Balham by the end of June.
Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,
And in Antofagastas. Still he went
Cityward daily; still she did abide
At home. And both were really quite content
With work and social pleasures. Then they died.
They left three children (besides George, who drank):
The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell,
William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,
And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.
Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights
Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.
Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!
Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,
Settled at Balham by the end of June.
Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,
And in Antofagastas. Still he went
Cityward daily; still she did abide
At home. And both were really quite content
With work and social pleasures. Then they died.
They left three children (besides George, who drank):
The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell,
William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,
And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.
Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights
Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.
Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!
Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,
Settled at Balham by the end of June.
Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,
And in Antofagastas. Still he went
Cityward daily; still she did abide
At home. And both were really quite content
With work and social pleasures. Then they died.
They left three children (besides George, who drank):
The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell,
William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,
And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.