"beware : do not read this poem" by Ishmael Reed - Norton Literature

Ishmael Reed was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on February 22, 1938.  He acquired his education in Buffalo, New York at the University of Buffalo, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate.  He has won many awards for his literature during his career as a teacher at the University of California, Berkley, and now lives a happy, retired life with his wife in the area.


"beware   :   do not read this poem" by Ishmael Reed


tonite   ,   thriller was
abt an ol woman   ,   so vain she
surrounded herself w /
    many mirrors
it hot so bad that finally she
locked herself indoors & her                                                             5
whole life became
    mirrors


one day the villagers broke
into her house   ,   but she was too                                                   10
swift for them   .   she disappeared
    into a mirror


each tenant who bought the house
after that   ,   lost a loved one to
    the ol woman in the mirror :                                                        15
    first a little girl
    then a young woman
    then the young woman / s husband


the hunger of this poem is legendary
it has taken in many victims                                                            20
back off from his poem
it has drawn in yr feet
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr legs


back off from this poem                                                                   25
it is a greedy mirror
you are into this poem   .   from
    the waist down
nobody can hear you can they   ?
this poem has had you up to here                                                     30
    belch
this poem aint got no manners
you cant call out frm this poem
relax now & go w /   this poem
move & roll on to this poem                                                             35
this poem has yr eyes
this poem has his head
this poem has his arms
this poem has his fingers                                                                   40
this poem has his fingertips
this poem is the reader & the
reader this poem


statistic   :   the us bureau of missing persons reports
                   that in 1968 over 100,000 people disappeared               45
                   leaving no solid clues
                          nor trace         only
      a space        in the lives of their friends
                                                                                                     [1970]

There are two voices that vie for our attention in this poem: the voice of the narrator, and the voice of the poem itself.  The narrator’s voice recounts an urban legend about a woman who had surrounded herself with mirrors.  When the suspicious village comes to deal with her, she disappeared inside her mirrors.  Ever since, “each tenant who bought the house… lost a loved one to/the ol woman in the mirror.”  However, throughout the poem, the diction, syntax, and punctuation that the narrator makes use of casts doubt on his sanity, especially the lengthened caesuras and the incorrect grammar and punctuation (“into her house   ,   but she was too/swift for them   .   she disappeared”); they subtly yet effectively illustrate his mental state.  Just as we start to deny his credibility and question his stability, that crazy narrator warns us of the “hunger of this poem.”  Sure enough, the second voice comes out: “it has drawn in yr feet… it has drawn in yr legs.”  Meanwhile, the narrator begs the reader three times to “back off from this poem.” 

If the reader doesn’t back off from the poem at this point, “you are into this poem,” and there is no way out; the rest of the stanza is one continual statement with no punctuation, the voice of the poem utilizing enjambment for a hypnotic effect which will assuredly draw the reader on to read further, until finally “this poem is the reader & the/reader this poem.”  After that, the reader suddenly reaches the sharp break between the stanzas, and, in the blink of an eye, it is all over: they have become a statistic to the “us bureau of missing persons,” and are gone without a trace.

Being aware of the clashing voices in the poem, the seemingly arbitrary structure of the stanzas becomes more meaningful.  The narrator starts off each stanza, and when he is left alone, the stanzas are short and concise, in accordance with the first two.  The third, however, is much longer than the first two: the narrator was interrupted by the voice of the poem, which drones on without interrupting punctuation or caesuras, creating a longer stanza (one that is less and less the narrator’s own voice).  Finally, the last stanza is almost entirely the voice of the poem; this wicked voice capitalizes on the opportunity and drones on for the longest stanza in the entire poem, drawing the reader deeper and deeper into the mirror until they are taken.

This is a clever poem.  I thought it was interesting how the poem tries to suck you into the mirrors   .   I chuckled to myself   ,  proud that I

was abl to c thru the lyes   .

Hold / up  ,  there is a

strange man at the


door

"Fireflies in the Garden" by Robert Frost - Norton Literature

Robert Frost was an American playwright and poet, born on March 26, 1874 in California.  The portion of his life on a farm served as the inspiration for many of his poems, renowned and acclaimed many times over.  Before his death of prostate surgery complications, he had received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and the Congressional Gold Medal for his contributions.




"Fireflies in the Garden" by Robert Frost


Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal the stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.                      5
Only, of course, they cant sustain the part.
                                                                          [1928]

The entirety of this simple, six-versed poem is a metaphor, comparing the real stars and the fireflies that strive to imitate them.  Upon the arrival of night, the “real stars… fill the upper skies” along with their small, insignificant pretenders.  The poem describes the efforts of the fireflies to “Achieve a star-like start” in their attempt to emulate the stars, though, “of course, they can’t sustain the part.”  It is expected that Frost will pay respect to these microcosms of stars after the first two lines, but, after he uses strong diction to assure the readers that they were “never equal stars in size” and “never really stars at heart,” Frost conveys an entirely different tone.  As opposed to appreciation or contentment, this diction creates a tone of disdain or even contempt for the flies, and the announcement of their phoniness and role as a charlatan is filled with condescension.  Utilizing this tone, Frost seems to provide a commentary on the use of symbols themselves through his metaphorical poem: just as the firefly can only imitate a star in a weak and unsubstantial way, a literary symbol can only catch a brief and ephemeral aspect of something more significant.  Symbols and metaphors used in literature possess only the ability catch bits and pieces of the feeling that the actual object exudes.  Given the cold and unappreciative tone of the poem, Frost seems almost bitter; bitter about his inability to truly describe through a symbol a feeling that an object evokes, or perhaps bitter at the poetic inadequacy of language as a whole, represented by the inability of the fireflies to attain stardom.

"At the San Francisco Airport" by Yvor Winters - Norton Literature

Though Yvor Winters was born in Chicago on October 17, 1900, he took up residence in many places from coast to coast, attending several universities, and ending up working on his doctorate in Stanford University.  During his time, he became an acclaimed poet and literary critic, receiving a prize for his poetry and renown for the magazines he edited.  He suffered from tuberculosis for the majority of his life, however, and unfortunately succumbed to throat cancer on January 25, 1968.




"At the San Francisco Airport" by Yvor Winters
            to my daughter, 1954


This is the terminal: the light
Gives perfect vision, false and hard;
The metal glitters, deep and bright.
Great planes are waiting in the yard--
They are already in the night.                               5


And you are here beside me, small,
Contained and fragile, and intent
On things that I but half recall--
Yet going whither you are bent.
I am the past, and that is all.                                10


But you and I in part are one:
The frightened brain, the nervous will,
The knowledge of what must be done,
The passion to acquire the skill
To face that which you dare not shun.                 15


The rain of matter upon sense
Destroys me momently. The score:
There comes what will come. The expense
Is what one thought, and something more--
One's being and intelligence.                               20


This is the terminal, the break.
Beyond this point, on lines of air,
You take the way you must take;
And I remain in light and stare--
In light, and nothing else, awake.                        25
                                                                       [1954]

Taken at face value, this poem takes place in the San Francisco Airport; a father standing with his daughter, both nervous but ready to board the airplane.  I believe Yvor Winters intended a deeper meaning, however.  The poem is packed with connotations and inferences, and what may ostensibly seem to be an innocent airplane boarding is revealed to be so much more.  The poem begins and ends with an ominous line: “This is the terminal.”  The word “terminal” is ambiguous; directly, it could refer to a portal at the San Francisco Airport.  If one analyzes the context of that word in the poem overall more deeply, however, it takes on a different meaning.  The speaker of this poem (it may very well be Winters himself) recognizes that he has almost arrived at the last stop.  The next stanzas describe his daughter standing beside him, “small,/contained and fragile,” using this simple diction to paint an image of a simple, delicate flower of a girl, requiring special care and attention.  This time, the speaker is “the past, and that is all;” he can no longer be there to support her, “going whither [she] is bent.”  She is not entirely alone though; the speaker’s words offer small hope, as they “in part are one.”  He will remain with her, as part of her “brain,” her “will,” her “knowledge,” and her “passion.” With the memory of him, she will carry on his legacy where he cannot.  The last stanza designates the final goodbye; he repeats that “This is the terminal” from the beginning of the poem, only this time, it is a “break.”  This sharp and precise word marks the final separation and release from his daughter.  He must “remain in light and stare,” for this is his last stop.  Yet, while he cannot board the next plane himself, he is allowed one last look at his daughter, his legacy, before she continues through the terminal.

"Aubade on East 12th Street" by August Kleinzahler - Norton Literature

August Kleinzahler was born on December 10, 1949, in Jersey City, New Jersey.  He grew up in the United States, but finished his English major at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.  He leads a very prolific writing life, having authored eleven books of poetry and several novels, and receiving several rewards for his works.




"Aubade on East 12th Street" by August Kleinzahler


The skylight silvers
and a faint shudder from the underground
travels up the building's steel.


Dawn breaks across this wilderness
of roofs with their old wooden storage tanks           5
and caps of louvered cowlings


moving in the wind. Your back,
raised hip and thigh
well-tooled as a rounded baluster


on a lathe of shadow and light.                               10
                                                                          [1996]

The setting and context of the poem is perhaps contrary to what one may expect.  When Kleinzahler describes “Dawn breaks across this wilderness,” one almost expects a tree line or a mountain range, but the only wood on this landscape is found in the “old wooden storage tanks” atop buildings, and the only mountain “caps” are “caps of louvered cowlings/moving in the wind.”  This setting breaks away from the more traditional and natural description of a sunset, though the way Kleinzahler writes, the buildings create an aesthetic to rival the grandeur of a mountain range.  After describing the morning sun breaking over the breath taking cityscape, he describes the woman to whom this aubade is addressed, spending an entire stanza on her “well-tooled” sensuous features and comparing her form to “a lathe of shadow and light,” breaking the morning light as the buildings did, if not better.  He relates the woman’s beauty to that of a city skyline; the parallelism between the two strongly hints at the parallel beauty of both, especially in the morning light.  Given the context that the poem is an aubade, a song to one’s love, similar to a serenade (only, while a serenade is done at night, an aubade is performed in the morning), these comparisons make sense: the poem is dedicated to the woman he loves, and to her beauty, which is enhanced by the beauty of the cityscape and exceeds it wholly.  In this poem, Kleinzahler attempts to utilize the beautiful setting to impress the woman with an aubade, dedicated to her sumptuous form, which breaks the morning sun like the city skyline.

"She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways" by William Wordsworth -- Norton Literature

William Wordsworth was born in England on April 7, 1770.  Throughout his life, he was a very prolific and renowned writer, accredited with initiating the Romantic Age in English Literature with his publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798, and posthumously acknowledged for his greatest work, The Prelude.  This fame earned him the title of Poet Laureate of Britain in 1843, which he possessed until his death in 1850.




"She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways" by William Wordsworth


She dwelt among the untrodden ways
    Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
    And very few to love:


A violet by a mossy stone                                 5
    Half hidden from the eye!
--Fair as a star, when only one
    Is shining in the sky.


She lived unknown, and few could know
    When Lucy ceased to be;                            10
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
    The difference to me!
                                                                  [1800]

Though only twelve lines long, William Wordsworth’s poem “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways” is a moving piece, written about a most potent feeling indeed, revealing a powerfully quiet and personal quality as well as an elegiac tone through the voice of the first person speaker, as much of heart and soul of the poem would be lost to a clinical third person narration.  Throughout the poem, we learn much not only about the object of the speaker’s love, but his own personal feelings as well.  We learn that the speaker’s love was a beautiful woman who led a simple life by a small stream in northern England, secluded and unknown to the rest of the world.  But we also learn why the speaker loved her: she was “like a violet by a mossy stone,” untainted by the smog and sin of cities, and “fair as a star, when only one/Is shining in the sky,” or pure as the light in the black of night.  The lover is so stricken by her death that he visibly displays breathlessness and speechlessness (and, oh,/The difference to me!).  In fact, he is so overcome with emotional angst that he has only the ability to procure a very short poem, using only simple and concise diction and syntax throughout very short lines, just over ten in number.  Through this short but deeply elegiac poem, the speaker summons every last ounce of poetic skill he has to give a pure and simple eulogy for his pure and simple flower, who, though he will not ever see again in life, will continue to be with him as one more twinkling star, giving hope on a cloudless night.

"Driving Glove" by Claudia Emerson -- Norton Literature

Claudia Emerson was born January 13, 1957 in Virginia.  In recent years, she has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and was named Poet Laureate of Virginia.  She now makes her residence in Virginia as an English professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University.


"Driving Glove" by Claudia Emerson


I was unloading groceries from the trunk
of what had been her car, when the glove floated
up form underneath the shifting junk--
a crippled umbrella, the jack, ragged
maps. I knew it was not one of yours,                                5
this more delicate, soft, made from the hide
of a kid or lamb. It still remembered
her hand, the creases where her fingers


had bent to hold the wheel, the turn
of her palm, smaller than mine. There was                       10
nothing else to do but return it--
let it drift, sink, slow as a leaf through water
to rest on the bottom where I have not
forgotten it remains--persistent in its loss.
                                                                                     [2005]

The poem “Driving Glove” is a deeply melancholic piece of a man’s conversation with his second partner.  While going about his everyday business unloading groceries, he describes finding a driving glove that belonged to his late wife.  This is a psychologically powerful event for him, as it is reflected by the sudden change in the structure of the poem.  Immediately, after a long dash mark, the poem shifts gears from a simple description of his task of unloading groceries to a slow motion description of the fall of his late wife’s souvenir.  Caught up in the past, he reminisces on the material of the glove (“this more delicate, soft, made from the hide/of a kid or lamb”), and even the creases that the glove “still remembered,” emphasizing the emotional connection he still has to his previous wife.   The deep and contemplative attention to even the smallest details creates an elegiac tone which slows down the poem and draws us into the alternate dimension in which the narrator experiences the passage of time.

After these details, however there is a slight tone change.  The narrator realizes he has been dwelling on this uncomfortable topic and, instead of holding on, does what is best for himself and moves on, though not entirely detached, remarking that “There was nothing else to do but return it—/let it drift, sink, slow as a leaf through water.”  Instead of abiding in the alternate dimension, the narrator realizes that life isn’t going to wait for him, and decisively (but not willingly) puts the glove back to rest, along with the memories of his wife, though the glove remains “persistent in its loss.”  With this change of time, we see a return from a mournful, contemplative tone to a detached and almost clinical tone found at the beginning; a tone that tries to forget the past because the wound hurts too much.  Thus, the two specific tones in the poem create alternate speeds of the passage of time, lengthening this relatively quick encounter to match the many years of partnership the narrator has lost.

"Museum Piece" by Richard Wilbur -- Ars Poetica

Richard Wilbur was born March 1st, 1921, in New York City.  He is an accomplished poet and literary translator, having been nominated the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and rewarded with the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice.


The good gray guardians of art
Patrol the halls on spongy shoes,
Impartially protective, though
Perhaps suspicious of Toulouse.                        4


Here dozes one against the wall,
Disposed upon a funeral chair.
A Degas dancer pirouettes
Upon the parting of his hair.                              8


See how she spins! The grace is there,
Bit strain as well is plain to see.
Degas loved the two together:
Beauty joined to energy.                                  12


Edgar Degas purchased once
A fine El Greco, which he kept
Against the wall beside his bed
To hang his pants on while he slept.                16
                                                                   [1950]


Richard Wilbur does not take an indirect approach in this poem.  The candid tone of the poem makes it clear that this piece will take a strong stance towards classical art and how it should be treated.  Which way, however, is slightly ambiguous, as he spends a good portion the poem eloquently describing what the pieces are valued for (“See how she spins! The grace is there”), but spends the remainder of the poem describing blatant maltreatment and disrespect ironically to such treasured and respected paintings.  Upon closer inspection, it almost seems that Wilbur’s perspective on this form of art is less than appreciative; in fact, immediately after describing how a Degas piece is beautiful and energetic, he remarks that Degas himself “purchased once/A fine El Greco, which he kept… To hang his pants on while he slept.”  Even the artists themselves show about as much respect to famous paintings as some underpaid night time security guards, only the security guard has his head resting on the painting; Degas rested on it his clothing which covers the place where the sun don’t shine.  It almost makes the third stanza seem heavily sardonic and cold, that such a vibrant and lively picture was in fact made by an artist who, besides figuratively using El Greco as toilet paper, is described as one who sleeps.  One gets the idea from this blunt, biting tone that the poem is not a cry for better treatment of such paintings, but a scornful laugh and a dismissal of that art form.  In Wilbur’s eyes, these paintings may only be used practically as an uncomfortable pillow for the person it gives a job to, or a fancy decoration which serves little purpose in and of itself.


(Poem is copied off of worksheet)