To Be A Real Leprechaun - Mar. 17

   To Be A Real Leprechaun   
By : Bernard J. Howe

To be a real leprechaun,
and have a pot of gold.
To be able to enjoy the music,
and not be left out in the cold.
Their life of enjoyment,
can be seen in their face.
To be a living leprechaun,
is something I can embrace.
Their little deeds of mischief,
and the matching of their wit.
And a toast of Irish whiskey,
to make this seem legit.
I'd love to be a leprechaun,
So life can be a treasure.
I know that I would love this,
beyond any kind of measure.
Dancing in the moonlight,
and hiding in the flowers.
The weeks are so carefree,
that days seem like hours.
From a thousand shades of green,
that's called the emerald isle.
I know the life of merryment,
is really quite worthwhile.
To be a living leprechaun,
is something of what I dream.
For if I really was one,
I would be held in high esteem.

The Blue Bowl - Mar. 16

This is a poem that addresses
the difficult subject of burying a pet.

The Blue Bowl

Jane Kenyon

Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole.
                               They fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline, nose.

We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows keener than these.

Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing.

Numbers - Mar. 15

Numbers

Mary Cornish

I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.

And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.

Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.

There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.

And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.

Three boys beyond their mothers' call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look.

The Changing Light - Mar. 14

The Changing Light
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The changing light at San Francisco is none of your East Coast light none of your pearly light of Paris The light of San Francisco is a sea light an island light And the light of fog blanketing the hills drifting in at night through the Golden Gate to lie on the city at dawn And then the halcyon late mornings after the fog burns off and the sun paints white houses with the sea light of Greece with sharp clean shadows making the town look like it had just been painted But the wind comes up at four o'clock sweeping the hills And then the veil of light of early evening And then another scrim when the new night fog floats in And in that vale of light the city drifts anchorless upon the ocean

so you want to be a writer? - Mar. 13

so you want to be a writer?
by Charles Bukowski
if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else. if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready. don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don't be dull and boring and pretentious, don't be consumed with self- love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don't add to that. don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.

Sonnet 130 - Mar. 12

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)

  by William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.

A Blessing - Mar. 11

A Blessing

  by James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

One Art - Mar. 10

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

I, Too, Sing America - Mar. 9

I, Too, Sing America
by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then. Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.

The Road Not Taken - Mar. 8

The Road Not Taken

  by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 
And sorry I could not travel both 
And be one traveler, long I stood 
And looked down one as far as I could 
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

Then took the other, as just as fair, 
And having perhaps the better claim, 
Because it was grassy and wanted wear; 
Though as for that the passing there 
Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay 
In leaves no step had trodden black. 
Oh, I kept the first for another day! 
Yet knowing how way leads on to way, 
I doubted if I should ever come back. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh 
Somewhere ages and ages hence: 
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- 
I took the one less traveled by, 
And that has made all the difference. 

Mirror - Mar. 7

Mirror

by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike

I am not cruel, only truthful –

The eye of a little god, four-cornered.

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.

It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long

I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.

Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.

Searching my reaches for what she really is.

Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully

She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.

I am important to her. She comes and goes.

Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman

Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

The Kiss - Mar. 6

The Kiss

by Sara Teasdale

I hoped that he would love me,

And he has kissed my mouth,

But I am like a stricken bird

That cannot reach the south.

For though I know he loves me,

To-night my heart is sad;

His kiss was not so wonderful

As all the dreams I had

Dream Deferred - Mar. 5

Dream Deferred

by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

If - Mar. 4

If— by 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 wornout 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!

Alone - Mar. 3

Aloneby Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

We Real Cool - Mar. 2

We Real Cool
by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon. 

To a Poor Old Woman - Mar. 1

To a Poor Old Woman
by William Carlos Williams
munching a plum on the street a paper bag of them in her hand They taste good to her They taste good to her. They taste good to her You can see it by the way she gives herself to the one half sucked out in her hand Comforted a solace of ripe plums seeming to fill the air They taste good to her

The Tyger - Feb. 28

The Tyger
by William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Practice Post

Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow. 

Now complete a practice post for this poem!
You will earn a class participation grade for completing a practice post that responds to the 3-part prompt.

Example Poem

This Is Just To Say

by William Carlos Williams

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

Click on the title of the post in order to navigate to the poem you have been assigned. 
(This post, for example, is called, "Example Poem.")
Then you will respond to the assigned poem by typing in the "Post a Comment" section.

About this Project

Welcome to our class poetry blog!

The Basics:
Each student will sign up to explore and discuss one of the poems posted by Mrs. Pastore.
Student responses to poems will be posted on the blog for classmates to read.
Conversation among students via the blog is encouraged!


The Details:
Each student will sign up to explore and discuss one of the poems posted by Mrs. Pastore.
An example post is provided as a model of Mrs. Pastore's expectations for your analysis.

Students will all complete a practice post in the computer lab on the day the project is introduced--if you have questions about blogger, come after school for extra help!

You will earn a test grade for the completion of your post.  Your work will be assessed according to completion of ALL criteria listed in the assignment directions.  Sentence structure, grammar, and spelling are important to the clarity of your ideas, so pay careful attention to these things when proofreading your post.

You will copy and paste your post, and submit your response to turnitin.com for record of this activity in your digital portfolio.  You will earn a homework grade for completing this on time.

Remember, this is a school AND public domain, so information that you post reflects you, your teacher, your school, and your community.  It is important to demonstrate responsible digital citizenship.  It is equally important to post only your own original ideas.  Think before you post!



The Directions:

PART 1:  Write a brief  (4-6 sentence) response to the poem that:

-Identifies the speaker (voice) of the poem

-Identifies who the speaker is addressing

-Identifies the setting of the poem

a.      Offers evidence (quoted word, phrase, or line) that proves the setting

b.      Explains how this evidence conveys the idea of the setting

             -Identifies one of the following literary devices:

        imagery, personification, onomatopoeia, metaphor, simile, repetition

a.      Offers evidence (quoted word, phrase, or line) of that literary device

b.      Explains how this literary device impacts the poem

PART 2:  Write a thorough (8-12 sentence) response to the poem that:

- Introduces the title and name of the poet

- Summarizes the main idea of the poem

- States the mood of the poem

a.      Offers evidence (quoted word, phrase, or line) that demonstrates mood of poem

b.      Explains how/why this evidence conveys this mood

       - States the tone of the poem

a.      Offers evidence (quoted word, phrase, or line) that demonstrates tone of poem

b.      Explains how/why this evidence conveys this tone

       - States the theme of the poem

a.      Offers evidence (quoted word, phrase, or line) that demonstrates theme of poem

b.      Explains how/why this evidence conveys this theme

         - Sums up the ideas you explore in your paragraph

       - Draws a general conclusion about the meaning/intent of the poem

PART 3:  Write a brief (4-6 sentence) response to the poem that:

- Expresses your overall opinion of the poem

a.      Offers evidence (quoted word, phrase, or line) of what you like/dislike

b.      Explains why this makes you feel a certain way about the poem

      - Poses a question to your classmates about the poem or a question that the poem makes you wonder about