Mixbook - Create Photo Books and Scrapbooks Online

Poetry Anthology - Page Text Content

S: My First Mixbook!

FC: P O E T R Y FARM | A N A N T H O L O G Y E D I T E D B Y S A N D Y W R I G H T

1: P O E T R Y F A R M | S N A I L A N D H E D G E H O G I N C S U R R E Y S T , S T I L L W A T E R

2: t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s | introduction the purple cow cinq ans apres g e l e t t b u r g e s s the fish e l i z a b e t h b i s h o p the owl e d w a r d t h o m a s skunk hour r o b e r t l o w e l l walking the dog h o w a r d n e m e r o v | . | 5 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14

3: the river of bees w . s . m e r w i n "the bird came down the walk" e m i l y d i c k i n s o n snake d . h . l a w r e n c e how doth the little crocodile l e w i s c a r o l l the raven e d g a r a l l e n p o e whale lantern cats s a n d y w r i g h t | . | 16 | 18 | 19 | 24 | 25 | 30

5: i n t r o d u c t i o n I was undecided on my theme for this anthology until I read the poem The Purple Cow. After that, it all fell into place. My poems all have animals in their titles, with the exception of Cinq Ans Apres, which is complementary to The Purple Cow. They all allude to nature but do not necessarily deal directly with animals. I chose these poems based on their merit in my eyes and not because of the convenience of the theme. Each of these poems rightly has a home on my poetry farm, and I can only hope that my poems will do the same. --Sandy Wright

6: th e p u r p l e c o w G E L E T T B U R G E S S | I never saw a Purple Cow, I never hope to see one; But I can tell you, anyhow, I’d rather see than be one. | c i n q a n s a p r e s G E L E T T B U R G E S S | Ah, yes! I wrote the “Purple Cow”— I’m Sorry, now, I Wrote it! But I can Tell you, Anyhow, I’ll Kill you if you Quote it!

7: The Purple Cow was a complete surprise when I first read it. The brief explosion of wit and randomness won me over instantly. It reminds me of the times when I've had conversations with people that end up being this strange and hilarious. I wish I knew the author personally; he seems like a super cool person. | Cinq Ans Apres completed The Purple Cow in my eyes. My fits of laughter that followed the reading of these two poems have been unparalleled since. The irony of the fact that I had chosen to quote The Purple Cow in my anthology just made it better. Both of these poems have floated to the top of my list of favorites.

8: h e f i s h | I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn't fight. He hadn't fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled and barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green weed hung down. | While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen --the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly-- I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. --It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. | E L I Z A B E T H B I S H O P | t

9: I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip --if you could call it a lip grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, | from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels--until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go. | I was taken in by Bishop's use of imagery in this poem. My breath was cut short as she described this beautiful trout that was so vulnerable and sad but at the same time strong and proud, all conveyed by the hooks still in the fish's gums. Bishop had captured this determined fish, had defeated it, and let it go. I felt and lived her emotion, yet I don't see how anyone other than she can truly comprehend it.

10: Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved; Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof. Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest, Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I. All of the night was quite barred out except An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry Shaken out long and clear upon the hill, No merry note, nor cause of merriment, But one telling me plain what I escaped And others could not, that night, as in I went. And slated was my food, and my repose, Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice Speaking for all who lay under the stars, Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice. | t h e o w l E D W A R D T H O M A S

11: This poem brought the Revolutionary War to my mind. I thought of soldiers using their last bit of energy to find a comfortable place to stay in the cold of the night. The owl's cry echoes around them, reminding them of the loneli- ness now and the loneliness to come.

12: k u n k h o u r R O B E R T L O W E L L | Nautilus Island’s hermit heiress still lives through winter in her Spartan cottage; her sheep still graze above the sea. Her son’s a bishop. Her farmer is first selectman in our village; she’s in her dotage. Thirsting for the hierarchic privacy of Queen Victoria’s century, she buys up all the eyesores facing her shore, and lets them fall. The season’s ill— we’ve lost our summer millionaire, who seemed to leap from an L. L. Bean catalogue. His nine-knot yawl was auctioned off to lobstermen. A red fox stain covers Blue Hill. And now our fairy decorator brightens his shop for fall; his fishnet's filled with orange cork, orange, his cobbler's bench and awl; there is no money in his work, he'd rather marry. | s

13: One dark night, my Tudor Ford climbed the hill’s skull; I watched for love-cars. Lights turned down, they lay together, hull to hull, where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . . My mind’s not right. A car radio bleats, “Love, O careless Love. . . .” I hear my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell, as if my hand were at its throat. . . . I myself am hell; nobody’s here— | only skunks, that search in the moonlight for a bite to eat. They march on their soles up Main Street: white stripes, moonstruck eyes’ red fire under the chalk-dry and spar spire of the Trinitarian Church. I stand on top of our back steps and breathe the rich air— a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail. She jabs her wedge-head in a cup of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail, and will not scare. | The despair of the middle of the night in the poem, the part of the night which only skunks enjoy, reminded me of times when I had to be outside in the middle of the night. Armadillos played raucusly in the dark, instead of skunks, but they had the same nature.

14: w a l k i n g t h e d o g H O W A R D N E M E R O V | Two universes mosey down the street Connected by love and a leash and nothing else. Mostly I look at lamplight through the leaves While he mooches along with tail up and snout down, Getting a secret knowledge through the nose Almost entirely hidden from my sight. We stand while he’s enraptured by a bush Till I can’t stand our standing any more And haul him off; for our relationship Is patience balancing to this side tug And that side drag; a pair of symbionts Contented not to think each other’s thoughts.

15: What else we have in common's what he taught, Our interest in shit. We know its every state From steaming fresh through stink to nature's way Of sluicing it downstreet dissolved in rain Or drying it to dust that blows away. We move along the street inspecting it. His sense of it is keener far than mine, And only when he finds the place precise He signifies by sniffing urgently And circles thrice about, and squats, and shits, Whereon we both with dignity walk home And just to show who’s master I write the poem. | The way Nemerov describes such a simple relationship, the dog and the master, in such a matter of fact way puts to light how I take these simple hierarchies for granted. It is a peaceful relationship in which both parties are aware of their standing with the other.

16: h e r i v e r o f b e e s W . S . M E R W I N | In a dream I returned to the river of bees Five orange trees by the bridge and Besides two mills my house Into whose courtyard a blind man followed The goats and stood singing Of what was older Soon it will be fifteen years He was old he will have fallen into his eyes I took my eyes A long way to the calendars Room after room asking how shall I live One of the ends is made of streets One man processions carry through it Empty bottles their Image of hope It was offered to me by name | t

17: Once once and once In the same city I was born Asking what shall I say He will have fallen into his mouth Men think they are better than grass I return to his voice rising like a forkful of hay He was old he is not real nothing is real Nor the noise of death drawing water We are the echo of the future On the door it says what to do to survive But we were not born to survive Only to live | The River of Bees sounds like a dream I've had many times, but I just can't remember. Whenever I read this poem, I feel like I'm wrapping myself up in a warm, familiar blanket.

18: " a b i r d c a m e d o w n t h e w a l k " E M I L Y D I C K I N S O N | A Bird came down the Walk— He did not know I saw— He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw, And then he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass— And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass— He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all around— They looked like frightened Beads, I thought— He stirred his Velvet Head | Like one in danger, Cautious, I offered him a Crumb And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer home— Than Oars divide the Ocean,— Too silver for a seam— Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon Leap, plashless as they swim. | I think of this bird as a robin, for I have always thought of the robin as the warm bird. Dickinson's description is perfect and makes me look closer at al these things in nature that I overlook . She does not take for granted what I fail to even observe.

19: s n a k e D . H . L A W R E N C E | A snake came to my water-trough On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, To drink there. In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob tree I came down the steps with my pitcher And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me. He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough And rested his throat upon the stone bottom, And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness, He sipped with his straight mouth, Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body, Silently. Someone was before me at my water-trough, And I, like a second-comer, waiting.

20: He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do, And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do, And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment, And stooped and drank a little more, Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking. The voice of my education said to me He must be killed, For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous. And voices in me said, If you were a man You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off. But must I confess how I liked him, How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless, Into the burning bowels of this earth? Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured? I felt so honoured.

21: And yet those voices: If you were not afraid, you would kill him! And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more That he should seek my hospitality From out the dark door of the secret earth. He drank enough And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken, And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black, Seeming to lick his lips, And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air, And slowly turned his head, And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream, Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face. And as he put his head into that dreadful hole, And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther, A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole, Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after, Overcame me now his back was turned.

22: I looked round, I put down my pitcher, I picked up a clumsy log And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter. I think it did not hit him, But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste, Writhed like lightning, and was gone Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front, At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination. And immediately I regretted it. I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act! I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education. And I thought of the albatross, And I wished he would come back, my snake. For he seemed to me again like a king, Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld, Now due to be crowned again. And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords Of life. And I have something to expiate: A pettiness.

23: D. H. Lawrence is more prominently known for his fiction than poetry, but I absolutely love this poem. The way he characterizes this snake, both wary and fearful of human nature, as at once real and figurata was genius. The poem has strong biblical themes and questions the true nature of humanity. I realize new layers of meaning each time I read Snake.

24: h o w d o t h t h e l i t t l e c r o c o d i l e L E W I S C A R O L L | How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in With gently smiling jaws! | While using very few words, this cute poem manages to convey a surprising amount of imagery. A whole scene by the Nile unfolds before your eyes as you read the two stanzas. Lewis Caroll gleefully displays his wit and quirky sense of humor in this, silly yet beautiful poem.

25: t h e r a v e n E D G A R A L L E N P O E | Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-- Only this and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore-- For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Nameless here for evermore. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating "'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door-- Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; This it is and nothing more."

26: Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide the door-- Darkness there and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"-- Merely this and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my sour within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore-- Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;-- 'Tis the wind and nothing more. Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he, But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-- Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door-- Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

27: Then the ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore-- Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door-- Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore." But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if its soul in that one word he did outpour Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered-- Till I scarcely more than muttered: "Other friends have flown before-- On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before." Then the bird said "Nevermore." Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-- Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never--nevermore.'"

28: But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-- What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore." This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er She shall press, ah, nevermore! Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!-- Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-- On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore-- Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

29: "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore-- Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Be that our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting-- "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadows on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted--nevermore! | The Raven is probably the most well-known poem in this book. It deals less with nature and more with the nature of death. I have affections for this poem partly because of all the times I heard it recited in middle school. This was one of the first poems that I ever read, and it is undeniably a classic.

30: We're hunting the right whale. We know that it's right because it moves slow, doesn't put up a fight. It floats when it's dead, so it's easy for us to tow it and flense it without much of a fuss. | WHALE sandy wright | I

31: Moon! Teach me to hang, a sphere of air unhindered, to return from the dark with aplomb, to cool, a nomad, in patches of sky. Teach me me to hide my face, I want it hidden! Make us a street of our own on wretched nights. Help me to breathe silver as cats sleep on cobbles and water in pipes. | LANTERN CATS sandy wright

32: w o r k s c i t e d | Bishop, Elizabeth. "The Fish." The Top 500 Poems. Ed. William Harmon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 733. Burgess, Gelett. "Cinq Ans Apres." The Top 500 Poems. Ed. William Harmon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 878. Burgess, Gelett. "The Purple Cow." The Top 500 Poems. Ed. William Harmon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 878. Carroll, Lewis. "How Doth the Little Crocodile." The Top 500 Poems. Ed. William Harmon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 758. Dickinson, Emily. "A Bird came down the Walk." The Top 500 Poems. Ed. William Harmon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 733.

33: Lawrence, D.H. "Snake." The Top 500 Poems. Ed. William Harmon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 942-944. Lowell, Robert. "Skunk Hour." The Top 500 Poems. Ed. William Harmon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 1058-1059. Merwin, W.S. "The River of Bees." Contemporary American Poetry. Ed. Stuart Friebert and David Yound. New York: Dover, 1996. 47. Nemerov, Howard. "Walking the Dog." Good Poems. Ed. Garrison Keillor. New York: Viking Penguin, 2002. 240. Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Raven." Kerberos. 25 November 2008. Thomas, Edward. "The Owl." The Top 500 Poems. Ed. William Harmon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 917.

34: a b o u t t h e a u t h o r | SANDY WRIGHT | The proud owner of a beautiful guinea pig, Sandy Wright has always loved animals. From a very early age, she claimed she was going to be an entymologist. Her family was always frustrated with her insistence on taking care of every bug that crossed her path. She has one older sister and has lived in Stillwater, Oklahoma all her life.