New Poem from Poem-a-Day/Long lines

I Have Not Come Here to Compare Notes But to Sit Together in the Stillness at the Edge of This Wound David Kirby

Asked if it isn’t weird to be at an awards ceremony with Gregory Peck, Dylan says, “Well, listen, everything’s weird. You tell me something that’s not weird.” He might as well have said “big,” that his songs are a witness to magnitude, that your poems are. And why shouldn’t they          be? Look at the epic of your life, at the people in it, all heroic. And to think it began with an accident. Somebody looked up at the night sky and            saw a star, somebody in Cracow or Belgrade, maybe, or the city where you live              now. Carbon, nitrogen . . . there was an explosion, and now you have to pay        attention to everything. At the party, everyone was talking about the crappy TV          series that’s so popular, and you didn’t say you wanted better, wanted more. That same night, you met the man you’d love so hard it made your              teeth hurt. He said, “Hey, baby,” and you snapped, “I’m not your baby.” I have nothing to say to you, really. I just want to see what I’m looking        at. I want so much not to listen to you after all this time but to hear.    Copyright © 2016 David Kirby. Used with permission of the author. Work on sestina, villanelle and Favorite poem project. Happy Holidays!

Poem a Day--Tercets

To Live in the Zombie Apocalypse   Burlee Vang

The moon will shine for God knows how long. As if it still matters. As if someone is trying to recall a dream. Believe the brain is a cage of light & rage. When it shuts off, something else switches on. There’s no better reason than now to lock the doors, the windows. Turn off the sprinklers & porch light. Save the books for fire. In darkness, we learn to read what moves along the horizon, across the periphery of a gun scope— the flicker of shadows, the rustling of trash in the body of cities long emptied. Not a soul lives in this house & this house & this house. Go on, stiffen the heart, quicken the blood. To live in a world of flesh & teeth, you must learn to kill what you love, & love what can die.

SOKOL, GANNON, etc.

AGENDA:

Continue to work on sestina and villanelle, Favorite poem project, etc.

SOKOL:      http://www3.libraryweb.org/ffrpl/programs.aspx?id=494591

GANNON:  http://www.gannon.edu/Academic-Offerings/Humanities-Education-and-Social-Sciences/Undergraduate/English/Poetry-Contest/

MLK Jr. Essay Contest:


http://www.rcsdk12.org/cms/lib04/NY01001156/Centricity/domain/1/bulletin%20board/MLK%20ESSAY%20CONTEST.pdf




Prose poem (poem-a-day):

What Is It You Feel I Asked Kurt Diane Seuss

What is it you feel I asked Kurt when you listen to Ravel’s String Quartet in F-major, his face was so lit up and I wondered, “the music is unlike the world I live or think in, it’s from somewhere else, unfamiliar and unknown, not because it is relevant to the familiar and comfortable, but because it brings me to that place that I didn’t/couldn’t imagine existed. And sometimes that unfamiliar place is closer to my world than I realize, and sometimes it’s endlessly distant,” that’s what he wrote in an email when I asked him to remind me what he’d said earlier, off the cuff, “I don’t recall exactly what I said,” he began, a sentence written in iambic pentameter, and then the rest, later he spoke of two of his brothers who died as children, leukemia and fire, his face, soft, I’m listening to Ravel now, its irrelevancy.    Copyright © 2016 Diane Seuss. Used with permission of the author.

The Villanelle

AGENDA:

Continue to work on sestinas and Scholastuc entries  and Favorite Poem script.


Another form:  The Villanelle

Villanelles

The form, according to Turco:

A1  (refrain)
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1 (refrain)

a
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1 (refrain)

a
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1
A2 (refrain)

«

EXAMPLES:

Mad Girl's Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary darkness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said.
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

--Sylvia Plath

«

The Waking

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

--Theodore Roethke

«

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing further, losing faster:
places and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

--Elizabeth Bishop

«

Villanelle for D.G.B.

Every day our bodies separate,
exploded torn and dazed.
Not understanding what we celebrate

we grope through languages and hesitate
and touch each other, speechless and amazed;
and every day our bodies separate

us farther from our planned, deliberate
ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,
not understanding what we celebrate

when our fused limbs and lips communicate
the unlettered power we have raised.
Every day our bodies' separate

routines are harder to perpetuate.
In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,
not understanding what we celebrate;

wake to ourselves, exhausted, in the late
morning as the wind tears off the haze,
not understanding how we celebrate
our bodies. Every day we separate.

--Marilyn Hacker

Scholastic/Sestinas

AGENDA:


http://academyofamericanpoets.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/y/570461C051BCD4F1/FF0EB04BBFA2CA21A2432AF2E34A2A5F

Work on Scholastic entries and sestinas

Poetry calendar:

https://www.poets.org/sites/default/files/poetry-classroom-calendar-16-17.pdf

Sestinas

AGENDA:

Scholastic entries--Dec. 15 DEADLINE!

Favorite poem script: Pick a favorite poem to read.    Your script should be an introduction to who you are and why this poem has special meaning for you.  It doesn't have to be a long script.  Just think about where you want to videotape it and how you want your presentation to look using Moviemaker.

SESTINAS

/www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5792

Check out the Ashbery Sestina!

Here's another famous one

Elizabeth Bishop's Sestina
www.poemhunter.com/poem/sestina/  


And there's also a tritina!
Go to:
http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/wd-poetic-form-challenge-tritina

1 KNOW THE PATTERN. A sestina consists of six sestets (6-line stanzas) and one tercet (3-line stanzas). Each sestet contains the same 6 end-words, but in different a order for each stanza. The final stanza, the tercet, contains 2 "end-words" per line. Following is the pattern for the sestina ==> stanza 1: 1,2,3,4,5,6; stanza 2: 6,1,5,2,4,3; stanza 3: 3,6,4,1,2,5; stanza 4: 5,3,2,6,1,4; stanza 5: 4,5,1,3,6,2; stanza 6: 2,4,6,5,3,1; final stanza: 1&2,3&4,5&6.

2

CHOOSE YOUR 6 WORDS. When deciding on your 6 words, focus on versatility in terms of parts of speech, meaning, and usage. For example, the word "hand" can be a verb or a noun (as in the sentences "Hand me the towel" and "We shook hands," respectively.) "Hand" can be used in idioms (e.g. give me a hand, on the other hand). And finally, "hand" just has a plethora of definitions (e.g. a poker player's cards, a worker).

3

REVIEW & REVISE YOUR 6 WORDS. Are all of your words nouns? Are they all verbs? Do they seem to point to one specific subject matter you're planning to write about? If so, I'd suggest diversifying. Throw some adjectives in there; open a magazine or book, put your finger on the page, and write whatever word it lands on; or add a word that seems completely unrelated to the others.

4

ORGANIZE. Although it might seem tedious to organize ahead of time, it will save you from the grief that comes when realizing you've finally perfected your sestina, but you accidentally messed up the pattern in the third stanza, making the patterns in stanzas 4, 5, 6, and 7, also incorrect. So, on a piece of paper, make 3 columns. The first column is for the number pattern, the second is for the end-words, and the third is for your lines of poetry. If you are staring at a blank computer screen, make a table with 3 columns and 7 rows. Go to your TABLE panel or dropdown, click "Insert Table," and enter the number or columns and rows. (READ STEP 5 before writing the end-words down.)

5

WRITE. There are many ways to start a sestina, so experiment and find what is right for you. As for me, I like starting the first stanza without a particular order in mind for my 6 words. I just make sure one of the 6 words is at the end of each line. Only after writing that first stanza do I fill in my end-word column.

6

USE OTHER DEVICES. Don't let the end-words fool you; they are not necessarily the most important part of the sestina. Don't be afraid to repeat other words, too. This can actually draw some attention away from the end-words, adding a different type of rhythm and also warding off the dreaded monotony that can result from a sestina gone wrong. Enjambment can also create this effect.

7

BE FLEXIBLE. If you are accustomed to writing free verse, the sestina's constraints may seem to take away from what you want to say or what you're trying to do in your poem. However, I suggest that instead of not quite writing the poem you wanted to write, allow yourself to write a different poem than what you'd imagined when you began. There are many surprises to be found when writing in forms.

Poem-a-Day

Notes on the Below   Ada Limón

—For Mammoth Cave National Park Humongous cavern, tell me, wet limestone, sandstone caprock,      bat-wing, sightless translucent cave shrimp, this endless plummet into more of the unknown,                              how one keeps secrets for so long. All my life, I’ve lived above the ground,             car wheels over paved roads, roots breaking through concrete, and still I’ve not understood the reel of this life’s purpose. Not so much living, but a hovering without sense. What’s it like to be always night? No moon, but a few lit up      circles at your many openings. Endless dark, still time must enter you. Like a train, like a green river? Tell me what it is to be the thing rooted in shadow.      To be the thing not touched by light (no that’s not it) to not even need the light? I envy; I envy that. Desire is a tricky thing, the boiling of the body’s wants,             more praise, more hands holding the knives away. I’ve been the one who has craved and craved until I could not see      beyond my own greed. There’s a whole nation of us. To forgive myself, I point to the earth as witness. To you, your Frozen Niagara, your Fat Man’s Misery,             you with your 400 miles of interlocking caves that lead only to more of you, tell me, what it is to be quiet, and yet still breathing.               Ruler of the Underlying, let me speak to both the dead and the living as you do. Speak to the ruined earth, the stalactites, the eastern small-footed bat, to honor this: the length of days. To speak to the core      that creates and swallows, to speak not always to what’s shouting, but to what’s underneath asking for nothing. I am at the mouth of the cave. I am willing to crawl.            Copyright © 2016 by Ada Limón. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 29, 2016, this poem was commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and funded by a National Endowment for the Arts Imagine Your Parks grant. About This Poem   “This poem came out of a recent, almost urgent, need to point back to the earth. We have done so much harm in this life—to one another, to the ground we think we own—and I wanted the chance to speak directly to a sacred place and look for answers, or to simply lay my buzzing mind down at the mercy of the earth’s core.” —Ada Limón

Dialectical Poems/Scholastic/ Favorite Poem Script

AGENDA:

Finish dialectical poems for workshop.

Submit entries for Scholastic.

Begin work on script for Favorite Poem Video project.

Book Talk with Rene Denfeld

By Fiona Ortiz

(Reuters) - Non-fiction writer Rene Denfeld draws on her work as a death penalty investigator in her first novel, "The Enchanted", the story of a prisoner who invents a horrible, liberating beauty deep underground.

Although he doesn't even have a window in his cell, the first-person narrator imagines life on the outside, especially that of a character known as "the lady" who works to redeem death-row prisoners, much as Denfeld does in real life.

In the end all of the characters in "The Enchanted" turn out to be prisoners in one way or another. Perhaps the freest of all is the walled-in narrator, whose disturbed fantasy life leads to a poetic sort of justice.

As a licensed investigator since 2008 Denfeld has interviewed prisoners, on and off death row, and traveled to "the worst parts of the country and the worst streets and homes" to find friends, relatives and teachers who might help her clients avoid or overturn a death sentence.

"The Enchanted" comes after Denfeld's non-fiction books including "The New Victorians", about victimism in the women's movement, and female aggression and violence in "Kill the Body, the Head Will Fall".

Denfeld, from Portland, Oregon, lived on the streets when she was 15, sang in local punk bands, worked as a bartender and journalist, has done amateur boxing and is a mother to three children she adopted from foster care.

Denfeld spoke to Reuters by phone from her home in Portland, about her new book, released in March by HarperCollins.

Q: I learned a lot about prisons from "The Enchanted", much of it disturbing. But it is also a very poetic book. How did you achieve a blend of lyrical and didactic?

A: I wasn't expecting to write a novel, the story came about. I had written non-fiction books and started doing this work as an investigator. The work existed in this magic, special place because I knew I couldn't write about it in a non-fiction way, because it is confidential and privileged. By using the narrator's voice I was able to tell the truth of his prison and of these people, and to do it in a way that captured his particular love of language and this gorgeous poetry flowed out of him. It wasn't that I set out to blend the two, but it happened in a way that felt very authentic.

Q: Is the novel now feeding back into your work as an investigator in some way?

A: I think the novel helped me crystallise and understand the things I witness; it helped me clarify where my own heart was in my work and the nature of my work and I feel blessed to do this work, it gives me a lot of insight. People honor me with their stories and their truth, I get to bear witness to a lot of things.

Q: Can you describe your transition to fiction?

A: What happened was I was leaving the prison in Oregon that has a death row. It's like an ancient stone fortress. It was a beautiful day, and I was walking out to my car after visiting a client on the row. I heard a voice tell me: "This is an enchanted place." And I very slowly followed the voice into the novel. I felt the narrator was telling me the story and I had to transcribe it. The transition felt so completely natural to me. I felt the act of telling fiction allowed me to tell a deeper and more complex set of truths than I've been able to tell in non-fiction. I was able to set aside my ego and opinions and thoughts and tell the story.

Q: Do you hope to inspire prison reform with the novel?

A: The entire time I was writing the novel I didn't tell anyone I was doing it. I didn't give a thought to anyone reading it. I didn't actually give any thought to that. It wasn't meant to be an advocacy book, it was meant to tell the truth of the narrator. The issue of the corrupt guard and what he does to the character called the white-haired boy, that happens and that is the truth.

Q: Is the prison in the novel based on a particular prison? You describe something called the Dugdemona Cage where death row inmates are chained for visits with lawyers and investigators. Does that exist?

A: The narrator is based on all the clients I've had and the prison is based on all the prisons and jails I've visited. One thing that is common is the cage that was described. It's a cage that looks like something out of "Silence of the Lambs".

Q: Why are some characters named and others are not?

A: The men on the row are all named, most of the inmates are named, but the people that work outside, the lady, the warden, the priest, they are largely unnamed. For the narrator, they are like mythical creatures. They live lives that he can only imagine. The usual construct in our society is that prisoners are nameless, but inside a prison that's their world and the people outside are the nameless ones. I've noticed we tend to make these people invisible. Thousands of people go into these places and effectively disappear.

Q: Books are a salvation for the narrator. Have you seen that really happen to prisoners?

A: A lot of people are illiterate when they go in. It's not until they do a terrible thing that they start learning to read. It's heartbreaking because through books they realize they had other choices, there were other possibilities, other lives they could have lived. They discover all this too late.

(Editing by Michael Roddy)

The Enchanted

The Enchanted

AGENDA:

Read to pg. 41.  Over the break, finish the book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPokme2t3_s

Think, Pair, Share:

Discuss and respond to questions 1 -4  with a blog  comment that refers to text evidence.  Cite page numbers and quote from text.:

1. The novel opens with the line, “This is an enchanted place. Others don’t see it but I do.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word “enchant” as ”to attract and hold the attention of (someone) by being interesting, pretty, etc.; to put a magic spell on (someone or something).” Why does the narrator call this place enchanted? What beauty does he find in his surroundings that others do not? What does this tell us about the narrator?

2. Talk about the main characters: the narrator, the lady, the priest, and York, the prisoner on death row at the center of the story. How are these characters’ lives and their fates intrinsically connected? What do we learn about the lady and the priest from the narrator?

3. Why does York want to die and why does the lady want to save him? Is he worth saving? How does she go about gathering evidence to understand his case, knowledge that might prevent his execution? What propels her choice at the novel’s end?

4. Think about York. What were your first impressions about him when he’s introduced? As you discovered more about his story, did your outlook towards him change? How does the experience of investigating York’s past affect the lady and her outlook towards York? How does it shape how she sees her own life?

Check out The White Dawn:

https://www.amazon.com/White-Dawn-Eskimo-Saga/dp/015696256X

The lady, an investigator who excels at uncovering information to save her clients from execution. . . The fallen priest, beaten down by his guilt over a terrible sin and its tragic consequences. . . The warden, a kind man within a cruel system. . . The mute prisoner, sensing what others cannot in what he calls "this enchanted place" . . .The enchanted place is an ancient stone prison. Two outsiders walk here: a woman known only as the lady, and a fallen priest. The lady comes to the prison when she has a job to do. She's skilled at finding the secrets that get men off death row. This gift threatens her career--and complicates her life--when she takes on the case of York, a killer whose date of execution looms. York is different from the lady's former clients: he wants to die. Going against the condemned man's wishes, the lady begins her work. What she uncovers about York's birth and upbringing rings chillingly familiar. In York's shocking and shameful childhood, the lady sees the shadows of her own.The lady is watched by a death row inmate who finds escape in the books he reads from the prison library and by reimagining the world he inhabits--a world of majestic golden horses that stampede underground and of tiny men who hammer away inside stone walls. He is not named, nor do we know his crime. But he listens. He listens to York's story. He sees the lady fall in love with the priest and wonders how such warmth is possible in these crumbling corridors. As tensions in "this enchanted place" build, he sees the corruption and the danger. And he waits as the hour of his own destiny approaches.The Enchanted is a magical novel about redemption, the poetry that can exist within the unfathomable, and the human capacity to transcend and survive even the most nightmarish reality. Beautiful and unexpected, this is a memorable story.

TOMORROW:  Ensemble Theatre Periods 3/4 Master Class

Willa Carroll and Sejal Shah

http://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/fall-2013/narrative-outloud/reading-her-poetry-willa-carroll

Ellen Bass

Any Common Desolation Ellen Bass

can be enough to make you look up at the yellowed leaves of the apple tree, the few that survived the rains and frost, shot with late afternoon sun. They glow a deep orange-gold against a blue so sheer, a single bird would rip it like silk. You may have to break your heart, but it isn’t nothing to know even one moment alive. The sound of an oar in an oarlock or a ruminant animal tearing grass. The smell of grated ginger. The ruby neon of the liquor store sign. Warm socks. You remember your mother, her precision a ceremony, as she gathered the white cotton, slipped it over your toes, drew up the heel, turned the cuff. A breath can uncoil as you walk across your own muddy yard, the big dipper pouring night down over you, and everything you dread, all you can’t bear, dissolves and, like a needle slipped into your vein— that sudden rush of the world. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/ellen-bass Write a poem about consolation.  What offers you hope and faith in yourself and the world?