Wednesday, April 15, 2009

NPM - Day 15


Funeral Blues

by W.H. Auden 

 

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, 

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, 

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum 

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 


Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead 

Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead. 

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, 

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 


He was my North, my South, my East and West, 

My working week and my Sunday rest, 

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; 

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. 


The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, 

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, 

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; 

For nothing now can ever come to any good. 


----------------------------------------


I love this poem.  A group in one of my college classes set it to music, and it was very moving.  Here is a link to a clip from the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral that uses the poem quite affectively.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_a-eXIoyYA

Saturday, April 11, 2009

NPM - Day 11

Spring is like a perhaps hand

 

by E. E. Cummings


          III


Spring is like a perhaps hand 

(which comes carefully 

out of Nowhere)arranging 

a window,into which people look(while 

people stare

arranging and changing placing 

carefully there a strange 

thing and a known thing here)and


changing everything carefully


spring is like a perhaps 

Hand in a window 

(carefully to 

and fro moving New and 

Old things,while 

people stare carefully 

moving a perhaps 

fraction of flower here placing 

an inch of air there)and


without breaking anything.

Friday, April 10, 2009

NPM - Day 10

I know we are past Christmas, but for Good Friday I thought it might be nice to look at a Christmas poem to bring things full circle.

A Christmas Carol
by Christina Rossetti

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part, - 
Yet what I can, I give Him,
Give my heart.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

I'm featured...


So for the past few months I been checking out
Bonobos pants, which look awesome.  Sadly, they are also way out of my budget, or so I thought.  They have an amazing program for men who work in public service fields (like teachers, firefighters, police, etc.) who they are aware might not have the funds to procure their products.  
In order to qualify, you have to send them a brief bio and a pic, and in turn, they give you a discount code.  My bio was featured on Monday, and you can  read it here.   I haven't purchased any pants yet, but when I do, I'll let you know how they are. 

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

NPM - Day 8

How to Read a Poem: Beginner's Manual
by Pamela Spiro Wagner

First, forget everything you have learned, 
that poetry is difficult, 
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you, 
with your high school equivalency diploma, 
your steel-tipped boots, 
or your white-collar misunderstandings. 

Do not assume meanings hidden from you: 
the best poems mean what they say and say it. 

To read poetry requires only courage 
enough to leap from the edge 
and trust. 

Treat a poem like dirt, 
humus rich and heavy from the garden. 
Later it will become the fat tomatoes 
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table. 

Poetry demands surrender, 
language saying what is true, 
doing holy things to the ordinary. 

Read just one poem a day. 
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands 
like a daffodil offering its cup 
to the sun. 

When you can name five poets 
without including Bob Dylan, 
when you exceed your quota 
and don't even notice, 
close this manual.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

NPM - Day 4

Today's poem is dedicated to Mama (Cassidy's grandmother). If you know her, you should know why.
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The Daffodils
by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When 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 never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and 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.

Friday, April 3, 2009

NPM - Day 3

Pied Beauty

by Gerard Manely Hopkins

 

Glory be to God for dappled things--

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;

       And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

 

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                     Praise Him



Thursday, April 2, 2009

NPM - Day 2

My City
By James Weldon Johnson

When I come down to sleep death's endless night,
The threshold of the unknown dark to cross,
What to me then will be the keenest loss,
When this bright world blurs on my fading sight?
Will it be that no more I shall see the trees
Or smell the flowers or hear the singing birds
Or watch the flashing streams or patient herds?
No, I am sure it will be none of these. 

But, ah! Manhattan's sights and sounds, her smells,
Her crowds, her throbbing force, the thrill that comes
From being of her a part, her subtle spells,
Her shining towers, her avenues, her slums--
O God! the stark, unutterable pity,
To be dead, and never again behold my city!

_________________________________________________________________________________________________
I taught this poem for the first time last year, and I fell in love with it.  If you've been to New York (and enjoyed it) then you might be able to empathize with the poem.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

National Poetry Month



That's right people, after a close to 6 month absence from blogging, National Poetry Month has brought me out of my lack of inspiration.

I HATED poetry in high school, for the most part.  But my senior year, I came to love the works of John Donne, including his Holy Sonnets.  In college, I found more that I liked about poetry than I disliked, and now as a high school teacher, I love poetry.

Now, not all poems are equal, and i do like some poems that are slightly odd, but I like what I like. In honor of this month long celebration, I will periodically post some poems that I enjoy.

This first one is dedicated to my students, and anyone else who struggles with poetry.  I've learned that sometimes it is best just to try not to figure a poem out, but instead, just read and enjoy.

Introduction to Poetry 
by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find our what it really means.