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Ben Smith Archaic
Ben Smith Archaic
Ben Smith Archaic
Being direct
Tradition
Kings/ Queens
MCMXIV (1964)
Phillip Larkin
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;
And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;
And the countryside not caring:
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheats restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;
Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.
2.
When I was growing up, my dad had a beautiful calligraphy
copy of the poem on his bedroom wall, given to him by his
father. Before we could read, he would read it to us, and once
we began reading he encouraged us to practice by reading it
aloud to him at night. The second stanza is the first part of
anything I ever memorized. Dad not only had us read from it,
but would ask us what we thought it meant. Its got such a
beautiful message of how to deal with life and those around
you, how to temper yourself but not lose your joy. When I was
a kid, my dad would change the last line for me and my sister
to and whats more, youll be a woman my daughter and that
just meant the world to me because yes, you can do all these
things that a century ago made you a man but you can own
them as a woman.
Cates Holderness
Date me if you:
Love life
Have overcome trials
Are Resilient
Like to dream
If
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
3.
Really incredible poem. For me, its a perfect metaphor for
feeling stuck in life, and learning how to push past that feeling.
Everyone, at some point in their life, has felt this sort of
sourceless sense of existential dread that comes along with
routine. This poem captures that feeling, and reminds the
reader to find joy and redemption in small moments.
Tanner Ringerud
Date me if you:
Like dogs
Like music
Like to look at the stars
4.
This Poetry Alive! group came to our middle school, and they
did this awesome reading of _________ by __________.
Wed read it in class but I didnt really understand it fully until I
heard it read out loud, and it was just so morbidly strange and
sad. It was the first time I took genuine interest in a poem Id
always thought they were dry and difficult to relate to before
that. I used it to audition for my first play in high school.
Keely Flaherty
Date me If you:
Love love
Like the ocean
Have lost someone you cared about
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love I and my Annabel Lee With a love that the wingd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre,
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we Of many far wiser than we And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea In her tomb by the sounding sea.
5.
Newly into my twenties, this poem was a perfect picture of
how even simple, fleeting love could be really powerful and
beautiful and worth remembering.
Rachel Zarrell
Date me if you:
I Remember
Anne Sexton
By the first of August
the invisible beetles began
to snore and the grass was
as tough as hemp and was
no colorno more than
the sand was a color and
we had worn our bare feet
bare since the twentieth
of June and there were times
we forgot to wind up your
alarm clock and some nights
we took our gin warm and neat
from old jelly glasses while
the sun blew out of sight
like a red picture hat and
one day I tied my hair back
with a ribbon and you said
that I looked almost like
a puritan lady and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine.
6.
The first time I read this poem I was still a young girl, trying to
figure out who I was and frankly what was happening to my
body. ________made me feel like who I was becoming a
woman was something very special, ancient, and wonderful.
I physically remember breathing out and sitting up just a little
bit taller because of her words.
Ashley Perez
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
Date me if you:
7.
This poem changed my life.It reminds us of the
extraordinarily short duration of life and the related denial we
must impose upon ourselves to avoid all-consuming despair.
Joe Bernstein
Date me if you:
Like blood
Like farming
Like reading about death
Out, Out
Robert Frost
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap
He must have given the hand. However it was,
8.
I love this poem by the Israeli writer _______, which spoke to
me immediately because I often dated people my parents
disapproved of and I like to blame them for all of my problems.
Deena Shanker
Date me if you:
Like engineering
Like airplanes
Are interested in the world of medicine
9.
10.
As an angry teenager, I felt ________ by ____________ even
more than I felt Smith songs.
Kate Aurthur
Date me if you:
Like a challenge!!
Like imagery
Like allusions
11.
I read it for the first time when I was a teenager and I was
amazed by how __________ managed to write so beautifully
about something so gross. The end always breaks my heart.
Marie Telling
Date me if you:
Like imagery
Like plot twists
Like gross, icky, nasty things
A Carcass
Baudelaire
My love, do you recall the object which we saw,
That fair, sweet, summer morn!
At a turn in the path a foul carcass
On a gravel strewn bed,
Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
Burning and dripping with poisons,
Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
Its belly, swollen with gases.
The sun shone down upon that putrescence,
As if to roast it to a turn,
And to give back a hundredfold to great Nature
The elements she had combined;
And the sky was watching that superb cadaver
Blossom like a flower.
So frightful was the stench that you believed
You'd faint away upon the grass.
The blow-flies were buzzing round that putrid belly,
From which came forth black battalions
Of maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid
All along those living tatters.
All this was descending and rising like a wave,
Or poured out with a crackling sound;
One would have said the body, swollen with a vague breath,
Lived by multiplication.
And this world gave forth singular music,
Like running water or the wind,
Or the grain that winnowers with a rhythmic motion
Shake in their winnowing baskets.
The forms disappeared and were no more than a dream,
A sketch that slowly falls
Upon the forgotten canvas, that the artist
Completes from memory alone.
Crouched behind the boulders, an anxious dog
Watched us with angry eye,
Waiting for the moment to take back from the carcass
The morsel he had left.
And yet you will be like this corruption,
Like this horrible infection,
Star of my eyes, sunlight of my being,
You, my angel and my passion!
Yes! thus will you be, queen of the Graces,
After the last sacraments,
When you go beneath grass and luxuriant flowers,
To molder among the bones of the dead.
Then, O my beauty! say to the worms who will
Devour you with kisses,
That I have kept the form and the divine essence
Of my decomposed love!
12.
When I was in the ninth grade, my English teacher made us
each memorize and recite a poem. She gave my friend and I
this poem and I hated it. I was irritated that it was seemingly
twice as long as the poems given to others and annoyed that it
was wasnt modern in the slightest (its about a sheep shearer
for Gods sake.) Needless to say, my negative attitude didnt
help the exercise and it took my friend and I quite a bit longer
than everyone else to memorize. Credit to my English teacher
she stuck with us and forced us (and the whole class at this
point) to recite what we could recall every morning. I hated her
for it. Time passed and we eventually pulled it off, albeit with a
dirty taste toward Banjo Paterson in our mouths. I left the
school at the end of that year. A few years ago, the very same
English teacher that forced Clancy of the Overflow onto me
died of breast cancer. I never knew she had it, or that she was
dealing with it whilst she taught. I cant think of the poem or
any of its themes without thinking of her and her persistence
with us. Even though she didnt really have a big role in my life,
she and the poem changed my life in so many ways.
Brad Esposito
Date me if you:
Like music
Have rhythm
Love Imagery
13.
Langston Hughes took arguably the darkest time in his life and
made it sound beautiful, all without romanticizing the act of
suicide itself. Just the thought of willfully surrendering your
body to the river and accepting the fate of water under your
heels is devastating. This was enough to make me think about
my future - fearfully growing old and gray - which leaves me
positively paralyzed. Thats why I love it.
Spencer Althouse
Date me if you:
Suicides Note
Langston Hughes
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
14.
I heard this poem at the end of a yoga class a couple of years
ago. I had just moved to New York, on a whim, after a failed
six-year relationship and dealing with a lot of sadness and
thought, now what? My uncle was also losing his battle to
cancer and my family and I were dealing with the inevitable.
This poem helped me through that time and still continues to
resonate in my life today. I hope it brings peace to some else
out there.
Chris Ritter
Date me if you:
Like peace
Embrace diversity
Enjoy the journey of life
15.
Its just so pretty and simple and inspiring. I also hate it when
people look down on poetry that rhymes, and I think this is a
perfect example of something that sounds gorgeous while also
meaning so much.
Julia Pugachevsky
Date me if you:
Have hope
Like simple things with a lot of meaning
Enjoy listening to birds
16.
This was carved into the stone on the library at my college. Still
the only poem I can recite by heart and just a wonderful
sentiment.
Daniel Dalton
Date me if you:
Like to share
Like flowers
Like to make something out of nothing
17.
My yoga instructor read this in class years ago: One day you
finally knew what you had to do, and began.
Kasia Galazka
Date me if you:
The Journey
Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-determined to save
the only life you could save.
18.
After I heard that poem and watched the short stopmotion, it changed my life forever. I knew at that moment
I wanted to make stop-motion and that I was hooked on
the horror genre.
Justin Dailey
Date me if you:
Like horror
Enjoy Tim Burton films
Like stop motion
Enjoy Edgar A. Poe
Vincent Malloy
Jack Skeleton
Vincent Malloy is seven years old
Hes always polite and does what hes told
For a boy his age, hes considerate and nice
But he wants to be just like Vincent Price
He doesnt mind living with his sister, dog and cats
Though hed rather share a home with spiders and bats
There he could reflect on the horrors hes invented
And wander dark hallways, alone and tormented
Vincent is nice when his aunt comes to see him
But imagines dipping her in wax for his wax museum
He likes to experiment on his dog Abercrombie
In the hopes of creating a horrible zombie
So he and his horrible zombie dog
Could go searching for victims in the London fog
His thoughts, though, arent only of ghoulish crimes
He likes to paint and read to pass some of the times
While other kids read books like Go, Jane, Go!
Vincents favorite author is Edgar Allen Poe
One night, while reading a gruesome tale
He read a passage that made him turn pale
Such horrible news he could not survive
For his beautiful wife had been buried alive!
He dug out her grave to make sure she was dead
Unaware that her grave was his mothers flower bed
His mother sent Vincent off to his room
He knew hed been banished to the tower of doom
Where he was sentenced to spend the rest of his life
Alone with the portrait of his beautiful wife
While alone and insane encased in his tomb
Vincents mother burst suddenly into the room
She said: If you want to, you can go out and play
Its sunny outside, and a beautiful day
Vincent tried to talk, but he just couldnt speak
The years of isolation had made him quite weak
So he took out some paper and scrawled with a pen:
I am possessed by this house, and can never leave it again
His mother said: Youre not possessed, and youre not almost dead
These games that you play are all in your head
Youre not Vincent Price, youre Vincent Malloy
Youre not tormented or insane, youre just a young boy
Youre seven years old and you are my son
I want you to get outside and have some real fun.
Her anger now spent, she walked out through the hall
And while Vincent backed slowly against the wall
The room started to swell, to shiver and creak
His horrid insanity had reached its peak
He saw Abercrombie, his zombie slave
And heard his wife call from beyond the grave
She spoke from her coffin and made ghoulish demands
While, through cracking walls, reached skeleton hands
Every horror in his life that had crept through his dreams
Swept his mad laughter to terrified screams!
To escape the madness, he reached for the door
19.
20.
I was never one for poetry, really. Even novels that are too
poetic tend to turn me off, but I really like ________s poetry. I
still dont know what to make of this poem, which I think is from
1895, but it always stuck with me. I had to recite it in high
school, and everyone laughed because they thought it was
funny.
Adam Ellis
Date me if you:
In the Desert
Stephen Crane
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter -- bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
Stephen Crane
21.
In JANE TAYLORS poem THE STAR, she utilizes PERSONIFICATION to achieve her
theme of NATURES POSITIVE EFFECT ON MAN.
I think now that Im older, I find a lot of symbolism in that
song/rhyme. Im a constant believer that there are greater,
unexplainable powers responsible for the things that we do,
and the things that are done to us, in life. _________speaks
volumes to that. Stars arent always visible, and even at
nighttime, when they are, people dont always take the time to
notice them. Its a lot like when good and bad things happen to
us in life. We dont always take the time to notice, but really
exciting or really detrimental situations show us that things
always happen for a reason: Just like the stars, you need to
take the time to notice them.
Allie Caren
The Star
Jane Taylor
Date me if you:
22.
Tonight at noon.
Tonight at noon
Supermarkets will advertise 3p extra on everything
Tonight at noon
Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home
Elephants will tell each other human jokes
America will declare peace on Russia
World War I generals will sell poppies on the street on
November 11th
The first daffodils of autumn will appear
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees
Tonight at noon
Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards
Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing
fields
A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool
Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton
And Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well
White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights
23.
Mid-Term Break
Seamus Heaney
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two oclock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying
He had always taken funerals in his stride
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were sorry for my trouble
Whispers informed strangers that I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
24.
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
mastery.
Date me if you:
odds.
25.
The poet and his sister came upon a large field of daffodils,
and he was inspired to write this class poem.
Date me if you:
10
NAME:__________________________
20
Based on the outside labels, choose a poem from the table that interests you. You will have 3
minutes to get to know your poem.
Next, for ONE poem of your choosing at each table, complete the first 4 columns of the chart
below. You will rate your dates AFTER you have visited all of the tables.
Table
#
Poem
#
Rate Your
Date
(circle one)
1.
:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __
1234567
2.
:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __
1234567
3.
:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __
1234567
4.
:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __
1234567
5.
:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __
1234567
6.
:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __
1234567
7.
:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __
1234567
Monday -- 11/2/15
Blind Dating with Poetry
Poetry Assignments
Overview/ Rationale of PBL
Receive Poetry is History Assignment
Wednesday -- 11/4/15
Poetry is History Essay Due TODAY
Peer Editing
Thursday -- 11/5/15
Receive Poetry is Assignment
Friday -- 11/6/15
Poetry is Assignment Due TODAY
Begin working on Illuminated text project
Name:_____________________________________________________
Congratulations! Youve been matched with a poem! Now, you are going to
do a background check on your new beau. Youll compile your findings in a
2 page essay that addresses the following questions:
What is the name of your
poem?
Who wrote your poem?
What are some noteworthy
facts about the poet?
How has their personal
experience influenced this particular poem?
When was your poem
written?
What was going on in the
world during this particular time period?
How does your poem reflect
what is occurring in the world during this time
period?
2. Poetry is Essay
Now that you know more about your partner, you will investigate/analyze
what makes you beau unique by looking at its literary devices! After you
complete a close reading of your poem, you will write a literary analysis
essay, in which you choose 3 literary devices featured in your poem and
analyze how the poets use of those devices aid them in conveying their
overall message.