Suggest some poems....

Cafe Society
21

I suggest the following piece. Since I wrote it, I’m reasonably sure you can use it without fear of infringing the copyright.
The Funeral Of Ashton

The sky was cloudless,
The sun seemed bare and naked,
Our shadows followed us like lame dogs,
I helped hold the coffin,
The brass handle slick with sweat,
Robins sang their cheap ancient come-on lines in the trees,
The minister droned on and on,
He kept saying Ashton,
But my friend hated that,
And always went by a nickname,
The minister’s words were hollow,empty,
He kept checking the time,
Places to go,
People to bury,
I looked at my friend,
In too much make up,
And his favorite baseball cap.
The one he always wore.
His best friend gave the eulogy
“Pika. Pika pika. Chu!”

Note- This poem was originally The Funeral Of Joe (also by me, copyright me, not to be taken internally)
The Funeral Of Joe

The sky was cloudless,
The sun seemed bare and naked,
Our shadows followed us like lame dogs,
I helped hold the coffin,
The brass handle slick with sweat,
Robins sang their cheap ancient come on lines in the trees,
The minister droned on and on,
He got Joe’s last name wrong,
His words were hollow,empty,
He kept checking the time,
Places to go,
People to bury,
*I looked at Joe,
In too much make up,
And his eyepatch and baseball cap.
Carved on his tombstone,
" Value 10 comics"
Carved on his soft, pink tombstone.

But too many people didn’t get the Bazooka Joe reference.

So, it became The Funeral Of Betty
(Identical to the Joe version except for the closing lines)
I looked at Betty,
In too much make up,
And her favorite necklace and blue dress,
Her white haired son,
Through his tears,
Gave a eulogy,
“Bam Bam! Bam Bam Bam!”

I’m not sure sixth graders would get a Flintstone reference, which is why I’ve changed it to a Pokemon reference. To start the class writing their own, you could have them change Funeral to other pop culture references.

22

How many of the students have seen the Lord Of The Rings films? The songs and poems Tolkien included in the books are easily accessible but reveal all kinds of intricate metrical devices and multiple rhyme schemes under analysis.

23

For e.e. cummings, my favorite is anyone lived. Also the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls. Anything on the second page would be good, except for ““kitty”. sixteen, 5’ 11”, white, prostitute." and “i like my body when it is with your”. Some parents might get irate if their children were read poems about sixteen year old prostitutes who drink whiskey-sours and about sex. :eek:

24

Langston Hughes is often pretty clear and direct with his poems. They are simple but powerful (not that younger kids can’t appreciate more intricate poems, but that it’s amazing what can be captured in a few direct phrases).

25

Moderator Notes: I have temporarily disabled Beadaline’s links until we can get some clarification. I suspect e e cummings’ material is now public domain, but a site that flaunts the word “Plagiarism” in the site’s name has me pretty uneasy.

So, I’ve disabled the links pending investigation.

Please note that links to sites that have approval/permission from the author to post the poems, those are fine. But… sites that don’t, we need to check out what’ what.

Also, of course, it’s OK to copy a few lines of a poem, but do not copy the whole poem. The rules of “fair usage” apply to poetry as well as to prose.

And, just to state again: the Chicago READER is very sensitive to copyright issues. We don’t want our stuff being used without permission, and so we tend to be stricter than legal requirements in protecting the copyrights of others.

26

Yipes. I never intended to link to an inappropriate site – it was just one where I found it easy to browse through the poems to find the ones I was thinking of. My apologies.

I’ll see if I can find those two poems at a legit site.

27

Some of it is, but only pieces from college and a few other oddities. His first book, Tulips and Chimneys, was not published until 1923, which keeps it in copyright under the current laws, assuming he renewed the copyright appropriately. Hard to believe otherwise for a major poet.

And the first poem linked to is from a 1950 collection, XAIPE; the second is from a 1958 collection, 95 Poems. Highly unlikely that these are in the public domain.

The linked site looks like a great site for poetry. If they have permission to post, then I would recommend it. If not, then it’s just a sophisticated pirate site.

Any site that puts up an entire e. e. cummings poem, except for sites approved by his estate, is a pirate.

28

I second (third?) Jabberwocky; I had to memorize that in 4th grade, so it’s definitely accessible to the age group you’ll be working with. Also, there’s T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which will be above their heads but has so much imagery that it might not matter so much. Also, Whitman’s O Captain, My Captain! might be good.

Here’s a website that looks like it’s geared toward teachers, so it has some explanations and things like that: Poet’s Corner

Also, depending on your ability, it might be fun for them to hear you do some poems that require an accent – some of Robert Burns’ stuff, for example, or some olde englishe poems (Chaucer comes to mind). Bartleby has a good anthology listed chronologically.

Have fun! :slight_smile:

29

I recommend some Yeats. Lots of strong imagery and a definite rythm that would make it easy to read aloud.

The Second Coming (“Turning and turning in widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer…”)

For the sappy intermediate school romantics:
He wishes for the cloths of heaven (“I have spread my dreams beneath your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams…”)

You could also try reading some popular music lyrics as spoken poetry (some good and some bad) and let them be the judge of what’s well written. (“Oops, I did it again.”)

30

I recommend against you’re reading this only because Shel Silverstein recorded it. It’s part of at least one Dr Demento collection available from Rhino Records. The teacher should be able to get hold of a copy the dramatic reading without much dificulty and through legal and ethical means. Your presentation should include poems the students that either can’t easily be found on tape, or poems of which no good readings can be found on tape.

31

First, I salute you for bringing poetry to your students.

I think they’ll enjoy When You’re Lying Awake (The Nightmare Song) by William S. Gilbert (from the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta Iolanthe). Very Monty Pythonian.

Edward Lear, The Jumblies.

32

May I recommend James Dickey’s excellent poem The Lifeguard? It doesn’t rhyme, but it tells a story. The phrasing and pacing make it a challenge to recite, because the line breaks – where you would ordinarily breathe while reading aloud – are in the middle of phrases that flow too well to interrupt. The poem is about a drowning, and when you finish reading it aloud, you will be short of breath as well.

33

Just a side note, that I thought of after posting about Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” (which I misspelled in my first post- thanks, QtM!).

I mentioned the poem’s back-story above, but didn’t think to mention The Way to Xanadu by Caroline Alexander. That gives a much deeper back-story, compiled from STC’s own commonplace book and the works he quoted there. Alexander travels all over the world looking for the sites STC got his images from, finding some and missing out on others. Great adventure!