Canon Poetry

Discussion in 'Books' started by Val1, Aug 6, 2013.

  1. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    My 9th grade son, not a heavy reader, has to read three books for his summer reading and has discovered in the past 1/2 year that he likes writing poetry. He has a nice turn of phrase, and couple with looser grammatical rules, his free verse is pretty good.

    So, I want to select 20 poems he can read instead of a book. Since we've talked about Ozymandius and A Dream Deferred over the past year, I started with those two. But being disinclined to read poetry myself, outside of what was assigned in high school, I don't have the recall. What are the great poems a rising 9th grader should know?

    TIA.
     
  2. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Robert Frost comes to mind: they're the kind of things he can read now and understand, then reread them later and understand them in a completely different way. There are plenty to pick from

    Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et decorum est" with the help of a footnote or two could be good if he likes history and knows a few things about WWI.

    There are quite a few poems by Longfellow that someone that age would have fun with.

    I'm a bit late for a meeting, but a really good web resource (once you find your way beyond the front page)...

    http://www.poetryfoundation.org/
     
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  3. BalanceUT

    BalanceUT RSL and THFC!

    Oct 8, 2006
    Appalachia
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    My favorites are:
    Robert Bly
    Pablo Neruda
    Rumi

    For a rising 9th grader, Bly may be best, but do some web searches and you can decide if Neruda and Rumi's work apply. For Rumi in particular, the quality of the translation matters a lot. I've read older scholarly translations that are horrible, that lose his lively and fun spirit. Modern translations tend to be better.
     
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  4. chaski

    chaski Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 20, 2000
    redacted
    Club:
    Lisburn Distillery FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Turks and Caicos Islands
    Blake, The Tyger *
    Dickinson, Because I Could Not Stop For Death *
    Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn
    Poe, The Raven *
    Whitman, O Captain! My Captain! *
    Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (Daffodils)

    * IIRC, we read these and Ozymandias in 9th grade English. And that was when the canon was The Canon. :)
     
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  5. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Thanks for the suggestions. I'd already decided on Whitman and if I'd thought before posting, I would have thought about Frost.

    So, this is my preliminary list:

    Walt Whitman -- O Captain! My Captain!
    Robert Frost -- Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
    Robert Frost -- The Road Less Traveled
    Langston Hughes -- A Dream Deferred
    Percy Bysshe Shelley -- Ozymandius
    Horace Smith -- Ozymandius
    Rudyard Kipling -- If
    William Shakespeare -- My Love is Nothing Like a Rose
    Robert Service -- The Cremation of Sam McGee
    William Blake -- The Tyger
    Dylan Thomas -- Do Not go Gentle into that Good Night
    John Keats -- Ode on a Grecian Urn
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- Paul Revere's Ride
    Emily Dickinson -- Because I Could Not Stop for Death (I needed a Dickinson)
    Lewis Carroll -- Jaberwocky

    I need 5 more, I think, to make it an even 20.

    Got a favorite Neruda BalanceUT? Just not familiar with his work.

    As for Dulce et Decorum est.... gosh, that's graphic. My son does have a familiarity with WWI, but that may be too much for him.

    I was thinking of Robert Burns' To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, esp since he's reading Of Mice and Men right now.

    I was thinking of e.e. cummings' Humanity i love you, but that may be the only one I remember.

    My son does NOT care for The Raven, so I was thinking Annabel Lee...

    Also, interesting note about the two Ozymandius poems. They were both entries for a newspaper competition. After reading both, I'm wondering why Shelley's is the more memorable....
     
  6. chaski

    chaski Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 20, 2000
    redacted
    Club:
    Lisburn Distillery FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Turks and Caicos Islands
    After he reads the ones you have, you can look for more from poets he liked.
     
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  7. BalanceUT

    BalanceUT RSL and THFC!

    Oct 8, 2006
    Appalachia
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    May be a bit mature for a rising 9th grader... but A Song of Despair is beautiful. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-song-of-despair/

    Maya Angelou... seriously. Add a book of hers. Diversity, modernity, strong and deep. It does not get any better.
     
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  8. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    If you want to lay a guilt trip on him, using a good poem to do it, there's Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays"

    http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19217

    Those Winter Sundays

    by Robert Hayden

    Sundays too my father got up early
    and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
    then with cracked hands that ached
    from labor in the weekday weather made
    banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

    I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
    When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
    and slowly I would rise and dress,
    fearing the chronic angers of that house,

    Speaking indifferently to him,
    who had driven out the cold
    and polished my good shoes as well.
    What did I know, what did I know
    of love's austere and lonely offices?
     
  9. chaski

    chaski Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 20, 2000
    redacted
    Club:
    Lisburn Distillery FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Turks and Caicos Islands
    For cannon poetry -
    Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade.
     
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  10. Iceblink

    Iceblink Member

    Oct 11, 1999
    Chicago
    Club:
    Ipswich Town FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    Did someone suggest this? Horace Smith's version of this poem isn't good at all. It's not even called "Ozymandias." It had an insanely long title.... something like "On a Stupendous Leg of Granite Standing Alone With an Inscription Near It." That's not it, but it's awful.

    Your list is quite male-centric. It's also pretty white. Should vary it a bit. I have some suggestions... some white, some old, etc. Says something about the canon.

    Another Wilfred Owen: "Anthem for Doomed Youth" Always loved that one, and I think it's more approachable.
    Neruda: "My Ugly Love"
    Gwendolyn Brooks: "The Boy Died in My Alley"
    Sylvia Plath: "Mirror"
    Joy Harjo: "Perhaps the World Ends Here"

    Lots of 9th grade English classes look at Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz." Might be a good idea to take a look at it and think about it.

    One that I did with my 9th graders is "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy.

    I actually doubt he'll do a lot of canon poetry with his 9th grade class. Most of the 9th grade classes I've seen do short stories and a couple novels... and Romeo and Juliet... a couple of the poems I mentioned above are part of the curriculum.... "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes as well.
     
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  11. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Hmm, according to wiki the title is Ozymandius.... Actually, I find it interesting to be able to compare two poems both written for a competition and to see the juxtaposition between the two. I would never have picked this poem on it's own merits, but I am now very disappointed in my 10th grade english teacher for never presenting this version to me.

    I know, but I don't think I really care. This is not an appreciation of poetry and / or styles per se, but rather more to give him the groundwork and preparation over the next four years of the most famous, most alluded to poems, the ones I feel most certain he will see again. Jabberwocky is absolutely not ever going to be considered a great poem, except that my son has been in Alice in Wonderland, and we play D&D, so he knows what a vorpal blade is.

    Thanks for the suggestions.

    I love The Man He Killed, if only because I can preface it with this Monty Python sketch:


    But, he's got enough poems about death. He's pretty sensitive, so I am particularly giving this one a miss.
     
  12. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Must. Resist. Urge. To recommend. Philip. Larkin's. "This Be The Verse."

    Totally inappropriate for 9th grade....
     
  13. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Similarly resisted.

    Until the kid hits 12th grade.....
     
  14. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    He's not my favorite poet, but I have at least four of his poems memorized, and I've never attempted to commit any of them to memory -- they just stuck, for better or worse.
     
  15. Iceblink

    Iceblink Member

    Oct 11, 1999
    Chicago
    Club:
    Ipswich Town FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  16. Iceblink

    Iceblink Member

    Oct 11, 1999
    Chicago
    Club:
    Ipswich Town FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  17. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Well, we're all done. We've read 20 poems, and the contrary little sucker that he is, he chose the Horace Smith Ozymandius version as his favorite. He's at work memorizing it for next Monday when his class discusses their various readings this past summer.

    Thanks for all the suggestions. I did catch him reading this thread one day when I left myself logged onto BS. He wouldn't tell me if managed to look up Wankler's Philip Larkin selection....
     
  18. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    You'll know if he actually recites that one in class. You'll get a few phone calls at least.
     
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  19. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    This thread came to mind as I ponder the wasteland of Brazilian soccer following yesterday's pasting.


    Percy Bysshe Shelley -- Ozymandius

    I met a traveller from an antique land
    Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
    The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
    And on the pedestal these words appear:
    'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away.
     
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  20. Minnman

    Minnman Member+

    Feb 11, 2000
    Columbus, OH, USA
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  21. zaqualung

    zaqualung Member+

    Jun 17, 2015
    San Francisco
    Club:
    Liverpool FC

    Two vast and trunkless legs of stone ....

    hah........
    That's kind of David Luiz watching Luiz Suarez.............
     
  22. SpencerNY

    SpencerNY Member+

    Dec 1, 2001
    Up in the skyway
    #22 SpencerNY, Oct 29, 2015
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2015
    This one has stuck with me since high school.

    Edward Hirsch - Execution

    The last time I saw my high school football coach
    He had cancer stenciled into his face
    Like pencil marks from the sun, like intricate
    Drawings on the chalkboard, small x's and o's
    That he copied down in a neat numerical hand
    Before practice in the morning. By day's end
    The board was a spiderweb of options and counters,
    Blasts and sweeps, a constellation of players
    Shining under his favorite word, Execution,
    Underlined in the upper right-hand corner of things.
    He believed in football like a new religion
    And had perfect unquestioning faith in the fundamentals
    Of blocking and tackling, the idea of warfare
    Without suffering or death, the concept of teammates
    Moving in harmony like the planets — and yet
    Our awkward adolescent bodies were always canceling
    The flawless beauty of Saturday afternoons in September,
    Falling away from the particular grace of autumn,
    The clear weather, the ideal game he imagined.
    And so he drove us through punishing drills
    On weekday afternoons, and doubled our practice time,
    And challenged us to hammer him with forearms,
    And devised elaborate, last-second plays — a flea-
    Flicker, a triple reverse — to save us from defeat.
    Almost always they worked. He despised losing
    And loved winning more than his own body, maybe even
    More than himself. But the last time I saw him
    He looked wobbly and stunned by illness,
    And I remembered the game in my senior year
    When we met a downstate team who loved hitting
    More than we did, who battered us all afternoon
    With a vengeance, who destroyed us with timing
    And power, with deadly, impersonal authority,
    Machine-like fury, perfect execution
     
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