Global Centrum
Chicago
Conversations for Week 11 of Week 6 197576
Friday night
Spin: In high school I had to memorize poetry. I can still remember some of that poetry. Recite poem or poems.
What poetry did you have to memorize? Can you still remember it? Call for recitations.
What has been the effect of this poetry? Where can you remember yourself recalling it?
What features characteristic to poetry as an art form? How has it enabled you in the past?
What poetry would you memorize today or assign a spirit colleague
to memorize? (Emerging generation for instance)
Saturday morning
Spin: Poetry can be an existential address on our lives, address
depth issues, in images that prose cannot.
Read one of following poems
What events or memories came to mind while the poem was being read?
Where in the poem did that happen?
What about the poem brought that to mind?
How did the poetry address that situation?
Close with reading another poem.
John Donne: Holy Sonnet #10
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou thinkest thou canst overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men
And cost with poison, war and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell's" thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
John Milton: On His Blindness
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve there with my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
"Doth God exact daylabor, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God cloth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."
Robert Frost: Acquainted with the Night
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rainand back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwillinq to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say goodby;
And further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
Saturday noon
Spin: Poetry addresses contemporary issues and calls attention to
innocent suffering
Read one of following poems.
What lines do you remember?
What were the issues being addressed?
How did the poem shift your relation to the issue?
What mood did it create?
How did it illuminate the issue for you?
What new story did the poem create for you?
John Davidson: War Song
In anguish we uplift
A new unhallowed song;
The race is to the swift;
The battle to the strong.
Of old it was ordained
That we, in packs like curs,
Some thirty million trained
And licensed murderers,
In crime should live and act,
If cunning folk say sooth
Who flay the naked fact
And carve the heart of truth.
The rulers cry aloud,
"We cannot cancel war,
The end and bloody shroud
Of wrongs the worst abhor,
And order's swaddling band:
Know that relentless strife
Remains by sea and land
The holiest law of life.
From fear in every guise,
From sloth, from lust of pelf,
By war's great sacrifice
The world redeems itself.
War is the source, the theme
Of art; the goal, the bent
And brilliant academe
Of noble sentiment;
The augury, the dawn
Of golden times of grace;
The true catholicon
And bloodbath of the race."
We thirty million trained
And licensed murderers,
Like zanies rigged, and chained
By drill and scourge and curse
In shackles of despair
We know not how to break
What do we victims care
For art, what interest take
In things unseen, unheart?
Some diplomat no doubt
Will launch a heedless word,
And lurking war leap out!
We spellbound armies then,
Huge brutes in dumb distress,
Machines compact of men
Who once had consciences,
Must tample harvests down
Vineyard, and corn and oil
Dismantle town by town
Hamlet and homestead spoil
On each appointed path,
Till lust of havoc light
A bloodred blaze of wrath
In every frenzied sight
In many a mountain pass,
Or meadow green and fresh,
Mass shall encounter mass
Of shuddering human flesh;
Opposing ordnance roar
Across the swaths of slain,
And blood in torrents pour
In vain always in vain,
For war breeds war again
The shameful dream is past,
The subtle maze untrod:
We recognize at last
That war is not of God.
Wherefore we now uplift
Our new unhallowed song;
The race is to the swift,
The battle to the strong.
Robert Burns: To a Mouse on Turning her up in her Nest with the Plow
Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastle,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awae see hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be faith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle.
I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earthborn companion,
An' fellowmortal!
I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastle, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the rave,
An' never miss't.
Thy wee bit housie, too in ruin!
It's stily wa's the winds are strewin!
An naething, now, to build a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste
An' weary winter comin' fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell
Till crash! the cruel courter past
Cut thro' thy cell.
That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be in vain;
The bestlaid schemes 0' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain
For promised joy!
Still thou art blest, compared wi' me,
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I cannot see,
I guess and fear!
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: A Coney Island of the Mind
In Goya's greatest scenes we seem to see
the people of the world
exactly at the nominate when
they first attained3 the title of
"suffering humanity"
They writhe upon the page
in a veritable rage
of adversity
Heaped up
groaning with babies and bayonets
under cement skies
in an abstract landscape of blasted trees
bent statues bats wings and beaks
slippery giblets
cadavers and carnivorous cocks
and all the final hollering monsters
of the
`imagination of disaster'
they are so bloody real
it is as if they really sti1l existed
And they do
Only the landscape is changed
They still are ranged along the roads
plagued by legionnaires
false windmills and demented roosters
They are the same people
only further from home
on freeways fifty lanes wide
on a concrete continent
spaced with bland billboards
illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness
The scene shows fewer tumbrils
but more maimed citizens
in painted cars
and they have strange license plates
and engines that
devour America
Eve Merriam THE NUB OF THE NATION From The Inner City Mother Goose,
This is the nub of the nation:
In that nation is a city,
In that city is a ghetto,
In that ghetto is a street,
On that street there is a house,
In that house there is a stair,
On that stair there is a door,
Through that door there waits a room,
In that room there is a chair,
On that chair there is a person
Sitting staring there.
Sitting staring there
On the broken chair,
Chair in the cockroach room,
Room on the worn out stair,
Stair in the nocare house,
House on the dropdead street,
Street in the ghetto rot,
Ghetto rooted in the city,
City spreading everywhere:
And this is the nub of the nation;
Saturday night
Spin Poetry can, be a lot of fun not always grim and serious
Read series of poems
Have several people read one poem in different ways
What reflections do these poems evoke?
We've come at poetry in several ways so far what are your reflections
on the use of poetry?
Edward Lear: Ten Limericks (a selection)
There was an Old Man of Hong Kong
Who never did anything wrong;
He lay on his back,
With his head in a sack,
That innocuous Old Man of Hong Kong
There was an Old Man of Thermopylae,
Who never did anything properly;
But they said "If you choose
To boil Eggs in your Shoes
You shall never remain in Thermopylae."
There was an Old Man of Dumbree,
Who taught little Owls to drink Tea;
For he said "To eat mice,
Is not proper or nice."
That amiable Man of Dumbree
John Donne: Woman's Constancy
Now thou hast loved me one whole day,
Tomorrow when thou leav'st, what wilt thou say?
Wilt thou then antedate some newmade vow?
Or say that now
We are not just those persons which we were?
Or, that oaths made in reverential fear
Of love, and kits wrath, any may forswear?
Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,
So lovers' contracts, images of those,
Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose?
Or, your own end to justify,
For having purposed change and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true?
Vain lunatic, against these scapes I could
Dispute and conquer, if I would;
Which I abstain to do,
For by tomorrow. I may think so too.
Lawrence Ferlinghetft: A Cony Island of the Mind
See
it was like this when
we waltz into this place
a couple of Papish cats
is doing an Aztec twostep
And I says
Dad let's cut
but then this dame
comes up behind me see
and says:
You and me could really exist
Wow I says
Only the next day
She has bad teeth
and really hates
poetry
Sunday morning
Spin: Poetry is the Being before the Doing
What are the themes of poetry in our time?
What style would you use in contemporary poetry?
What is the role of poetry in our common life?
What new role has poetry assumed?
Close with reading of Poem
William Wordsworth: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
W ten all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in neverending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them dance, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company.
I gazedand gazed but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude:
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.