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CLASSIC SLAM POEMS & EXCERPTS, 2013-‐2014
© 2013 Yellow Road Productions, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents Memorial by Francisco Alarcon.........................................................................................................................................7
Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes, Sonnet II by Francisco Alarcon..................................................................8
On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City (edited) by Sherman Alexie......................................................................9
What the Orphan Inherits by Sherman Alexie.................................................................................................................10
Men by Maya Angelou....................................................................................................................................................11
Touched by an Angel by Maya Angelou..........................................................................................................................12
The Lies Started (edited) by Jimmy Santiago Baca..........................................................................................................13
Work We Hate and Dreams We Love by Jimmy Santiago Baca......................................................................................14
The Ball Poem by John Berryman....................................................................................................................................15
Ellen West by Frank Bidart..............................................................................................................................................16
What to Say upon Being Asked to be Friends by Julian Talamantez Brolaski.................................................................17
Kitchenette Building by Gwendolyn Brooks.....................................................................................................................18
Alone with Everybody by Charles Bukowski....................................................................................................................19
From the Dream (Part I) by Lord Byron............................................................................................................................20
Since Feeling is First (VII) by E.E. Cummings....................................................................................................................21
I Measure Every Grief I Meet by Emily Dickinson............................................................................................................22
Go and Catch a Falling Star by John Donne......................................................................................................................23
DayStar by Rita Dove.......................................................................................................................................................24
The Paradox by Paul Laurence Dunbar............................................................................................................................25
I Know I’m Not Sufficiently Obscure by Ray Durem.........................................................................................................26
Crows in a Strong Wind by Cornelius Eady......................................................................................................................27
I’m a Fool to Love You by Cornelius Eady........................................................................................................................28
from In the Body of the World by Eve Ensler...................................................................................................................29
Eagle Plain by Robert Francis...........................................................................................................................................30
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost...............................................................................................................................31
Dark Sonnet by Neil Gaiman............................................................................................................................................32
On Children by Kahlil Gibran...........................................................................................................................................33
In the Silence by Nikki Giovanni......................................................................................................................................34
A Substitute for You by Nikki Giovanni............................................................................................................................35
Sexy Balaclava by Daphne Gottlieb..................................................................................................................................36
There is a Wonderful Game by Hafiz...............................................................................................................................38
Power by Corinne Hales...................................................................................................................................................39
Nothing to Waste by Suheir Hammad.............................................................................................................................40
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The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy............................................................................................................................41
Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden.......................................................................................................................42
Twice Shy by Seamus Heany............................................................................................................................................43
from The Odyssey by Homer...........................................................................................................................................44
Walk by Frank Horne.......................................................................................................................................................45
Theme for English B by Langston Hughes........................................................................................................................46
Question and Answer by Langston Hughes.....................................................................................................................47
The Woman at the Washington Zoo by Randall Jarrell...................................................................................................48
Ways of Talking by Ha Jin................................................................................................................................................49
5.7 by Sheema Kalbasi.....................................................................................................................................................50
Immortal by Sheema Kalbasi...........................................................................................................................................51
Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art by John Keats......................................................................................52
Women Want Fighters for Their Lovers by DH Lawrence................................................................................................53
But He Was Cool by Don L. Lee........................................................................................................................................54
Falling: The Code by Li-‐Young Lee...................................................................................................................................55
Persimmons by Li-‐Young Lee...........................................................................................................................................56
Talking to Grief by Denise Levertov.................................................................................................................................58
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln..................................................................................................................59
For Each of You by Audre Lorde.......................................................................................................................................60
Conversation by Louis MacNeice.....................................................................................................................................62
Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell by Marty McConnell....................................................................................................63
Guidebook to Nowhere by Jeffrey McDaniel...................................................................................................................64
The Harlem Dancer by Claude McKay.............................................................................................................................65
Recuerdo by Edna St. Vincent Millay...............................................................................................................................66
What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why by Edna St. Vincent Millay.........................................................67
When I Consider How My Light is Spent by John Milton.................................................................................................68
There is No Word for Goodbye by Mary Tall Mountain..................................................................................................69
I Must Tell You About My Novel by Ogden Nash.............................................................................................................70
A Dog Has Died by Pablo Neruda.....................................................................................................................................72
Don’t Go Far Off by Pablo Neruda...................................................................................................................................74
What Horror to Awake at Night by Lorine Niedecker......................................................................................................75
The Pact by Sharon Olds..................................................................................................................................................76
Topography by Sharon Olds.............................................................................................................................................77
Sunrise by Mary Oliver....................................................................................................................................................78
Be Still by Arthur Osborne...............................................................................................................................................79
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I Am Learning to Abandon the World by Linda Pastan...................................................................................................80
The Obligation to be Happy by Linda Pastan...................................................................................................................81
Axis by Octavio Paz..........................................................................................................................................................82
No More Clichés by Octavio Paz......................................................................................................................................83
The Happiest Day by Edgar Allan Poe..............................................................................................................................84
Old Mama Saturday by Marie Ponsot..............................................................................................................................85
Ancestors by Dudley Randall...........................................................................................................................................86
The Melting Pot by Dudley Randall.................................................................................................................................87
For the Record by Adrienne Rich.....................................................................................................................................88
Imaginary Career by Rainer Maria Rilke..........................................................................................................................89
Freshman Class Schedule by Jose Antonio Rodriguez......................................................................................................90
The Concrete River by Luis J. Rodriguez..........................................................................................................................91
The Geranium by Theodore Roethke...............................................................................................................................94
The Survivor by Theodore Roethke..................................................................................................................................95
Waiting for Icarus by Muriel Rukeyser.............................................................................................................................96
The Blind Men and The Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe.................................................................................................97
Black History by Gil Scott-‐Heron.....................................................................................................................................99
Pieces of a Man by Gil Scott-‐Heron...............................................................................................................................101
Mi Problema by Michelle Serros....................................................................................................................................102
The Abortion by Anne Sexton........................................................................................................................................103
Sonnet #18 by William Shakespeare.............................................................................................................................104
Love’s Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley....................................................................................................................105
One Inch Tall by Shel Silverstein....................................................................................................................................106
Whatif by Shel Silverstein..............................................................................................................................................107
Stone by Charles Simic...................................................................................................................................................108
Love Chat by Anna Deavere Smith.................................................................................................................................109
The Youngest Daughter by Cathy Song.........................................................................................................................110
Saturday at the Canal by Gary Soto...............................................................................................................................112
Fairy-‐Tale Logic by A.E. Stallings....................................................................................................................................113
Analysis of Baseball by May Swenson...........................................................................................................................114
Flounder by Natasha Trethewey...................................................................................................................................116
Lost by David Wagoner..................................................................................................................................................117
Dark August by Derek Walcott......................................................................................................................................118
A Song of Life by Ella Wheeler Wilcox...........................................................................................................................119
The World is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth.............................................................................................120
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Ode to the Midwest by Kevin Young.............................................................................................................................121
Loyal Housewife by Daisy Zamora.................................................................................................................................123
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Short Poems Casa Materna | Maternal Home by Francisco Alarcon..................................................................................................125
From the First Hard Cold Rain by Jimmy Santiago Baca................................................................................................126
Why and When and How by Jimmy Santiago Baca.......................................................................................................126
A Bee by Matsuo Basho.................................................................................................................................................126
The Dragonfly by Matsuo Basho....................................................................................................................................126
Even in Kyoto by Matsuo Basho....................................................................................................................................127
Love Rejected by Lucille Clifton.....................................................................................................................................127
Fate Slew Him, but He Did Not Drop by Emily Dickinson...............................................................................................127
Success is Counted Sweetest by Emily Dickinson..........................................................................................................128
Surgeons Must be Very Careful by Emily Dickinson......................................................................................................128
Lose this Day Loitering by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe..............................................................................................128
Every Moment by Hafiz.................................................................................................................................................129
The Great Secret by Hafiz..............................................................................................................................................129
To Mother by Frank Horne............................................................................................................................................130
Luck by Langston Hughes..............................................................................................................................................130
Blackwoman by Don. L. Lee...........................................................................................................................................131
My Brothers by Don L. Lee.............................................................................................................................................131
First Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay................................................................................................................................131
Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting by Kevin C. Powers...............................................................................132
Delta by Adrienne Rich...................................................................................................................................................132
The Drunkard’s Song by Rainer Maria Rilke..................................................................................................................133
from Meaning Enough for Peaches by Jose Antonio Rodriguez....................................................................................133
A Black Sky Hates the Moon by Rumi............................................................................................................................134
Today Like Every Other Day by Rumi.............................................................................................................................134
Haiku #4 by Jill Scott......................................................................................................................................................134
Give Her a Call by Gil Scott-‐Heron.................................................................................................................................135
Song of Myself (Part 25) by Walt Whitman...................................................................................................................135
Song of Myself (Part 28) by Walt Whitman...................................................................................................................136
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Memorial Francisco Alarcon
The Pacific Garden Mall as we know it, ceased to exist at 5:04 today. – Mardi Wormhoudt, Mayor of Santa Cruz, October 17, 1989
do towns suffer like people heart attacks do buildings get scared too and try to run do steel frames get twisted out of pain do windows break because they can’t cry do walls let themselves go just like that and lie on sidewalks waiting to be revived is this how old places give birth to new places?
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Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes, Sonnet II Francisco Alarcon abrazarte quisiera, viento mío, tu cuello de verano acariciar, y besar y besar tu tersa frente hasta evaporar todas las distancias las colinas, los viñedos, el mar, ligero los cargas sobre tu espalda como joven amanecer de gozo, capaz de convertir la noche en dia viento, ambiciono tu libertad, la altura de montaña de tus ojos esa lumbre que atiza calles, lechos viento, ¿no ves mis manos llamaradas? ¿no sientes el calor de mis entrañas? yo también, en las venas, llevo fuego
I want to embrace you, dear wind, stroke your summer neck, and kiss and kiss your smooth face till all distances disappear the hills, vineyards, the sea are borne lightly on your shoulders, like dawn’s youthful pleasure you can turn night into day wind, I aspire to your freedom, to see mountaintops with your eyes, that blaze that rouses streets and beds wind, don’t you see my shimmering hands? don’t you feel the heat inside me? I too, within my veins, carry fire
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On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City (edited) Sherman Alexie The white woman across the aisle from me says “Look, look at all the history, that house on the hill there is over two hundred years old,” as she points out the window past me into what she has been taught. I have learned little more about American history during my few days back East than what I expected and far less of what we should all know of the tribal stories whose architecture is 15,000 years older than the corners of the house that sits museumed on the hill. “Walden Pond,” the woman on the train asks, “Did you see Walden Pond?” and I don't have a cruel enough heart to break her own by telling her there are five Walden Ponds on my little reservation out West and at least a hundred more surrounding Spokane, the city I pretended to call my home. “Listen,” I could have told her. “I don't give a crap about Walden. I know the Indians were living stories around that pond before Walden's grandparents were born and before his grandparents' grandparents were born. I'm tired of hearing about Don-‐effing-‐Henley saving it, too, because that's redundant. If Don Henley's brothers and sisters and mothers and father hadn't come here in the first place then nothing would need to be saved.” But I didn't say a word to the woman about Walden Pond because she smiled so much and seemed delighted that I thought to bring her an orange juice back from the food car. I respect elders of every color. All I really did was eat my tasteless sandwich, drink my Diet Pepsi and nod my head whenever the woman pointed out another little piece of her country's history while I, as all Indians have done since this war began, made plans for what I would do and say the next time somebody from the enemy thought I was one of their own.
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What the Orphan Inherits Sherman Alexie Language I dreamed I was digging your grave with my bare hands. I touched your face and skin fell in thin strips to the ground until only your tongue remained whole. I hung it to smoke with the deer for seven days. It tasted thick and greasy sinew gripped my tongue tight. I rose to walk naked through the fire. I spoke English. I was not consumed. Names I do not have an Indian name. The wind never spoke to my mother when I was born. My heart was hidden beneath the shells of walnuts switched back and forth. I have to cheat to feel the beating of drums in my chest. Alcohol “For bringing us the horse we could almost forgive you for bringing us whisky.” Time We measure time leaning out car windows shattering beer bottles off road signs. Tradition Indian boys sinewy and doe-‐eyed frozen in headlights.
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Men Maya Angelou When I was young, I used to Watch behind the curtains As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men. Young men sharp as mustard. See them. Men are always Going somewhere. They knew I was there. Fifteen Years old and starving for them. Under my window, they would pause, Their shoulders high like the Breasts of a young girl, Jacket tails slapping over Those behinds, Men. One day they hold you in the Palms of their hands, gentle, as if you Were the last raw egg in the world. Then They tighten up. Just a little. The First squeeze is nice. A quick hug. Soft into your defenselessness. A little More. The hurt begins. Wrench out a Smile that slides around the fear. When the Air disappears, Your mind pops, exploding fiercely, briefly, Like the head of a kitchen match. Shattered. It is your juice That runs down their legs. Staining their shoes. When the earth rights itself again, And taste tries to return to the tongue, Your body has slammed shut. Forever. No keys exist. Then the window draws full upon Your mind. There, just beyond The sway of curtains, men walk. Knowing something. Going someplace. But this time, I will simply Stand and watch. Maybe.
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Touched by an Angel Maya Angelou We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
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The Lies Started (edited) Jimmy Santiago Baca because who I was couldn’t take the betrayal I’d done to those I loved, so I created a compartment where the liar existed, a small, dark cave where he cannibalized his heart and soul – kept away from others – isolating himself in a house of lies, going into the world only to drink and drug, waking up in the morning remembering nothing, no words, no behavior, wallowing in murky, alcohol grogginess that padded the wounds, the hurts, the numbing pain of life, how the weight got heavier with each day, each encounter, maybe it was rage, maybe fear, maybe the inadequacy of being flung into the world without skills or words to communicate my heart, how it went on, drearily… faceless, bodiless, mindless, caught in a sordid, dizzying reel toward oblivion until the character I created to contain the lies, deception, drunkenness, violence, the obscene indulgence, started cracking the walls that separated us, crumbling foundations, crushing the door down until the character’s venom seeped into the person who wanted it kept away, ugly and toxic veins of lies trickling into my clean words, darkening my bright eyes, paling my cheeks until I was haunted by an evil usurpation of my being, consumed by a gluttonous appetite until I was what I hated, loathing myself, all my expression fulfilling its orders to abandon my soul, my heart, miring myself in lies, bathing in my own foul betrayals of all I loved and respected, how I became a drunk, an addict, each day and every hour my heart festering with howls for more and more until I lived for the drug, lived to get high, to lose myself in the darkest abyss of addiction. Parts of myself died, crawled away into holes, my spiritual life burned like paper in the wind, my compassion hardened like old crumbs of bread, and within me the dogs of wrath and condemnation snarling, raging day in and day out, full of contradictions, dying and living, free and imprisoned, feeling and insensitive, two people, two lives guttering away into the sewer of addiction.
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Work We Hate and Dreams We Love Jimmy Santiago Baca Every morning Meiyo revs up his truck and lets it idle. Inside the small adobe house he sips coffee while his Isleta girlfriend Cristi brownbags his work Meiyo hates and while he saws, 2 x 4ʹ′s, trims lengths of 2 x 10ʹ′s on table saw, inside his veins another world in full color etches a blue sky on his bones, a man following a bison herd, and suddenly his hammer becomes a spear he tosses to the ground uttering a sound we do not understand.
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The Ball Poem John Berryman What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over – there it is in the water! No use to say “O there are other balls”: An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down All his young days into the harbour where His ball went. I would not intrude on him, A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now He senses first responsibility In a world of possessions. People will take balls, Balls will be lost always, little boy, And no one buys a ball back. Money is external. He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes, The epistemology of loss, how to stand up And gradually light returns to the street, A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight, Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark Floor of the harbour… I am everywhere, I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move With all that move me, under the water Or whistling, I am not a little boy.
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Ellen West Frank Bidart I love sweets, — heaven would be dying on a bed of vanilla ice cream ... But my true self is thin, all profile and effortless gestures, the sort of blond elegant girl whose body is the image of her soul. — My doctors tell me I must give up this ideal; but I WILL NOT ... cannot. Only to my husband I’m not simply a “case.” But he is a fool. He married meat, and thought it was a wife.
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What to Say upon Being Asked to be Friends Julian Talamantez Brolaski Why speak of hate, when I do bleed for love? Not hate, my love, but Love doth bite my tongue Till I taste stuff that makes my rhyming rough So flatter I my fever for the one For whom I inly mourn, though seem to shun. A rose is arrows is eros, so what If I confuse the shade that I’ve become With winedark substance in a lover’s cup? But stop my tonguely wound, I’ve bled enough. If I be fair, or false, or freaked with fear If I my tongue in lockèd box immure Blame not me, for I am sick with love.
Yet would I be your friend most willingly Since friendship would infect me killingly.
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Kitchenette Building Gwendolyn Brooks We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan, Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.” But could a dream send up through the onion fumes Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall, Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms Even if we were willing to let it in, Had time to warm it, keep it very clean, Anticipate a message, let it begin? We wonder. But not well! not for a minute! Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now, We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.
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Alone with Everybody Charles Bukowski the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and the men drink too much and nobody finds the one but keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh. there's no chance at all: we are all trapped by a singular fate. nobody ever finds the one. the city dumps fill the junkyards fill the madhouses fill the hospitals fill the graveyards fill nothing else fills.
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From the Dream (Part I) Lord Byron Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality, And dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being; they become A portion of ourselves as of our time, And look like heralds of eternity; They pass like spirits of the past, – they speak Like sybils of the future; they have power – The tyranny of pleasure and of pain; They make us what we were not – what they will, And shake us with the vision that’s gone by, The dread of vanish’d shadows – Are they so? Is not the past all shadow? What are they? Creations of the mind? – The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. I would recall a vision which I dream’d Perchance in sleep – for in itself a thought, A slumbering thought, is capable of years, And curdles a long life into one hour.
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Since Feeling is First (VII) E.E. Cummings since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you; wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world my blood approves, and kisses are better fate than wisdom lady I swear by all flowers. Don't cry —the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids' flutter which says we are for each other: then laugh, leaning back in my arms for life's not a paragraph And death I think is no parenthesis
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I Measure Every Grief I Meet Emily Dickinson I measure every grief I meet With analytic eyes; I wonder if it weighs like mine, Or has an easier size. I wonder if they bore it long Or did it just begin? I could not tell the date of mine, It feels so old a pain. I wonder if it hurts to live, And if they have to try, And whether, could they choose between, They would not rather die. I wonder if when years have piled – Some thousands – on the cause Of early hurt, if such a lapse Could give them any pause; Or would they go on aching still Through centuries above, Enlightened to a larger pain By contrast with the love. The grieved are many, I am told; The reason deeper lies, – Death is but one and comes but once, And only nails the eyes. There’s grief of want, and grief of cold, – A sort they call “despair”; There’s banishment from native eyes, In sight of native air. And though I may not guess the kind Correctly, yet to me A piercing comfort it affords In passing Calvary, To note the fashions of the cross, Of those that stand alone, Still fascinated to presume That some are like my own.
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Go and Catch a Falling Star John Donne Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind. If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights, Till age snow white hairs on thee, Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me, All strange wonders that befell thee, And swear, No where Lives a woman true, and fair. If thou find'st one, let me know, Such a pilgrimage were sweet; Yet do not, I would not go, Though at next door we might meet; Though she were true, when you met her, And last, till you write your letter, Yet she Will be False, ere I come, to two, or three.
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DayStar Rita Dove She wanted a little room for thinking: but she saw diapers steaming on the line, A doll slumped behind the door. So she lugged a chair behind the garage to sit out the children's naps Sometimes there were things to watch-‐-‐ the pinched armor of a vanished cricket, a floating maple leaf. Other days she stared until she was assured when she closed her eyes she'd only see her own vivid blood. She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared pouting from the top of the stairs. And just what was mother doing out back with the field mice? Why, building a palace. Later that night when Thomas rolled over and lurched into her, She would open her eyes and think of the place that was hers for an hour-‐-‐where she was nothing, pure nothing, in the middle of the day.
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The Paradox Paul Laurence Dunbar I am the mother of sorrows, I am the ender of grief; I am the bud and the blossom, I am the late-‐falling leaf. I am thy priest and thy poet, I am thy serf and thy king; I cure the tears of the heartsick, When I come near they shall sing. White are my hands as the snowdrop; Swart are my fingers as clay; Dark is my frown as the midnight, Fair is my brow as the day. Battle and war are my minions, Doing my will as divine; I am the calmer of passions, Peace is a nursling of mine. Speak to me gently or curse me, Seek me or fly from my sight; I am thy fool in the morning, Thou art my slave in the night. Down to the grave will I take thee, Out from the noise of the strife; Then shalt thou see me and know me— Death, then, no longer, but life. Then shalt thou sing at my coming, Kiss me with passionate breath, Clasp me and smile to have thought me Aught save the foeman of Death. Come to me, brother, when weary, Come when thy lonely heart swells; I’ll guide thy footsteps and lead thee Down where the Dream Woman dwells.
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I Know I’m Not Sufficiently Obscure Ray Durem I know I’m not sufficiently obscure to please the critics – nor devious enough. Imagery escapes me. I cannot find those mild and gracious words to clothe the carnage. Blood is blood and murder’s murder. What’s a lavender word for lynch? Come, you pale poets, wan, refined and dreamy: here is a black woman working out her guts in a white man’s kitchen for little money and no glory. How should I tell that story? There is a black boy, blacker still from death, face down in the cold Korean mud. Come on with your effervescent jive explain to him why he ain’t alive. Reword our specific discontent into some plaintive melody, a little whine, a little whimper, not too much – and no rebellion! God, no! Rebellion’s much too corny. You deal with finer feelings, very subtle – an autumn leaf hanging from a tree – I see a body!
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Crows in a Strong Wind Cornelius Eady Off go the crows from the roof. The crows can’t hold on. They might as well Be perched on an oil slick. Such an awkward dance, These gentlemen In their spottled-‐black coats. Such a tipsy dance, As if they didn’t know where they were. Such a humorous dance, As they try to set things right, As the wind reduces them. Such a sorrowful dance. How embarrassing is love When it goes wrong In front of everyone.
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I’m a Fool to Love You Cornelius Eady Some folks will tell you the blues is a woman, Some type of supernatural creature. My mother would tell you, if she could, About her life with my father, A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman. She would tell you about the choices A young black woman faces. Is falling in love with some man A deal with the devil In blue terms, the tongue we use When we don't want nuance To get in the way, When we need to talk straight. My mother chooses my father After choosing a man Who was, as we sing it, Of no account. This man made my father look good, That's how bad it was. He made my father seem like an island In the middle of a stormy sea, He made my father look like a rock. And is the blues the moment you realize You exist in a stacked deck, You look in a mirror at your young face, The face my sister carries, And you know it's the only leverage You've got. Does this create a hurt that whispers How you going to do? Is the blues the moment You shrug your shoulders And agree, a girl without money Is nothing, dust To be pushed around by any old breeze. Compared to this, My father seems, briefly, To be a fire escape. This is the way the blues works Its sorry wonders, Makes trouble look like A feather bed, Makes the wrong man's kisses A healing.
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from In the Body of the World Eve Ensler The room was the room of my dreams. It was clean and pretty. All the machinery was there, but it was human. There was a couch that pulled out for sleeping and a small kitchen and a window right in front of the bed. What I hadn’t anticipated was the tree. I was too weak to think or write or call or even watch a movie. All I could do was stare at the tree, which was the only thing in my view. At first it annoyed me and I thought I would go mad from boredom. But after the first days and many hours, I began to see the tree. On Tuesday I meditated on bark; on Friday the green leaves shimmering in the late afternoon light. For hours I lost myself, my body, my being dissolving into tree. I was raised in America. All value lies in the future, in the dream, in production. There is no present tense. There is no value in what is, only in what might be made or exploited from whatever already exists. Of course the same was true for me. I had no inherent value. Without work or effort, without making myself into something significant, without proving my worth, I had no right or reason to be here. Life itself was inconsequential unless it led to something. Unless the tree would be wood, would be house, would be table, what value was there to tree? So to actually lie in my hospital bed and see tree, enter the tree, to find the green life inherent in tree, this was the awakening. Each morning I opened my eyes. I could not wait to focus on tree. I would let the tree take me. Each day it was different, based on the light or wind or rain. The tree was a tonic and a cure, a guru and a teaching.
30
Eagle Plain Robert Francis The American eagle is not aware he is the American eagle. He is never tempted to look modest. When orators advertise the American eagle’s virtues, the American eagle is not listening. This is his virtue. He is somewhere else, he is mountains away but even if he were near he would never make an audience. The American eagle never says he will serve if drafted, will dutifully serve etc. He is not at our service. If we have honored him we have honored one who unequivocally honors himself by overlooking us. He does not know the meaning of magnificent. Perhaps we do not altogether either
who cannot touch him.
31
The Road Not Taken Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere 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.
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Dark Sonnet Neil Gaiman I don’t think that I’ve been in love as such although I liked a few folk pretty well Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch for brave men died and empires rose and fell for love, girls follow boys to foreign lands and men have followed women into hell In plays and poems someone understands there’s something makes us more than blood and bone And more than biological demands for me love’s like the wind unseen, unknown I see the trees are bending where it’s been I know that it leaves wreckage where it’s blown I really don’t know what I love you means I think it means don’t leave me here alone
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On Children Kahlil Gibran And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might That His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
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In the Silence Nikki Giovanni In the silence of the city night when the lonely watch the sky in yearning I at rest beside you lie in peace I searched a thousand skies before you came And in the morning when the world is new, the lonely turn away as I turn to you beside me And in the quiet of the afternoon when the lonely roam, I turn inside and you are with me still I roamed a thousand miles before you came.
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A Substitute for You Nikki Giovanni I'm a fan of Christopher Columbus I want to find a spice route too They've got a substitute for sugar I want a substitute for you I'm gonna ride those trade winds Find gold in El Dorado too They've got MasterCards for money I need a substitute for you My feet at night Are so cold I tell you they're turning blue They have a substitute for coal oil I'll buy a substitute for you Some things are real though most things Really don't be true They got a substitute for the truth But a lie right now won't do You let me think you loved me Luckily I can't sue With work and play we drifted I'm requesting something new I'm not saying This is nice There's a crack That love fell through I'm just saying What we had is gone I need a substitute For you.
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Sexy Balaclava Daphne Gottlieb I tried to rent the movie about the protest, but the store didn’t have it. In the film, the underdog wins. That’s how you know it’s a movie. They are passing a law here to keep people from sitting on the sidewalk. Poverty is still a crime in America and I am looking more and more criminal, by which I mean broke, by which I mean beautiful. Holy. Revolution is not pretty, but it can be beautiful, I’m told. The protest was dull. There was no tear gas and there were no riot cops. Nothing got broken and nothing got gassed and nothing got smashed. There was no blood and the world was not saved so we went to the movies. In the film, people kissed at the end. The underdog won. That’s how we knew it was a movie, a pretty lie. Revolution is not pretty
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but I don’t care about looks. Set the dumpster on fire. Break the windows. Don’t kiss me like they do in the movies. Kiss me like they do on the emergency broadcast news.
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There is a Wonderful Game Hafiz There is a game we should play, and it goes like this: We hold hands and look into each other’s eyes And scan each other’s face. Then I say, “Now tell me a difference you see between us.” And you might respond, “Hafiz, your nose is ten times bigger than mine!” Then I would say, “Yes, my dear, almost ten times!” But let’s keep playing. Let’s go deeper, Go deeper. For if we do, Our spirits will embrace And intervweave Our union will be so glorious That even God Will not be able to tell us apart. There is a wonderful game We should play with everyone And it goes like this…
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Power Corinne Hales No one we knew had ever stopped a train. Hardly daring to breathe, I waited Belly-‐down with my brother In a dry ditch Watching through the green thickness Of grass and willows. Stuffed with crumpled newspapers, The shirt and pants looked real enough Stretched out across the rails. I felt my heart Beating against the cool ground And the terrible long screech of the train’s Braking began. We had done it. Then it was in front of us— hundred iron wheels tearing like time Into red flannel and denim, shredding the child We had made—until it finally stopped. My brother jabbed at me, Pointed down the tracks. A man had climbed out of the engine, was running In our direction, waving his arms, Screaming that he would kill us— Whoever we were. Then, very close to the spot Where we hid, he stomped and cursed At the rags and papers scattered Over the gravel from our joke. I tried to remember which of us That that red shirt had belonged to, But morning seemed too long ago, and the man Was falling, sobbing, to his knees. I couldn’t stop watching. My brother lay next to me, His hands covering his ears, His face pressed tight to the ground.
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Nothing to Waste Suheir Hammad you don’t waste nothin you know the worth of bread cupcakes carrots gummi bears whatever falls gets picked up and kissed up to god and it’s new and fresh again good enough to eat to place on the table and what about cherries busted and sweet meat flesh about stretch of leg tear of muscle what about almond surprise jelly jam pumpkin virgin pudding can she pick herself up back to the table and know her worth kiss herself back kiss herself back and up to god
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The Darkling Thrush Thomas Hardy I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-‐grey, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-‐stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-‐lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I. At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-‐hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-‐beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-‐night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.
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Those Winter Sundays Robert Hayden 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?
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Twice Shy Seamus Heany Her scarf a la Bardot, In suede flats for the walk, She came with me one evening For air and friendly talk. We crossed the quiet river, Took the embankment walk. Traffic holding its breath, Sky a tense diaphragm: Dusk hung like a backcloth That shook where a swan swam, Tremulous as a hawk Hanging deadly, calm. A vacuum of need Collapsed each hunting heart But tremulously we held As hawk and prey apart, Preserved classic decorum, Deployed our talk with art. Our Juvenilia Had taught us both to wait, Not to publish feeling And regret it all too late -‐ Mushroom loves already Had puffed and burst in hate. So, chary and excited, As a thrush linked on a hawk, We thrilled to the March twilight With nervous childish talk: Still waters running deep Along the embankment walk.
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from The Odyssey Homer "Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
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Walk Frank Horne I am trying to learn to walk again... all tensed and trembling I try so hard, so hard... Not like the headlong patter of new and anxious feet or the vigorous flailing of the water by young swimmer beating a new element into submission... It is more like a timorous Lazarus commanded to take up the bed on which he died... I know I will walk again into your healing outstretched arms in answer to your tender command... I have been lost and fallen in the dark underbrush but I will arise and walk and find the path at your soft command.
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Theme for English B 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. 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. The 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: 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? Well, 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 the 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. You 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. But 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. This is my page for English B.
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Question and Answer Langston Hughes Durban, Birmingham, Cape Town, Atlanta, Johannesburg, Watts, The earth around Struggling, fighting, Dying – for what? A world to gain. Groping, hoping, Waiting – for what? A world to gain. Dreams kicked asunder, Why not go under? There’s a world to gain. But I suppose I don’t want it, Why take it? To remake it.
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The Woman at the Washington Zoo Randall Jarrell The saris go by me from the embassies. Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet. They look back at the leopard like the leopard. And I.... this print of mine, that has kept its color Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null Navy I wear to work, and wear from work, and so To my bed, so to my grave, with no Complaints, no comment: neither from my chief, The Deputy Chief Assistant, nor his chief— Only I complain.... this serviceable Body that no sunlight dyes, no hand suffuses But, dome-‐shadowed, withering among columns, Wavy beneath fountains—small, far-‐off, shining In the eyes of animals, these beings trapped As I am trapped but not, themselves, the trap, Aging, but without knowledge of their age, Kept safe here, knowing not of death, for death— Oh, bars of my own body, open, open! The world goes by my cage and never sees me. And there come not to me, as come to these, The wild beasts, sparrows pecking the llamas’ grain, Pigeons settling on the bears’ bread, buzzards Tearing the meat the flies have clouded.... Vulture, When you come for the white rat that the foxes left, Take off the red helmet of your head, the black Wings that have shadowed me, and step to me as man: The wild brother at whose feet the white wolves fawn, To whose hand of power the great lioness Stalks, purring.... You know what I was, You see what I am: change me, change me!
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Ways of Talking Ha Jin We used to like talking about grief Our journals and letters were packed with losses, complaints, and sorrows. Even if there was no grief we wouldn’t stop lamenting as though longing for the charm of a distressed face. Then we couldn’t help expressing grief So many things descended without warning: labor wasted, loves lost, houses gone, marriages broken, friends estranged, ambitions worn away by immediate needs. Words lined up in our throats for a good whining. Grief seemed like an endless river— the only immortal flow of life. After losing a land and then giving up a tongue, we stopped talking of grief Smiles began to brighten our faces. We laugh a lot, at our own mess. Things become beautiful, even hailstones in the strawberry fields.
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5.7 Sheema Kalbasi I don't care if you are you and I am I. I am not some exotic flower. Whatever coat you have on, I will put it on to warm me... and the shoes however small... I will walk in them to balance our height difference. You don't need to convert for me; I have already converted to you. You see I never had a religion to begin with. I was born naked from all religions but your love. I know that was not the point. I know there is no conversion. There is no coat, no balance, no shoes but the naked truth of me finding you first, not you finding me. You, whom will never know who I was when I was sitting on the white sheets. Y o u, not b e s i d e m e. And the words that are already written. The words that are already said, are already felt, and are already gone.
And I try to take them back into my empty bowl of hands. To put my hands on the chest. The chest into rest. The rest in to the heart. The beat back to the soul. The soul, back to what it was before you. Alas! I am 5.7
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Immortal Sheema Kalbasi I envy you Spring with your wild flowers and flourishing smiles with your elegance and your almond-‐tree of thoughtlessness that does not know of the bitterness and pain of my loss. I look out of the window I look out of the window and I wish for some Muguet de Mai to arrive at my door and to hear my mother’s voice calling me at the entrance: Beloved daughter here I am, arrived with the Spring and healing balms. If this happen, I promise to embrace the message of the spring and the Iris and I will plant a Wild Rose-‐tree for the entrance to the house of my heart so that every one knows of my sensitivity to the unfading remembrance of her love. There are times that I am questioned for my not-‐crying eyes so for those who do not know of my grieving heart, I write to voice the bitterness and pain of my loss in the language of every-‐lost mother-‐child, so when the childishness of this heart is sometimes toxic to the hearts of those who do not know me and the Marigolds of my love, even they will bring me bouquets of Sea-‐lavenders and love.
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Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou John Keats Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-‐fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-‐taken breath, And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
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Women Want Fighters for Their Lovers DH Lawrence Women don’t want wistful Mushy, pathetic young men Struggling in doubtful embraces Then trying again Mushy and treacherous, tiny Peterlets, Georgelets, Hamlets, Tomlets, Dicklets, Harrylets, whiney Jimlets and self-‐sorry Samlets. Women are sick of consoling Inconsolable youth, dead-‐beat; Pouring comfort and condoling Down the sink of the male conceit. Women want fighters, fighters And the fighting cock. Can’t you give it them, blighters! The fighting cock, the fighting cock – Have you got one, little blighters? Let it crow then, like one o’clock!
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But He Was Cool Don L. Lee super-‐cool ultrablack a tan/purple had a beautiful shade. he had a double-‐natural that wd put the sisters to shame. &his beads were imported sea shells
(from some blk/country i never heard of) he was triple-‐hip. his tikis were hand carved out of ivory &came express from the motherland. he would greet u in swahili &say good-‐by in yoruba. woooooooooooo-‐jim he bes so cool & ill tel li gent
cool-‐cool is so cool he was un-‐cooled by other niggers' cool cool-‐cool ultracool was bop-‐cool/ice box cool so cool cold cool his wine didn't have to be cooled, him was air conditioned cool cool-‐cool/real cool made me cool-‐-‐now ain't that cool cool-‐cool so cool him nick-‐named refrigerator.
cool-‐cool so cool he didn't know, after detroit, newark, chicago &c., we had to hip
cool-‐cool/ super-‐cool/ real cool that
to be black is to be very-‐hot.
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Falling: The Code Li-‐Young Lee 1 Through the night the apples outside my window one by one let go their branches and drop to the lawn. I can’t see, but hear the stem-‐snap, the plummet through leaves, then the final thump against the ground. Sometimes two at once, or one right after another. During long moments of silence I wait and wonder about the bruised bodies, the terror of