I am a glowing star, make me the silver planet,
I am a dirty rag, make me the red carpet,
I am a piece of mattress, make me the four-poster bed,
I am a tiny match, make me the raging fire,
I am a hot light bulb, make me the flaming sun,
I am a flake of snow, make me the snow queen,
I am a clear raindrop, make me the colour-filled rainbow,
I am a shivering small girl, make me the powerful giant.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
You Can't Be That by Brian Patten
I told them
When I grow up
I'm not going to be a scientist
Or someone who reads the news on TV
No, a million birds will fly through me.
I AM GOING TO BE A TREE!
They said,
You can't be that. No, you can't be that.
I told them
When I grow up
I'm not going to be an airline pilot,
A dancer, a lawyer or an MC.
No, huge whales will swim in me.
I AM GOING TO BE AN OCEAN!
They said,
You can't be that. No, you can't be that.
I told them:
I am not going to be a DJ,
A computer programmer, a musician or a beautician.
No, streams will flow through me, I'll be the home of the eagles;
I'll be full of nooks, crannies, valleys and fountains.
I AM GOING TO BE A RANGE OF MOUNTAINS!
They said,
You can't be that. No, you can't be that.
I asked them:
Just what do you think I am?
Just a child, they said,
And children always become
At least one of the things
We want them to be.
They do not understand me.
I'll be a stable if I want, smelling of fresh hay,
I'll be a lost glade in which unicorns still play.
They do not realise I can fulfil any ambition.
They do not realise that among them
walks a magician.
When I grow up
I'm not going to be a scientist
Or someone who reads the news on TV
No, a million birds will fly through me.
I AM GOING TO BE A TREE!
They said,
You can't be that. No, you can't be that.
I told them
When I grow up
I'm not going to be an airline pilot,
A dancer, a lawyer or an MC.
No, huge whales will swim in me.
I AM GOING TO BE AN OCEAN!
They said,
You can't be that. No, you can't be that.
I told them:
I am not going to be a DJ,
A computer programmer, a musician or a beautician.
No, streams will flow through me, I'll be the home of the eagles;
I'll be full of nooks, crannies, valleys and fountains.
I AM GOING TO BE A RANGE OF MOUNTAINS!
They said,
You can't be that. No, you can't be that.
I asked them:
Just what do you think I am?
Just a child, they said,
And children always become
At least one of the things
We want them to be.
They do not understand me.
I'll be a stable if I want, smelling of fresh hay,
I'll be a lost glade in which unicorns still play.
They do not realise I can fulfil any ambition.
They do not realise that among them
walks a magician.
Children's Song by R.S. Thomas
We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Facebook Sonnet by Sherman Alexie
Welcome to the endless high-school
Reunion. Welcome to past friends
And lovers, however kind or cruel.
Let's undervalue and unmend
The present. Why can't we pretend
Every stage of life is the same?
Let's exhume, resume and extend
Childhood. Let's all play the games
That preoccupy the young. Let fame
And shame intertwine. Let one's search
For God become public domain.
Let church.com become our church.
Let's sign up, sign in and confess
Here at the altar of loneliness.
Reunion. Welcome to past friends
And lovers, however kind or cruel.
Let's undervalue and unmend
The present. Why can't we pretend
Every stage of life is the same?
Let's exhume, resume and extend
Childhood. Let's all play the games
That preoccupy the young. Let fame
And shame intertwine. Let one's search
For God become public domain.
Let church.com become our church.
Let's sign up, sign in and confess
Here at the altar of loneliness.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Found poetry
This post puts together bits and pieces about how found poetry can be incorporated in the classroom.
Why?
1. Convenient, accessible way to generate poetry
2. Encourages wordplay, sensitivity to how a text is arranged
3. Brings literature out in the open (guerilla submission method - "found" poetry)
--
Classic example:
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
William Carlos Williams
--
Great contemporary example:
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
Hart Seely, Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld
--
NYT Learning Network always provides teaching wisdom:
Student Challenge: Create a Found Poem from the News
Article on Found & Headline Poems
--
Another way of generating poetry, this time using search engines to craft prose poetry paragraphs:
Poegles
--
Submission: Put it somewhere, guerilla-style.
Things We Forget
Possible locations
- In a library book
- Under a chair or table
- At the back of the toilet cubicle door (captive audience)
- On the toilet mirror
- On a teacher's desk
- On a refrigerator
Etc
Why?
1. Convenient, accessible way to generate poetry
2. Encourages wordplay, sensitivity to how a text is arranged
3. Brings literature out in the open (guerilla submission method - "found" poetry)
--
Classic example:
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
William Carlos Williams
--
Great contemporary example:
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
Hart Seely, Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld
--
NYT Learning Network always provides teaching wisdom:
Student Challenge: Create a Found Poem from the News
Article on Found & Headline Poems
--
Another way of generating poetry, this time using search engines to craft prose poetry paragraphs:
Poegles
--
Submission: Put it somewhere, guerilla-style.
Possible locations
- In a library book
- Under a chair or table
- At the back of the toilet cubicle door (captive audience)
- On the toilet mirror
- On a teacher's desk
- On a refrigerator
Etc
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Geography Lesson by Brian Patten
Our teacher told us one day he would leave
And sail across a warm blue sea
To places he had only known from maps,
And all his life had longed to be.
The house he lived in was narrow and grey
But in his mind's eye he could see
Sweet-scented jasmine clinging to the walls,
And green leaves burning on an orange tree.
He spoke of the lands he longed to visit,
Where it was never drab or cold.
I couldn't understand why he never left,
And shook off the school`s stranglehold.
Then halfway through his final term
He took ill and never returned.
He never got to that place on the map
Where the green leaves of the orange trees burned.
The maps were redrawn on the classroom wall;
His name forgotten, he faded away.
But a lesson he never knew he taught
Is with me to this day.
I travel to where the green leaves burn,
To where the ocean's glass-clear and blue,
To places our teacher taught me to love-
And which he never knew.
And sail across a warm blue sea
To places he had only known from maps,
And all his life had longed to be.
The house he lived in was narrow and grey
But in his mind's eye he could see
Sweet-scented jasmine clinging to the walls,
And green leaves burning on an orange tree.
He spoke of the lands he longed to visit,
Where it was never drab or cold.
I couldn't understand why he never left,
And shook off the school`s stranglehold.
Then halfway through his final term
He took ill and never returned.
He never got to that place on the map
Where the green leaves of the orange trees burned.
The maps were redrawn on the classroom wall;
His name forgotten, he faded away.
But a lesson he never knew he taught
Is with me to this day.
I travel to where the green leaves burn,
To where the ocean's glass-clear and blue,
To places our teacher taught me to love-
And which he never knew.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
My city, my canvas by Heng Siok Tian
How do I colour my city
with creatures busy in living?
Do I walk along as if on an errand
seeking a lotus pond afloat with enlightenment?
Do I go in search of orchid petals
to unfurl whorls for hybrid pollens?
Do I hurry along street plans and measure landuse
to draw lines and shapes for my canvas?
My city has no mountain ranges
to be unscrolled broadened brownness,
neither has she bushfires nor epic tragedies
but her sky can be
as dry and distant as a desert's.
My city has campaigns, policies and long-term planning,
has a reputation for drivenness
of a small country,
has shopping malls and more ...
Is my canvas
a surrealscape of
a slim city slowly coated with melting cheese
where there are crowns with broken legs,
jugglers balancing on shaky stakes,
children spinning on top of whales
growing up to be adults with briefcases
on top of flying clocks?
I want to hiss a snake out of a kettle,
drink it like coffee as steam scatters
that I may
frame with passing beatitude and mosaic wisdom,
my city, my canvas.
with creatures busy in living?
Do I walk along as if on an errand
seeking a lotus pond afloat with enlightenment?
Do I go in search of orchid petals
to unfurl whorls for hybrid pollens?
Do I hurry along street plans and measure landuse
to draw lines and shapes for my canvas?
My city has no mountain ranges
to be unscrolled broadened brownness,
neither has she bushfires nor epic tragedies
but her sky can be
as dry and distant as a desert's.
My city has campaigns, policies and long-term planning,
has a reputation for drivenness
of a small country,
has shopping malls and more ...
Is my canvas
a surrealscape of
a slim city slowly coated with melting cheese
where there are crowns with broken legs,
jugglers balancing on shaky stakes,
children spinning on top of whales
growing up to be adults with briefcases
on top of flying clocks?
I want to hiss a snake out of a kettle,
drink it like coffee as steam scatters
that I may
frame with passing beatitude and mosaic wisdom,
my city, my canvas.
The Portrait of a Sentenced Library by Alfian Sa'at
So these bricks will be torn down
And books will still not have learnt
To spread their feathers and fly
Like pigeons from a shaken tree
So this balustrade will be dismantled
Perhaps reassembled somewhere else -
A conch paperweight by my head is a beach.
Each hour from a postcard Big Ben chimes.
This is the logic of nostalgia -
This is what I mean when I say
That my memory is selfish.
Who can guarantee that roaming
Through a tunnel I will find again
The Children's Section, where a boy walked
With 'the Little Prince' in his hands,
His smile the first line of a novel
Neither of us had read before?
One cymbal left in Chinatown.
Blueprints and forums and rhetoric ensure
That a firecracker makes no sound.
So the shattered glass of Van Kleef Aquarium
Still magnifies the eyelashes of students.
So the ragged screen of Capitol Cinema
Still shudders as a Pontianak drips black blood.
Only in dreams. Under separate stars.
I had one last night; of sitting at S-11
With the usual bunch of affectionate liars,
Skinny artists, red-eyed dreamers,
When suddenly a book appeared in the sky
Like a carrier pigeon that had escaped
From the ruins of the library.
It landed, without a murmur,
On my shoulder. I opened that book,
Expecting a cry for help, a refugee's plea.
What I found instead was this poem
That did not know how to end. Only when.
And books will still not have learnt
To spread their feathers and fly
Like pigeons from a shaken tree
So this balustrade will be dismantled
Perhaps reassembled somewhere else -
A conch paperweight by my head is a beach.
Each hour from a postcard Big Ben chimes.
This is the logic of nostalgia -
This is what I mean when I say
That my memory is selfish.
Who can guarantee that roaming
Through a tunnel I will find again
The Children's Section, where a boy walked
With 'the Little Prince' in his hands,
His smile the first line of a novel
Neither of us had read before?
One cymbal left in Chinatown.
Blueprints and forums and rhetoric ensure
That a firecracker makes no sound.
So the shattered glass of Van Kleef Aquarium
Still magnifies the eyelashes of students.
So the ragged screen of Capitol Cinema
Still shudders as a Pontianak drips black blood.
Only in dreams. Under separate stars.
I had one last night; of sitting at S-11
With the usual bunch of affectionate liars,
Skinny artists, red-eyed dreamers,
When suddenly a book appeared in the sky
Like a carrier pigeon that had escaped
From the ruins of the library.
It landed, without a murmur,
On my shoulder. I opened that book,
Expecting a cry for help, a refugee's plea.
What I found instead was this poem
That did not know how to end. Only when.
On the Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan
On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
Only the Moon by Wong May
When I was a child I thought
The new moon was a cradle
The full moon was granny's round face
The new moon was a banana
The full moon was a big cake.
When I was a child
I never saw the moon.
I only saw what I wanted to see.
And now I see the moon
It's the moon,
Only the moon, and nothing but the moon.
The new moon was a cradle
The full moon was granny's round face
The new moon was a banana
The full moon was a big cake.
When I was a child
I never saw the moon.
I only saw what I wanted to see.
And now I see the moon
It's the moon,
Only the moon, and nothing but the moon.
Morning Train by Alfian Sa'at
Why do you not look at each other's
Faces? Is the scenery that arresting,
One housing estate giving birth
To yet another copy?
Or the advertisements, read and re-read,
As if behind a slogan's promise lay
Hidden promise? Answer me:
Is that consciousness rising in you,
Dissolving your fatigue like a plastic sheet
Warping in heat, or is that simply
Sleep, draining away from you
Down to your soles, to the invisible tracks
Where the dew is dying? Where electricity
Is what pushes you to the borders
Of your own loneliness, against
The vulgar loneliness of crowds
Faces? Is the scenery that arresting,
One housing estate giving birth
To yet another copy?
Or the advertisements, read and re-read,
As if behind a slogan's promise lay
Hidden promise? Answer me:
Is that consciousness rising in you,
Dissolving your fatigue like a plastic sheet
Warping in heat, or is that simply
Sleep, draining away from you
Down to your soles, to the invisible tracks
Where the dew is dying? Where electricity
Is what pushes you to the borders
Of your own loneliness, against
The vulgar loneliness of crowds
Other National Virtues by Gwee Li Sui
I asked for teh tarek
Got half the glass in effervescence
Got food poisoning because
Half my mee's in its adolescence
Criticize, complain, condemn
With a hand over the abdomemn.
The players pant like pups
Think they are playing table tennis
The blundering referee
Is giving me tuberculosis
Criticize, complain, condemn
Throughout the National Stadiemn.
Sure, we may know we live
In a kind of modern paradise
But it's hell when we come to
Any bureaucratic exercise
Criticize, complain, condemn
All over on the referendemn.
Got half the glass in effervescence
Got food poisoning because
Half my mee's in its adolescence
Criticize, complain, condemn
With a hand over the abdomemn.
The players pant like pups
Think they are playing table tennis
The blundering referee
Is giving me tuberculosis
Criticize, complain, condemn
Throughout the National Stadiemn.
Sure, we may know we live
In a kind of modern paradise
But it's hell when we come to
Any bureaucratic exercise
Criticize, complain, condemn
All over on the referendemn.
Ars Poetica - A Polemic by Nina Cassian
I am I.
I am personal.
I am subjective, intimate, private, particular,
confessional.
All that happens
happens to me.
The landscape I describe
is myself...
If you're interested
in birds, trees, rivers,
try reference books,
don't read my poems.
I'm no indexed birds,
tree or river,
just a registered Self.
I am personal.
I am subjective, intimate, private, particular,
confessional.
All that happens
happens to me.
The landscape I describe
is myself...
If you're interested
in birds, trees, rivers,
try reference books,
don't read my poems.
I'm no indexed birds,
tree or river,
just a registered Self.
Lines by Shirley Lim
The more is brought to light, the darker the breeding ground.
Proverb is the twitch of atrophy.
Poets bless the muse of insomnia at all times of the day.
Write it. Bolt it down with steel.
The paralytic style: never say a plain word when a rare one will do; never say a rare word when a plain one will do; never say a particular when another particular will do.
Proverb is the twitch of atrophy.
Poets bless the muse of insomnia at all times of the day.
Write it. Bolt it down with steel.
The paralytic style: never say a plain word when a rare one will do; never say a rare word when a plain one will do; never say a particular when another particular will do.
Coda: Language by Nina Cassian
My tongue - forked like a snake's
but without deadly intentions:
just a bilingual hissing.
but without deadly intentions:
just a bilingual hissing.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
The Way Things Work by Jorie Graham
The Way Things Work
is by admitting
or opening away.
This is the simplest form
of current: Blue
moving through blue;
blue through purple;
the objects of desire
opening upon themselves
without us; the objects of faith.
The way things work
is by solution,
resistance lessened or
increased and taken
advantage of.
The way things work
is that we finally believe
they are there,
common and able
to illustrate themselves.
Wheel, kinetic flow,
rising and falling water,
ingots, levers and keys,
I believe in you,
cylinder lock, pulley,
lifting tackle and
crane lift your small head--
I believe in you--
your head is the horizon to
my hand. I believe
forever in the hooks.
The way things work
is that eventually
something catches.
is by admitting
or opening away.
This is the simplest form
of current: Blue
moving through blue;
blue through purple;
the objects of desire
opening upon themselves
without us; the objects of faith.
The way things work
is by solution,
resistance lessened or
increased and taken
advantage of.
The way things work
is that we finally believe
they are there,
common and able
to illustrate themselves.
Wheel, kinetic flow,
rising and falling water,
ingots, levers and keys,
I believe in you,
cylinder lock, pulley,
lifting tackle and
crane lift your small head--
I believe in you--
your head is the horizon to
my hand. I believe
forever in the hooks.
The way things work
is that eventually
something catches.
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