willowtreepoems

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Blackberry-Picking

BY SEAMUS HEANEY

for Philip HobsbaumLate August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots. Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills We trekked and picked until the cans were full, Until the tinkling bottom had been covered With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's. We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre. But when the bath was filled we found a fur, A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache. The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

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Map of the New World

BY DEREK WALCOTT

I ArchipelagoesAt the end of this sentence, rain will begin. At the rain's edge, a sail. Slowly the sail will lose sight of islands; into a mist will go the belief in harbours of an entire race. The ten-years war is finished. Helen's hair, a grey cloud. Troy, a white ashpit by the drizzling sea. The drizzle tightens like the strings of a harp. A man with clouded eyes picks up the rain and plucks the first line of the Odyssey.

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Post Cold War/New Modernism

This week we went over poems that came after the cold war and began the new era of modernism. This era was full of diversity and emotions as larger social problems began to be tackled in the poems written. Many were nationalist to their homes, showcasing the beauties, and others went as far as calling out political atrocities in their countries.

Some important poets we were given:

Derek Walcott

Seamus Heaney

Both poets had extreme benefits to helping the poetic world grow and advance throughout modern growth.

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Epilogue

BY ROBERT LOWELL

Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme— why are they no help to me now I want to make something imagined, not recalled? I hear the noise of my own voice: The painter’s vision is not a lens, it trembles to caress the light. But sometimes everything I write with the threadbare art of my eye seems a snapshot, lurid, rapid, garish, grouped, heightened from life, yet paralyzed by fact. All’s misalliance. Yet why not say what happened? Pray for the grace of accuracy Vermeer gave to the sun’s illumination stealing like the tide across a map to his girl solid with yearning. We are poor passing facts, warned by that to give each figure in the photograph his living name.

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“Because he swings so neatly through the trees,”

BY RICHARD WILBUR

Because he swings so neatly through the trees, An ape feels natural in the word trapeze.

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Little Exercise

BY ELIZABETH BISHOP

for Thomas Edwards WanningThink of the storm roaming the sky uneasily like a dog looking for a place to sleep in, listen to it growling. Think how they must look now, the mangrove keys lying out there unresponsive to the lightning in dark, coarse-fibred families, where occasionally a heron may undo his head, shake up his feathers, make an uncertain comment when the surrounding water shines. Think of the boulevard and the little palm trees all stuck in rows, suddenly revealed as fistfuls of limp fish-skeletons. It is raining there. The boulevard and its broken sidewalks with weeds in every crack are relieved to be wet, the sea to be freshened. Now the storm goes away again in a series of small, badly lit battle-scenes, each in "Another part of the field." Think of someone sleeping in the bottom of a row-boat tied to a mangrove root or the pile of a bridge; think of him as uninjured, barely disturbed.

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Cold War Poems

This week we discussed to cold war era of poetry and how the race to succeed in the world created a new way of life in the world. In American poetry it fostered hope and nationalism where as in some other places around the world this cold war equated fear and worry for what is to come.

Some poets famous for this time period are:

Elizabeth Bishop

Richard Wilbur

Robert Lowell

This was also a time for new invention as Poetry took a new form and meter in Beat Poetry. This poetry was designed too show more emotion and seriousness to the issues in the world.

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The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

BY RANDALL JARRELL

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

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Evening

BY H. D.

The light passes

from ridge to ridge,

from flower to flower—

the hepaticas, wide-spread

under the light

grow faint—

the petals reach inward,

the blue tips bend

toward the bluer heart

and the flowers are lost.

The cornel-buds are still white,

but shadows dart

from the cornel-roots—

black creeps from root to root,

each leaf

cuts another leaf on the grass,

shadow seeks shadow,

then both leaf

and leaf-shadow are lost.

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September 1, 1939

W. H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong.Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good.The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone.From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; "I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work," And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the deaf, Who can speak for the dumb?All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

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WWII Era

This week we read poems from the WWII era. A time where rights were being discussed, war was breaking out, and there was a time of reform in all aspects of life.

Poetry in this time was either to challenge reform or mourn the loss of those who died in the battles at hand.

W.H. Auden

H.D. or Hilda Doolittle

Randall Jarrell

These were some of the most well known poets in the time period that we were discussing.

These poets not only used imagery to detailed describe the gore and horror on the field but also used alliteration and allusion to pull the readers in to the heavy topics.

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1920s-1930s Poem

My personal favorite poet to come about in this time frame is Robert Frost. He will in this time make a huge name for himself as he talks about the rualist life style he chose to live.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

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Continuation for the 1920s-1930s

As we all came in to the year 2020 we had a wild idea to ask for the roaring 20s once again and sure enough we have a rough carbon copy. From sickness, threatening of war (cross our fingers that there will be none), as well as the stock market never being consistent and easily one of the most frustrating things to watch. This week in 20th century poetry we discussed to oh so loved time periods that was painted to look glamorous by movies like Annie and The Great Gatsby ( we love you Leo ). In this time period there was a big social dilemma in how we should handle war and foreign affairs causing a huge social and economical shift all over the world. Women became much more important to society as the supported the men on the battle field and money was fluid not set. This created a vibrant time for authors and poets alike. Literature was booming since people needed an escape from the issues at hand. With this escape though paved a new way of poetry for years to come.

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The Last Laugh

BY WILFRED OWEN

‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died. Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed,                 The Bullets chirped—In vain, vain, vain!                 Machine-guns chuckled—Tut-tut! Tut-tut!                 And the Big Gun guffawed. Another sighed,—‘O Mother,—mother,—Dad!’ Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead.                 And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud                 Leisurely gestured,—Fool!                             And the splinters spat, and tittered. ‘My Love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood, Till slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.                 And the Bayonets’ long teeth grinned;                 Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;                 And the Gas hissed.

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The City of Sleep

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

Over the edge of the purple down,   Where the single lamplight gleams, Know ye the road to the Merciful Town   That is hard by the Sea of Dreams – Where the poor may lay their wrongs away,   And the sick may forget to weep? But we – pity us! Oh, pity us!   We wakeful; ah, pity us! – We must go back with Policeman Day –   Back from the City of Sleep! Weary they turn from the scroll and crown,   Fetter and prayer and plough – They that go up to the Merciful Town,   For her gates are closing now. It is their right in the Baths of Night   Body and soul to steep, But we – pity us! ah, pity us!   We wakeful; oh, pity us! – We must go back with Policeman Day –   Back from the City of Sleep! Over the edge of the purple down,   Ere the tender dreams begin, Look – we may look – at the Merciful Town,   But we may not enter in! Outcasts all, from her guarded wall   Back to our watch we creep: We – pity us! ah, pity us!   We wakeful; ah, pity us! – We that go back with Policeman Day –   Back from the City of Sleep!

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The Death Bed

BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls; Aqueous like floating rays of amber light, Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep. Silence and safety; and his mortal shore Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death. Someone was holding water to his mouth. He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot The opiate throb and ache that was his wound. Water—calm, sliding green above the weir; Water—a sky-lit alley for his boat, Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers And shaken hues of summer: drifting down, He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept. Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward, Blowing the curtain to a gummering curve. Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud; Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green, Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes. Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark; Fragrance and passionless music woven as one; Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace, Gently and slowly washing life away. He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs. But someone was beside him; soon he lay Shuddering because that evil thing had passed. And death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared. Light many lamps and gather round his bed. Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live. Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet. He's young; he hated war; how should he die When cruel old campaigners win safe through? But death replied: “I choose him.” So he went, And there was silence in the summer night; Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

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WW1 Poetry

In this weeks module we learned about poetry through World War 1 and how it affected not only the world but the linguistic world around those in that time. Writing had become more descriptive and a source to cling on to as writing was a universal way for people to remember how connected everyone was with one another. Everyone all around the world friend or foe all had the same feelings passing through them at one point or another: fear, anger, nationalism, pride, happiness, sadness, and the feelings of loss. 

The poets we focused on this week was

Siegfried Sassoon

Rudyard Kipling

Wilfred Owen

WW1 was the highlight for social and class reform in all the nations involved and in tangled in this battle. From women's suffrage in America to the revolutions in Russia all of the world was on the brink of a change that would last for many life time.

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