Ambrose Bierce – The Dog and the Bees

A dog being very much annoyed by bees, ran quite accidentally into an empty barrel
lying on the ground, and looking out at the bung-hole, addressed his tormentors thus:
“Had you been temperate, stinging me only one at a time, you might have got a good deal
of fun out of me1. As it is, you have driven me into a secure retreat; for2 I can snap you up as fast
as you come in through the bung-hole. Learn from this the folly of intemperate zeal.”
When he had concluded, he awaited a reply. There wasn’t any reply; for the bees had
never gone near the bung-hole; they went in the same way as he did, and made it very warm for
him.
The lesson of this fable is that one cannot stick to his pure reason while quarreling with
bees.

William Carlos Williams – This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Robert Frost – Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

1 “a good deal of fun” - a lot of fun

2 “for” - because
Oscar Wilde – The Disciple
When Narcissus3 died the pool4 of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a
cup of salt tears, and the Oreads5 came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the
pool and give it comfort.
And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of
salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said, “We do not
wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.”
“But was Narcissus beautiful?” said the pool.
“Who should know that better than you?” answered the Oreads. “Us did he ever pass by 6,
but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of
your waters he would mirror his own beauty.”
And the pool answered, “But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and
looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.”

Emily Dickinson – If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching7,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson – The pedigree of honey

The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.

Henry David Thoreau – My life has been the poem I would have writ
My life has been the poem I would have writ
But I could not both live and utter it.

3 Make sure to look up the Greek myth of Narcissus in order to understand this short story.

4 “pool” - lake

5 In Greek mythology, the Oreads are mountain nymphs.

6 “Us did he ever pass by” - he only ever passed by us

7 “If I can ease one life the aching” - If I can ease the aching of one life
Frederic Brown – Answer
Dwan Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen
television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures
of what he was doing.
He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch
that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all
of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe – ninety-six
billion planets – into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one
cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.
Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment's
silence he said, "Now, Dwar Ev."
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six
billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.
Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. "The honor of asking the first question is
yours, Dwar Reyn."
"Thank you," said Dwar Reyn. "It shall be a question which no single cybernetics
machine has been able to answer."
He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?"
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single relay.
"Yes, now there is a God."
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.

Langston Hughes – Harlem8

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run9?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over10—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

8 Harlem is a neighborhood in New York predominantly inhabited by black people. At the time of the writing of
this poem, it was very poor.

9 “run” - drip

10 “sugar over” - when crystals of sugar form on top or on the bottom of a sweet.
The Appointment in Samarra (Iraqi fable) as retold by W. Somerset Maugham in 1933
The speaker is Death.
There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in
a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was
in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death
that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now, lend me your horse, and
I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there, Death will not
find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its
flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the
marketplace and he saw me11 standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you
make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a
threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad,
for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

Robert Frost – Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Emily Dickinson – Heart! We will forget him!

Heart! We will forget him!
You an12 I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell13 me
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest14 while you're lagging.
I may remember him!

11 “me” - Death

12 “an” - and

13 “pray tell” - please tell

14 “lest” - so that I don’t

George Saunders – Sticks
Every year Thanksgiving night we flocked out behind Dad as he dragged the Santa suit to
the road and draped it over a kind of crucifix he'd built out of metal pole in the yard. Super
Bowl15 week the pole was dressed in a jersey and Rod's16 helmet and Rod had to clear it with Dad
if he wanted to take the helmet off. On the Fourth of July17 the pole was Uncle Sam, on Veteran’s
Day a soldier, on Halloween a ghost. The pole was Dad's only concession to glee. We were
allowed a single Crayola18 from the box at a time. One Christmas Eve he shrieked at Kimmie 19
for wasting an apple slice. He hovered over us as we poured ketchup saying: good enough good
enough good enough. Birthday parties consisted of cupcakes, no ice cream. The first time I
brought a date over she said: what's with your dad and that pole? and I sat there blinking.
We left home, married, had children of our own, found the seeds of meanness blooming
also within us. Dad began dressing the pole with more complexity and less discernible logic. He
draped some kind of fur over it on Groundhog Day20 and lugged out a floodlight to ensure a
shadow. When an earthquake struck Chile he lay the pole on its side and spray painted a rift in
the earth. Mom died and he dressed the pole as Death and hung from the crossbar photos of
Mom as a baby. We'd stop by and find odd talismans from his youth arranged around the base:
army medals, theater tickets, old sweatshirts, tubes of Mom's makeup. One autumn he painted
the pole bright yellow. He covered it with cotton swabs that winter for warmth and provided
offspring by hammering in six crossed sticks around the yard. He ran lengths of string between
the pole and the sticks, and taped to the string letters of apology, admissions of error, pleas for
understanding, all written in a frantic hand on index cards. He painted a sign saying LOVE and
hung it from the pole and another that said FORGIVE? and then he died in the hall with the radio
on and we sold the house to a young couple who yanked out the pole and the sticks and left them
by the road on garbage day.
In the contributor's notes in "Story" magazine, George Saunders writes, "For two years
I'd been driving past a house like the one in the story, imagining the owner as a man more joyful
and self-possessed and less self-conscious than myself. Then one day I got sick of him and
invented his opposite, and there was the story."

15 Super Bowl is the biggest American football event in the USA.

16 Rod – short for Roderick.

17 Fourth of July – the American Independence Day.

18 Crayola – a brand of crayon.

19 Kimmie – short for Kimberly.

20 Groundhog Day – February 2nd, which more or less commemorates the end of Winter.
Jamaica Kincaid – Girl
Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color
clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk bare-head in the hot sun;
cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off;
when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn’t have gum 21 in it,
because that way it won’t hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it;
is it true that you sing benna 22 in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it
won’t turn someone else’s stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you
are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat 23
boys, not even to give directions; don’t eat fruits on the street—flies will follow you; but I don’t
sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is
how to make a buttonhole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when
you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you
are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a
crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease; this is how
you grow okra—far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing
dasheen24, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating
it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a
yard; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to
someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how
you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner
with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for
breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this
way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to
wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don’t squat down to play marbles—you are not
a boy, you know; don’t pick people’s flowers—you might catch something; don’t throw stones at
blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all 25; this is how to make a bread pudding; this
is how to make doukona26; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine
for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a
child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don’t like, and that way
something bad won’t fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is
how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t
feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to
move quick so that it doesn’t fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to
make sure it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after
all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?

21 “gum” - clothes starch

22 Antiguan genre of music derived from slavery days. Singing it would’ve been considered mildly scandalous.

23 “wharf-rat boys” - boys who worked at the docks.

24 “dasheen” - a type of cassava

25 In Antiguan culture, killing a blackbird is acceptable, but killing a mockingbird, which looks like a blackbird, is
considered immoral.

26 Doukona – a type of pudding made with starchy flour.

Neil Gaiman – Nicholas was
Nicholas Was...
older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.
The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in
their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually
working in the factories.
Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the
journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by
its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.
He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.
Ho.
Ho.
Ho.