Poetry on the Right-to-Life Issuesof Abortion, Infanticide, and Euthanasia:

Commentary from Scansion of the Poems

Jeff Koloze, Ph.D.Clark State Community College

KolozeJ@clarkstate.eduJeffKoloze@juno.com

937-328-3862

Metrical feet

iamb (iambic): - / (standard foot in English poetry)

trochee (trochaic): / - (shows heaviness)

anapest (anapestic): - - / (used for light and happy verse)

dactyl (dactylic): / - - (used for serious and heavy verse)

monosyllabic foot: / (used to stress words or syllables)

spondee (spondaic): / / (used for emphatic stress)

pyrrhic foot: - - (speeds the reading of the line)

For infanticide, I could have selected

“The Cruel Mother” (anonymous Scottish ballad)

“Mary Hamilton” (18th century Scottish ballad; see Symonds entry)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” (1848)

Madison Julius Cawein's "The Infanticide" (1909)

-/ -/ -/ -/ -/She took her babe, the child of shame and sin,-/ -/ - - -/ -/And wrapped it warmly in her shawl and went-/ -/ -/ -/ - -/From house to house for work. Propriety bent-/ -/ - - // -/A look of wonder on her; raised a din-/ -/ // -/ -/Of Christian outrage. None would take her in./- -/ -/ -/ //All that she had was gone; had long been spent./-- -/ - - -/ -/Penniless and hungry by the road she leant,// -/ -- // -/No friend to go to and no one of kin.-/ -/ -/ -/ -/The babe at last began to cry for food.-/ -/ -/ // -/Her breasts were dry; she had no milk to give.---/ // -/ // -/She was so tired and cold.--What could she do?---/ /- -/ -/ -/...The next day in a pool within a wood-/ -/ // -/ -/They found the babe. ... 'Twas hard enough to live,-/ -/ -/ - - -/She found, for one; impossible for two.

Madison Julius Cawein's "The Infanticide" (1909)

-/ -/ -/ -/ -/-/ -/ -- -/ -/-/ -/ -/ -/ --/-/ -/ -- // -/-/ -/ // -/ -//- -/ -/ -/ ///-- -/ -- -/ -/// -/ -- // -/-/ -/ -/ -/ -/-/ -/ -/ // -/-/ // -/ // -/-/ /- -/ -/ -/-/ -/ // -/ -/-/ -/ -/ -- -/

For euthanasia, I could have selected

Willis Gaylord Clark’s “Euthanasia” (1847)

Frances Cornford's “The Watch” (1923)

Linda Pastan's “Ethics” (1980)

David R. Slavitt's “Titanic” (1983)

Dudley Randall's "To The Mercy Killers" (1973)

-/ -/ -/ -/ -/If ever mercy move you murder me,// -/ -/ -/ -/I pray you, kindly killers, let me live./- -/ -/ -/ -/Never conspire with death to set me free,-/ -/ // -/ -/but let me know such life as pain can give./- /- /- / -/ -/Even though I be a clot, an aching clench,-/ -/ -/ -/ -/a stub, a stump, a butt, a scab, a knob,-/ -/ -/ -/ -/a screaming pain, a putrefying stench,// -/ -/ -/ -/still let me live, so long as life shall throb./- /- // /- --/Even though I turn such traitor to myself-/ -/ // -/ -/as beg to die, do not accomplice me./- /- // /-- //Even though I seem not human, a mute shelf-/ -/ -/ -/ - -of glucose, bottled blood, machinery-/ -/ -/ -/ /- /to swell the lungs and pump the heart‑‑even so,// // -/ /- //do not put out my life. Let me still glow.

Dudley Randall's "To The Mercy Killers" (1973)

-/ -/ -/ -/ -/// -/ -/ -/ -//- -/ -/ -/ -/-/ -/ // -/ -//- /- /- / -/ -/-/ -/ -/ -/ -/-/ -/ -/ -/ -/// -/ -/ -/ -//- /- // /- --/-/ -/ // -/ -//- /- // /-- //-/ -/ -/ -/ ---/ -/ -/ -/ /- /// // -/ /- //

For abortion, I could have selected

Gwendolyn Brooks’ “the mother” (1945)

Anne Sexton's “The Abortion” (1962)

Ai's “Abortion” (1999)

Jan Beatty's "An Abortion Attempt by My Mother" (1995)

/- /- /- -/ /-Rolling side to side in my warm mother,-/ - -/ /- /- //the juices of life pulsing through my veined skin,// -- // -/wild juices of calves' tongues and loose/- // -/ //stretchy kid skin like young gray wrens.// /- /- - - /- //I drink unborn water in the Garfield back room--/ /- /- /in the dark while my mother cries.

-/ - - //The prodding of wolves' teeth,// -/ -- /-eyes red and ailing, the shaking-/ /- // -/ --of orange clay and cracked slate, the loosening,-/ - - /- - /- - //exposing the underground creatures to full sky,-/ /- /- - // //the greased worms are screaming, the dead moles stay dead./-- /-This is the feeling.

Jan Beatty's "An Abortion Attempt by My Mother" (1995)

/- /- /- -/ /--/ --/ /- /- //// -- // -//- // -/ //// /- /- -- /- //--/ /- /- /

-/ -- //// -/ -- /--/ /- // -/ ---/ -- /-- /-- //-/ /- /-- // ///-- /-

Works Cited

Ai. "Abortion." Vice: New and Selected Poems. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. 4.Beatty, Jan. "An Abortion Attempt by My Mother." Mad River. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1995. 29.Brooks, Gwendolyn. "The Mother." Literature for Composition: Essays, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed.

Eds. Sylvan Barnet, Morton Berman, William Burto, William E. Cain, and Marcia Stubbs. New York: Longman, 2000. 430.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point." An Anthology of Interracial Literature: Black‑White Contacts in the Old World and the New. Ed. Werner Sollors. New York: New York UP, 2004.280‑7.

Cawein, M. J. [Madison Julius]. "The Infanticide." New Poems. London: Grant Richards, 1909. 210.Clark, Willis Gaylord. "Euthanasia." The Poetical Writings of the Late Willis Gaylord Clark. 2nd

complete ed. New York: J. S. Redfield, 1847. 66-7.Cornford, Frances. "The Watch." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Eds. X. J.

Kennedy, and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 811."The Cruel Mother." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Eds. X. J. Kennedy, and

Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 789-90.Pastan, Linda. "Ethics." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Eds. X. J. Kennedy,

and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 1112-3.Randall, Dudley. "To the Mercy Killers.“ After the Killing. Chicago: Third World P, 1973. 10.Sexton, Anne. "The Abortion." All My Pretty Ones. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.Slavitt, David R. "Titanic." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Eds. X. J.

Kennedy, and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 1132.Symonds, Deborah A. Weep Not for Me: Women, Ballads, and Infanticide in Early Modern Scotland.

University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1997.