1.

That poem by Larkin (and some others) taught me how direct

and economical you can be with language, and about how
modernity isnt so great.
Ben Smith
Date me If you like

Being direct

Tradition

Kings/ Queens

MCMXIV (1964)
Phillip Larkin
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;
And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;
And the countryside not caring:
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheats restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;
Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

2.
When I was growing up, my dad had a beautiful calligraphy
copy of the poem on his bedroom wall, given to him by his
father. Before we could read, he would read it to us, and once
we began reading he encouraged us to practice by reading it
aloud to him at night. The second stanza is the first part of
anything I ever memorized. Dad not only had us read from it,
but would ask us what we thought it meant. Its got such a
beautiful message of how to deal with life and those around
you, how to temper yourself but not lose your joy. When I was
a kid, my dad would change the last line for me and my sister
to and whats more, youll be a woman my daughter and that
just meant the world to me because yes, you can do all these
things that a century ago made you a man but you can own
them as a woman.
Cates Holderness
Date me if you:

Love life
Have overcome trials
Are Resilient
Like to dream

If
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

3.
Really incredible poem. For me, its a perfect metaphor for
feeling stuck in life, and learning how to push past that feeling.
Everyone, at some point in their life, has felt this sort of
sourceless sense of existential dread that comes along with
routine. This poem captures that feeling, and reminds the
reader to find joy and redemption in small moments.
Tanner Ringerud

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

Amiri Baraka
Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus...

Date me if you:

Like dogs
Like music
Like to look at the stars

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.
Nobody sings anymore.
And then last night I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees, peeking into
Her own clasped hands

4.
This Poetry Alive! group came to our middle school, and they
did this awesome reading of _________ by __________.
Wed read it in class but I didnt really understand it fully until I
heard it read out loud, and it was just so morbidly strange and
sad. It was the first time I took genuine interest in a poem Id
always thought they were dry and difficult to relate to before
that. I used it to audition for my first play in high school.
Keely Flaherty
Date me If you:

Love love
Like the ocean
Have lost someone you cared about

Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love I and my Annabel Lee With a love that the wingd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre,
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we Of many far wiser than we And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea In her tomb by the sounding sea.

5.
Newly into my twenties, this poem was a perfect picture of
how even simple, fleeting love could be really powerful and
beautiful and worth remembering.
Rachel Zarrell
Date me if you:

Like the month of August

Like Jelly
Cherish moments with your besties
Like history

I Remember
Anne Sexton
By the first of August
the invisible beetles began
to snore and the grass was
as tough as hemp and was
no colorno more than
the sand was a color and
we had worn our bare feet
bare since the twentieth
of June and there were times
we forgot to wind up your
alarm clock and some nights
we took our gin warm and neat
from old jelly glasses while
the sun blew out of sight
like a red picture hat and
one day I tied my hair back
with a ribbon and you said
that I looked almost like
a puritan lady and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine.

6.
The first time I read this poem I was still a young girl, trying to
figure out who I was and frankly what was happening to my
body. ________made me feel like who I was becoming a
woman was something very special, ancient, and wonderful.
I physically remember breathing out and sitting up just a little
bit taller because of her words.
Ashley Perez

Still I Rise
Maya Angelou

Date me if you:

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Dont let the haters get you down

Love what makes you you
Like the ocean

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

7.
This poem changed my life.It reminds us of the
extraordinarily short duration of life and the related denial we
must impose upon ourselves to avoid all-consuming despair.
Joe Bernstein
Date me if you:

Like blood
Like farming
Like reading about death

Out, Out
Robert Frost
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap
He must have given the hand. However it was,

Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!

The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart
He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And thenthe watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Littlelessnothing!and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

8.
I love this poem by the Israeli writer _______, which spoke to
me immediately because I often dated people my parents
disapproved of and I like to blame them for all of my problems.
Deena Shanker
Date me if you:

Like engineering
Like airplanes
Are interested in the world of medicine

A Pity. We Were Such A Good Invention - Poem by Yehuda

Amichai
They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
They dismantled us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.

A pity. We were such a good

And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little.

9.

I discovered ________as a lovestruck college freshman in a

Poetry 101 course, coming off a high school fixation on
suicidal lady poets. He perfectly captures the way I felt at the
time, lying outside in the grass in a small Midwestern town
2,500 miles from home under an impossibly blue sky, drinking
in all the beauty and the new ideas around me as fast as
possible.
Susie Armitage
Date me if you:

Are sometimes in your feelings

Like laughing
Love love

since feeling is first

e.e. cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis

10.
As an angry teenager, I felt ________ by ____________ even
more than I felt Smith songs.
Kate Aurthur
Date me if you:

Like a challenge!!
Like imagery
Like allusions

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
.....
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
.....
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep tired or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in
upon a platter,
I am no prophetand here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and
snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail
along the floor
And this, and so much more?
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a
screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
.....
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old I grow old
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown

11.
I read it for the first time when I was a teenager and I was
amazed by how __________ managed to write so beautifully
about something so gross. The end always breaks my heart.
Marie Telling
Date me if you:

Like imagery
Like plot twists
Like gross, icky, nasty things

A Carcass
Baudelaire
My love, do you recall the object which we saw,
That fair, sweet, summer morn!
At a turn in the path a foul carcass
On a gravel strewn bed,
Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
Burning and dripping with poisons,
Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
Its belly, swollen with gases.
The sun shone down upon that putrescence,
As if to roast it to a turn,
And to give back a hundredfold to great Nature
The elements she had combined;
And the sky was watching that superb cadaver
Blossom like a flower.
So frightful was the stench that you believed
You'd faint away upon the grass.
The blow-flies were buzzing round that putrid belly,
From which came forth black battalions
Of maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid
All along those living tatters.
All this was descending and rising like a wave,
Or poured out with a crackling sound;
One would have said the body, swollen with a vague breath,
Lived by multiplication.
And this world gave forth singular music,
Like running water or the wind,
Or the grain that winnowers with a rhythmic motion
Shake in their winnowing baskets.
The forms disappeared and were no more than a dream,
A sketch that slowly falls
Upon the forgotten canvas, that the artist
Completes from memory alone.
Crouched behind the boulders, an anxious dog
Watched us with angry eye,
Waiting for the moment to take back from the carcass
The morsel he had left.
And yet you will be like this corruption,
Like this horrible infection,
Star of my eyes, sunlight of my being,
You, my angel and my passion!
Yes! thus will you be, queen of the Graces,
After the last sacraments,
When you go beneath grass and luxuriant flowers,
To molder among the bones of the dead.
Then, O my beauty! say to the worms who will
Devour you with kisses,
That I have kept the form and the divine essence
Of my decomposed love!

 William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy

Library Guild, 1954)

12.
When I was in the ninth grade, my English teacher made us
each memorize and recite a poem. She gave my friend and I
this poem and I hated it. I was irritated that it was seemingly
twice as long as the poems given to others and annoyed that it
was wasnt modern in the slightest (its about a sheep shearer
for Gods sake.) Needless to say, my negative attitude didnt
help the exercise and it took my friend and I quite a bit longer
than everyone else to memorize. Credit to my English teacher
she stuck with us and forced us (and the whole class at this
point) to recite what we could recall every morning. I hated her
for it. Time passed and we eventually pulled it off, albeit with a
dirty taste toward Banjo Paterson in our mouths. I left the
school at the end of that year. A few years ago, the very same
English teacher that forced Clancy of the Overflow onto me
died of breast cancer. I never knew she had it, or that she was
dealing with it whilst she taught. I cant think of the poem or
any of its themes without thinking of her and her persistence
with us. Even though she didnt really have a big role in my life,
she and the poem changed my life in so many ways.
Brad Esposito
Date me if you:

Like music
Have rhythm
Love Imagery

Clancy Of The Overflow

Banjo Paterson
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years
ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just `on spec', addressed as follows, `Clancy, of The Overflow'.
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in
tar)
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote
it:
`Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know
where he are.'
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving `down the Cooper' where the Western drovers
go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them
singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never
know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices
greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt
me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and
weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to
waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the
journal -But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of `The Overflow'.

13.
Langston Hughes took arguably the darkest time in his life and
made it sound beautiful, all without romanticizing the act of
suicide itself. Just the thought of willfully surrendering your
body to the river and accepting the fate of water under your
heels is devastating. This was enough to make me think about
my future - fearfully growing old and gray - which leaves me
positively paralyzed. Thats why I love it.
Spencer Althouse
Date me if you:

Feel like you can analyze anything

Dont like to read
Like rivers

Suicides Note
Langston Hughes
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.

14.
I heard this poem at the end of a yoga class a couple of years
ago. I had just moved to New York, on a whim, after a failed
six-year relationship and dealing with a lot of sadness and
thought, now what? My uncle was also losing his battle to
cancer and my family and I were dealing with the inevitable.
This poem helped me through that time and still continues to
resonate in my life today. I hope it brings peace to some else
out there.
Chris Ritter
Date me if you:

Like peace
Embrace diversity
Enjoy the journey of life

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Jellaludin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

15.
Its just so pretty and simple and inspiring. I also hate it when
people look down on poetry that rhymes, and I think this is a
perfect example of something that sounds gorgeous while also
meaning so much.
Julia Pugachevsky
Date me if you:

Have hope
Like simple things with a lot of meaning
Enjoy listening to birds

Hope is the thing with feathers (254)

Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
Ive heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me

16.
This was carved into the stone on the library at my college. Still
the only poem I can recite by heart and just a wonderful
sentiment.
Daniel Dalton
Date me if you:

Like to share
Like flowers
Like to make something out of nothing

If thou of fortune be bereft by John Greenleaf Whittier

If thou of fortune be bereft,
and of thyne earthly store hath left
two loaves; sell one,
and with the dole, buy hyacinths to feed the soul.

17.
My yoga instructor read this in class years ago: One day you
finally knew what you had to do, and began.
Kasia Galazka
Date me if you:

Enjoy the journey of life

Appreciate the scenery
Save things

The Journey
Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-determined to save
the only life you could save.

18.

After I heard that poem and watched the short stopmotion, it changed my life forever. I knew at that moment
I wanted to make stop-motion and that I was hooked on
the horror genre.
Justin Dailey
Date me if you:

Like horror
Enjoy Tim Burton films
Like stop motion
Enjoy Edgar A. Poe

Vincent Malloy
Jack Skeleton
Vincent Malloy is seven years old
Hes always polite and does what hes told
For a boy his age, hes considerate and nice
But he wants to be just like Vincent Price
He doesnt mind living with his sister, dog and cats
Though hed rather share a home with spiders and bats
There he could reflect on the horrors hes invented
And wander dark hallways, alone and tormented
Vincent is nice when his aunt comes to see him
But imagines dipping her in wax for his wax museum
He likes to experiment on his dog Abercrombie
In the hopes of creating a horrible zombie
So he and his horrible zombie dog
Could go searching for victims in the London fog
His thoughts, though, arent only of ghoulish crimes
He likes to paint and read to pass some of the times
While other kids read books like Go, Jane, Go!
Vincents favorite author is Edgar Allen Poe
One night, while reading a gruesome tale
He read a passage that made him turn pale
Such horrible news he could not survive
For his beautiful wife had been buried alive!
He dug out her grave to make sure she was dead
Unaware that her grave was his mothers flower bed
His mother sent Vincent off to his room
He knew hed been banished to the tower of doom
Where he was sentenced to spend the rest of his life
Alone with the portrait of his beautiful wife
While alone and insane encased in his tomb
Vincents mother burst suddenly into the room
She said: If you want to, you can go out and play
Its sunny outside, and a beautiful day
Vincent tried to talk, but he just couldnt speak
The years of isolation had made him quite weak
So he took out some paper and scrawled with a pen:
I am possessed by this house, and can never leave it again
His mother said: Youre not possessed, and youre not almost dead
These games that you play are all in your head
Youre not Vincent Price, youre Vincent Malloy
Youre not tormented or insane, youre just a young boy
Youre seven years old and you are my son
I want you to get outside and have some real fun.
Her anger now spent, she walked out through the hall
And while Vincent backed slowly against the wall
The room started to swell, to shiver and creak
His horrid insanity had reached its peak
He saw Abercrombie, his zombie slave
And heard his wife call from beyond the grave
She spoke from her coffin and made ghoulish demands
While, through cracking walls, reached skeleton hands
Every horror in his life that had crept through his dreams
Swept his mad laughter to terrified screams!
To escape the madness, he reached for the door

But fell limp and lifeless down on the floor

His voice was soft and very slow
As he quoted The Raven from Edgar Allen Poe:
and my soul from out that shadow
that lies floating on the floor
shall be lifted?
Nevermore

19.

These lyrics came to me during my last year of middle school.

My Aunt Donna sent me a YouTube video of Joni performing it
on The Johnny Cash Show back in the late 60s and with
that innocent YouTube share, my life changed. I realized I
wasnt the only person who lived behind illusions and felt
confused about my identity. ________ taught me with her
incredible words to be brave and to never compromise my own
happiness to satisfy others (Well somethings lost, but
somethings gained / In living every day).
Kayla Yandoli
Date me if you:

try to put on a brave face

Like ice cream
Your group of friends has changed

Both Sides, Now

by Joni Mitchell
Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way
But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away
I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all
Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way
But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day
I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
I've looked at life from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

20.

I was never one for poetry, really. Even novels that are too
poetic tend to turn me off, but I really like ________s poetry. I
still dont know what to make of this poem, which I think is from
1895, but it always stuck with me. I had to recite it in high
school, and everyone laughed because they thought it was
funny.
Adam Ellis
Date me if you:

Like traveling to different places

Like sour candy
Dont like poetry

In the Desert
Stephen Crane
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter -- bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
Stephen Crane

21.

In JANE TAYLORS poem THE STAR, she utilizes PERSONIFICATION to achieve her
theme of NATURES POSITIVE EFFECT ON MAN.
I think now that Im older, I find a lot of symbolism in that
song/rhyme. Im a constant believer that there are greater,
unexplainable powers responsible for the things that we do,
and the things that are done to us, in life. _________speaks
volumes to that. Stars arent always visible, and even at
nighttime, when they are, people dont always take the time to
notice them. Its a lot like when good and bad things happen to
us in life. We dont always take the time to notice, but really
exciting or really detrimental situations show us that things
always happen for a reason: Just like the stars, you need to
take the time to notice them.
Allie Caren

The Star
Jane Taylor

Date me if you:

Then the traveler in the dark

Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see where to go
If you did not twinkle so.

Like nursery rhymes

Enjoy looking at the stars
Like to shine bright

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is set,
And the grass with dew is wet,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

In the dark blue sky you keep,

And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye
Till the sun is in the sky.
As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveler in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

22.

Tonight at Noon by Adrian Henri

I first read this poem when I was a child, before I understood
what unrequited love feels like. Later I found out, and I realized
that nothing quite captures the absurd trauma of it like this
unpretentious poem.
Jessica Misener
Date me if you:

Feel like you sometimes do things

backwards

Really Love history

Like the band The Jam

Tonight at noon.
Tonight at noon
Supermarkets will advertise 3p extra on everything
Tonight at noon
Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home
Elephants will tell each other human jokes
America will declare peace on Russia
World War I generals will sell poppies on the street on
November 11th
The first daffodils of autumn will appear
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees
Tonight at noon
Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards
Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing
fields
A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool
Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton
And Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well
White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights

In front of the Black house

And the monster has just created Dr. Frankenstein
Girls in bikinis are moonbathing
Folksongs are being sung by real folk
Art galleries are closed to people over 21
Poets get their poems in the Top 20
There's jobs for everybody and nobody wants them
In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing in broad
daylight
In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly bury
the living
and
You will tell me you love me
Tonight at noon
-Adrian Henri

23.

Its a semi-autobiographical, formally perfect little poem about

when his 4-year-old brother was struck by a car and killed. The
poems speaker is, as Heaney was, utterly shocked by these
events; the whole thing is observations of other peoples
emotions. But then that last little couplet, the horror of it.
Sandra Allen
Date me if you:

Lost someone you loved

Have a younger sibling

Mid-Term Break
Seamus Heaney
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two oclock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying
He had always taken funerals in his stride
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were sorry for my trouble
Whispers informed strangers that I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.

At ten oclock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple.
He lay in a four foot box, as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.

24.

Nelson Mandela recited this poem to himself and other

prisoners as a way to uplift their spirits, and motivate them to
press onward. He felt empowered by the message of self

Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

mastery.

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

Date me if you:

odds.

Feel like you are the captain of your fate

You continue to persevere despite the

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

25.

The poet and his sister came upon a large field of daffodils,
and he was inspired to write this class poem.
Date me if you:

Sometimes feel lonely

Like to take in the view
Enjoy looking at the stars

"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD"

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.

10

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.
1804.

NAME:__________________________

20

Based on the outside labels, choose a poem from the table that interests you. You will have 3
minutes to get to know your poem.
Next, for ONE poem of your choosing at each table, complete the first 4 columns of the chart
below. You will rate your dates AFTER you have visited all of the tables.
Table
#

Poem
#

So.How was it?

Mark an X

2nd Date? Why or Why Not?

Rate Your
Date
(circle one)

1.

:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __

1234567

2.

:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __

1234567

3.

:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __

1234567

4.

:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __

1234567

5.

:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __

1234567

6.

:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __

1234567

7.

:) Tons of chemistry! __
:/ Were better off friends!__
:( Bye Felicia! __

1234567

DECHS Honors English III Poetry PBL

Week 1

Monday -- 11/2/15
Blind Dating with Poetry
Poetry Assignments
Overview/ Rationale of PBL
Receive Poetry is History Assignment
Wednesday -- 11/4/15
Poetry is History Essay Due TODAY
Peer Editing
Thursday -- 11/5/15
Receive Poetry is Assignment
Friday -- 11/6/15
Poetry is Assignment Due TODAY
Begin working on Illuminated text project

Name:_____________________________________________________

1. Poetry is History Essay

Congratulations! Youve been matched with a poem! Now, you are going to
do a background check on your new beau. Youll compile your findings in a
2 page essay that addresses the following questions:
What is the name of your
poem?
Who wrote your poem?
What are some noteworthy
facts about the poet?
How has their personal
experience influenced this particular poem?
When was your poem
written?
What was going on in the
world during this particular time period?
How does your poem reflect
what is occurring in the world during this time
period?

2. Poetry is Essay
Now that you know more about your partner, you will investigate/analyze
what makes you beau unique by looking at its literary devices! After you
complete a close reading of your poem, you will write a literary analysis
essay, in which you choose 3 literary devices featured in your poem and
analyze how the poets use of those devices aid them in conveying their
overall message.