[Vicki] Tell Me About Yourself When You Were 17 - Naomi Shihab Nye

We would lie down on the grass in the steamy dark, cypress trees rimming our kisses, their stoic, silent height. Was it bad luck to kiss on a grave? No one could have told us how much would disappear within a year. The best cat, run over by the one who loved him. Grandmother, and the lady who owned the horses. My favorite field. I would stroke your smooth Mexican skin and you would not talk to me, hardly ever, but you would meet me on the plot of the 1924 priest and close your eyes. I could feel the cloud passing over the moon without looking up and I would never find you in a telephone book for the rest of my life.

Tell Me About Yourself When You Were 17 - Naomi Shihab Nye

[Vicki]

Elizabeth Bishop, "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 every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, 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.

[Jina]

e. e. cummings, "9."

there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does
not get out of order nor do
its hands a little jerking move
over numbers slowly

   we do not
wind it up it has no weights
springs wheels inside of
its slender self no indeed dear
nothing of the kind.

(So,when kiss Spring comes
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks toc don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to 
kiss me)

[Jina]

Emily Dickinson, "Because I could not stop for death"

Because I could not stop for Death – 
He kindly stopped for me –  
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –  
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility – 

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –  
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –  
We passed the Setting Sun – 

Or rather – He passed us – 
The Dews drew quivering and chill – 
For only Gossamer, my Gown – 
My Tippet – only Tulle – 

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground – 
The Roof was scarcely visible – 
The Cornice – in the Ground – 

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads 
Were toward Eternity – 

[Jina]

Ted Hughes, "Hawk Roosting"

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.

Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.


[Jina]

A is for Parrot

A    is for Parrot which we can plainly see
B    is for glasses which we can plainly see
C    is for plastic which we can plainly see
D    is for Doris
E    is for binoculars I'll get it in five
F    is for Ethel who lives next door
G   is for Orange which we love to eat when we can get
      them because they came from abroad.
H   is for England and (Heather)
I    is for monkey we see in the tree
J    is for parrot which we can plainly see
K   is for shoetop we wear to the ball
L    is for Land because brown
M   is for Venezuela where the oranges came from
N   is for Brazil near Venezuela (very near)
O   is for football which we kick about a bit
T    is for Tommy who won the war.
Q   is a garden which we can plainly see
R   is for intestines which hurt when we dance
S   is for pancake or whole-wheat bread.
U   is for Ethel who lives on the hill
P   is arab and her sister will
V   is for me
W  is for lighter which never lights
X   is easter - have one yourself
Y   is a crooked letter and you can't straighten it.
Z   is for Apple which we can plainly see.
 
 
This is my story both humble and true
take it to pieces and mend it with glue.


John Lennon



[Rachel] - I honestly have no idea what this poem is about exactly, but you got to admit that it's fun right? And i think the students will have fun trying to make sense of it too.. It's got an interesting structure.

Poem

As the cat
climbed over
the top of

the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot

carefully
then the hind
stepped down

into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot


William Carlos Williams


[Rachel]