Archives For Poetry Friday

On Robert Frost: Christmas Inquiry and Discovery

December 19, 2015 — 2 Comments

It’s December, and in keeping with the season,  I had planned on a post celebrating Robert Frost’s poem “Christmas Trees”. Instead, however, I found myself on an inquiry path on a Frost holiday tradition.

I first inquired, what is the story behind Frost’s poem Christmas Trees?

The poem opens:

The city had withdrawn into itself  
And left at last the country to the country;  
When between whirls of snow not come to lie  
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove  
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,   
Yet did in country fashion in that there  
He sat and waited till he drew us out,  
A-buttoning coats, to ask him who he was.  
He proved to be the city come again  
To look for something it had left behind   
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.

The stranger asks to purchase Frost’s trees:

 He said, “A thousand.”  
  
“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”  
  
He felt some need of softening that to me:       
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”

Rather than sell them, Frost conclusion is more metaphorical:

A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!  
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,  
As may be shown by a simple calculation.  
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.       
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,  
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

I found (on Poets.org) that beginning in 1929, Frost and the printer Joseph Blumenthal partnered up to produce beautifully illustrated Christmas cards featuring Frost’s poetry.  I was surprised to discover, as reported in the NYTimes, Blumenthal, who ran the Spiral Press of New York, created the first card without Frost’s knowledge:

“…he printed 250 copies—for his wife and a small group of colleagues—of a letterpress chapbook of Frost’s early poem “Christmas Trees.”

When the poet saw the publication, his first response was to contact Blumenthal and request a few copies to send out to his own family members: ‘My sympathies have been enlisted on the side of small presses and hand setting. My heart will be with you in your work’.”

A slideshow of the cards is available on the NYTimes website. This tradition continued for another 30 years, and the Frost-Blumenthal productions were holiday “greetings” in the form of chapbooks.

I then needed to inquire, why a chapbook?

I discovered that a chapbook was historically “a small pamphlet containing tales, ballads, or tracts, sold by peddlers” in contrast to its current contemporary meaning, “a small paperback booklet, typically containing poems or fiction.” These chapbooks are very simple, stapled in the center, with some illustrated covers.

The Blog Poetry and Popular Culture posted their inquiry about the chapbooks as well:

  • What was the annual press run?
  • Did the press have a list of subscribers committed to buying a set every year, and how much money did Blumenthal and Frost eventually make off of the limited editions?

I did find out on the Poets.org site that Blumenthal printed 275 copies of the first greeting, and the last, “The Prophets Really Prophesy as Mystics, the Commentators Merely by Statistics”  had an edition run of 16,555 copies. There was no collective information on the money exchanged, other than the note that the cards can sometimes be found for purchase on E-bay (example).

That led me to inquire, what other poems did Frost place into chapbooks?

Oher poems sent as chapbooks were “Birches,” “A Boy’s Will,” and “The Wood-Pile”. There was an exhibit of the chapbooks in 2012 at the Pequot Library in Southport, CT. The exhibit was titled “Good Wishes from Robert Frost” – a set of 19 chapbooks loaned by Elinor Wilber, granddaughter of the celebrated American poet Robert Frost. Several have a personal inscription from Frost to Elinor and her husband. A video showing these chapbooks is available here:

The video ends with a copy handwritten by Frost of his poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”.

That led me to seek out a better copy of this manuscript, and my path of inquiry took me to the Library of Congress where there is a photo of the poem in its entirety:

Screenshot 2015-12-18 19.02.41

Robert Frost. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Holograph manuscript, n.d. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (195C)

 

 

 

 

This inquiry led me a different publisher. Frost’s Snow to Snow, was issued by in 1936 by Henry Holt & Company. They published twelve of Frost’s  verses, each one corresponding to a month of the year and ending with December’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”.

So how does one find out what the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” means?

I then decided to chase down the popular story (one that I have often repeated without checking its veracity) that Frost was in the audience of group of people listening to a lecture about the meaning of this poem.

I had heard that “The poem is about death,” the lecturer supposedly reported, and he continued for many minutes pointing out all the images related to death:”darkest evening” and  “sleep”. At the end of the lecture, there was an opportunity for questions and comments from the audience. Now (according to the rumor), Frost patiently waited his turn, and then firmly stated: “I wrote that poem. It is not about death. I was going home in the snow.”

As much fun as that rumored story is….I could not find anything to confirm it happening. I am chagrined that I have kept the rumor going.

However, I was relieved to find some form of confirmation in quotes from a book: Robert Frost an introduction: poems, reviews, criticism with quotes from Reginald Cook regarding this poem:

  •  “it’s all very nice but I must be getting along, getting home.”…
  •  “I always thought,” he explains, “it was the product of autointoxication coming from tiredness.”
  • When a friendly critic asked if the last two lines in “Stopping by Woods” referred to going to Heaven, and, by implication, death, the poet replied, “No, all that means is to get the hell out of there.”

On this path of inquiry, I also discovered a video of Frost reading this poem. The introduction is by the radio host Garrison Keillor:


Susan Jeffers on Frost

My final thought on Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” was of the picture book illustrated by Susan Jeffers that I read to my boys as part of our holiday preparation. The man in her rendition bears a striking resemblance to Santa Claus and the little harness bells look very festive. I know Jeffers makes the poem more child-friendly than alternative interpretations!

Finally, to sum up Frost’s attitude towards analysis, in a letter to Louis Untermeyer (1964) in Robert Frost: A Backward Look, Frost writes:

You’ve often heard me say – perhaps too often – that poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation. That little poem means just what it says and it says what it means, nothing less but nothing more.

Or, here is a more unceremonious statement in his own voice:

“….What are the promises?….If I wanted you to know, I would have told you in the poem.”

Therefore, on this post I offer no translations…and no interpretations. Here are discoveries-and at least one correction- on my inquiry journey of the winter poems of the aptly named Frost.

Happy Holidays!

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#Poetry Friday-MacArthur’s “I Shall Return”-The Teacher’s Version

March 19, 2015 — 6 Comments
When I look for inspiration in writing, I occasionally turn to “On this Day in History” websites. There is always some famous person’s birthdate or some memorable event that can spark the imagination to create a lesson about literature or an author.
So when my best friend, Catherine Flynn from Reading to the Core, offered to host #Poetry Friday on March 20th, I wanted to contribute a special post to mark the occasion. Catherine, a district reading consultant and former teacher, is a fan of historical events.
In doing my research, I discovered that March 20th marks the anniversary (3/20/1942) of General Douglas MacArthur’s statement, “I shall return.”Screenshot 2015-03-19 21.36.41
General MacArthur made this announcement arriving in Australia, after being forced to evacuate the Philippines during the height of a Japanese attack. He fulfilled the promise to return made in his iconic statement two years later on October 20, 1944, striding out onto the beach on the island of Leyte.

A sense of determination “to return” is something I witness everyday in teachers. Teachers must demonstrate endurance in meeting the everyday challenges in education today, challenges large (responsible for educating children for our collective future) and challenges small (bulletin boards, lunch duty, formative assessments, summative assessments, group work, Parent/Teacher Conference Night, and more).

The attitude of teachers to return every day to the doors of their classrooms determined to meet the challenges of each day is what I hope to have captured in the following poem:

“I Shall Return”: The Teacher’s Version

 

I Shall Return

…to the school parking lot

to snag the last available space

that is farthest from the building

(and it’s pouring)

I Shall Return

…to the back door of the school

balancing the bag of stickers and markers and card stock,

with the bulletin board corrugated cardboard,

and a box of energy bars (sans nuts),

in my paper stuffed satchel-

(“Is that my phone is ringing???”)

-with my keys at the bottom.

I Shall Return

….to the classroom

just in time to set up the desks for ???

(select the one that best applies:)

A. Socratic seminar

B. morning meeting

C. Daily 5

D. computers on carts

I Shall Return

….to the copier,

it’s jammed,

it’s hot,

and out of ink.

I Shall Return

…to the dimly lit book room

and dig through the pile

of dusty boxes filled with dog-earred copies

and abandoned textbooks

desperately seeking 27 paperbacks OF

–Ramona the Pest OR

–A Wrinkle in Time OR

– Of Mice and Men

No matter the grade level…still 3 books short.

I Shall Return

….to the (hard copy/online) grade book

and mark the tardies

and mark the absences

and mark the group work

(and note, “No quiz grade for Mark?”)

I Shall Return

…to the parking lot

lugging the satchel of papers

that have travelled,

ungraded,

from school,

to home,

back to school where

I do what I love.

And so,

I Shall Return

©Colette Marie Bennett, 2015

Submitted with great respect for both General MacArthur and educators everywhere on the March 20th anniversary.

Hope this was ok, Catherine!

To see the other #PoetryFriday posts check out her blog: Poetry Friday is Here!

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Love Hurts: Valentine’s Beheading and Edna’s Forgotten Kisses

February 10, 2015 — 3 Comments

blleding heartSt. Valentine’s Day traces its origins to the priest, Valentine, who was performing Christian marriages when the Roman emperor Claudius II (not to be confused with the more capable Claudius I) ordered his execution. Valentine was arrested, beaten to death with clubs, and then beheaded.
The date? February 14, on or about the year 270. Valentine’s Day was off to a painful start. But the legend of Valentine started to spread with a story of a farewell note for the jailer’s daughter, signed “From Your Valentine.”

The Feast of Lupercalia, a pagan festival of love, held around mid-February, became entwined with the legend of Valentine. Lupercalia had been celebrated Hunger Game style by placing the names of young women in a box, and then pairing up with men who drew their names. The debauchery was halted by Pope Gelasius in the 5th Century.

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why (Sonnet XLIII) offers the perfect blend of Valentine’s pain and Lupercalia after-party regret. As a plus, it is a sonnet, one of the easiest ways to teach author’s craft: 14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter that pose a problem and a resolution after the volta or “turn” in the final line(s).

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, 
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain 
Under my head till morning; but the rain 
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh 
Upon the glass and listen for reply, 
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain 
For unremembered lads that not again 
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. 
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree, 
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, 
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: 
I cannot say what loves have come and gone, 
I only know that summer sang in me 
A little while, that in me sings no more.

So, what is the problem? I asked my students every year I taught this poem:

“The problem is she kisses everyone,” say some students.
“The problem is she cannot remember every lover,” say others.
“Was she a little ahead of her time?” asked one who noted her birthdate:
“She’s a slut…” or “She’s a little loose…” or “She’s a man-eater…no, a lad-eater,” they judge collectively.
“The problem is …she’s grown old, and cannot get love the same way,” they conclude.

Their responses have followed this poem’s pattern; from promiscuity to regret, they follow the sequence in the pattern created by Millay.

When I taught any sonnet, I would ask, “Why did the poet choose this format? Why not a lyric poem of four stanzas of 16 lines total?”

Questions like that always puzzled my students; poetry for many of them springs Athena-like from the mind of the poet without regard to form or word craft.  Helping them to understand a poet’s choice leads to appreciating author’s craft, and in this case, Millay’s choice to bare her past using a sonnet.

The sonnet is Petrachan, the octave (first 8) lines with requisite abbaabba ryme scheme. This section is “haunting”, full of “w”s creating a whoooo sound, and to confirm how sound is related to the sense of the poem, the “rain if full of ghosts” that start howling at “midnight with a cry.”

The following part of the poem is the sextet (last 6) lines with the rhyme scheme cdedce dominated by images of winter and summer, the poet as the leafless and lonely tree. “I only know” marks the volta, the turn, into the resolution, where “summer sang” carefree love, but in winter “sings no more.” Two motifs, noise and time, connect the octave with the sextet.

One student suggested that Millay wrote this as sonnet for self-exploration, “Like she put herself on an analyst’s couch and worked her way to a solution.”
Another suggested she was a making poetic confession.
Several saw the poem as a warning, but they all agreed that understanding the structure of the sonnet helped them understand Millay’s message.

“Love hurts,” they said. St. Valentine would agree.
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#Poetry Friday: Situational Irony and Apology to Billy Collins

January 30, 2015 — 9 Comments
IRONY

Situational Irony

It was situational irony…staring me in the face.

In looking for lessons for poetry month, I came upon a worksheet that asked students to analyze a poem. The poem on the worksheet was “Introduction to Poetry” by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

Below the poem on the worksheet were two columns: “Examples of figurative language” go in the left hand column; “Types of Figurative Language” go into the right hand column.

When I came upon this worksheet in a curriculum guide, I was, at first, amused by the situational irony of this assignment.

But I became bothered once I considered that if this worksheet exists, there probably are others just like it in countless number of curriculum guides across the country.

In the poem’s 16 lines, Collins captures the kind of encounter that language arts teachers too often promote. He is able to highlight the absurdity of “worksheet”  analysis used to prepare students to discuss the elements of poetry without regard for the beauty of the poem itself.

Collins’s opening line sets up this poem as a gift, one worthy of wonder and imaginative speculation for the reader:

I ask them to take a poem   
and hold it up to the light   
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.

But Collins is familiar with how literature is “taught” to students. His  attitude towards literary analysis is in the last two lines of the poem. You can hear his speaker’s …what is it….frustration? exasperation? resignation?  in knowing what will happen to his gift of a poem:

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope   
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose   
to find out what it really means.

So here is the situational irony. The poem that tries to make a case for admiring the beauty of a poem rather than reducing it to its elements to find out what it means is reduced to a worksheet in order to beat a confession out of the poem to find out what it means.

I really like this poem. In his typical gentle melancholy fashion, Collins makes a solid case against “teaching” a poem. I would like to think I could honor that purpose and not use a worksheet to teach Introduction to Poetry.

Accept this apology, Billy Collins.

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Poetry Friday: Memorial Day-“In Flanders Fields”

May 23, 2014 — 8 Comments

Yesterday, Scott, the social studies teacher, brought an eighth grader into my office to recite a poem. He had arrived unannounced, and the young girl looked uncomfortable standing in front of teachers and 12th grade students. But, she had Scott by her side, and he encouraged her with small nudge. She took a breath, and holding a copy of the poem before her, she began to recite:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

No one said anything after she muffled the last line, and there was an awkward pause.  So, I asked her to read the last line again, and Scott pointed to the last sentence in the poem.

“Start here,” he told her, and she reread: If ye break faith with us who die /We shall not sleep, though poppies grow/In Flanders fields.

Only then did we all clap. Her relief was evident, and I noted just as they left, “That last line is the most important in the poem.”

Equally important is what Scott did when he supported this student in having her practice reciting a poem aloud to a group of people. Moreover, this Memorial Day weekend is the appropriate time to hear this particular poem read aloud.

Screenshot 2014-05-23 09.48.29

autographed copy from Arlington National Cemetery website

 In Flanders Field was composed by John McCrae, a poet and a physician who served in the Canadian army in World War I.

The most common account of the poem’s origin is that McCrae was sitting in the back of an ambulance after the Battle of Ypes in Belgium, when he scripted the poem on May 3, 1915, as a eulogy for his close friend Alexis Helmer, who was killed during the battle the day before.

There are other accounts that McCrae was unhappy with the poem and crumpled the paper before it was retrieved by another soldier who was so impressed that he committed it to memory. Another story is that McCrae had worked on the poem for months after the Battle of Ypes. Most stories about the poem agree, however, that McCrae was struck by how quickly poppies quickly grew around the graves of those who died, and he used this striking image that dominates the poem.

So powerful was this image of a brilliant red poppy that American professor Moina Michael promoted the wearing of red poppies year-round to honor the soldiers who died in the war.

By 1922, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) adopted the poppy as its official memorial, and when fresh poppies could not be found to sell as tributes, artificial poppies were made by veterans groups. These poppies are called “buddy poppies” and, according to the information on the VFW website, the proceeds from their sale,buddy poppy

“provides compensation to the veterans who assemble the poppies, provides financial assistance in maintaining state and national veterans’ rehabilitation and service programs and partially supports the VFW National Home for orphans and widows of our nation’s veterans.”

I appreciate Scott encouraging his student to share the poem. Hearing her read, “If ye break faith with us who die/We shall not sleep” reminded us listening to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. The image of those red poppies, those blooming on Flanders Field or those buddy poppies taken from the hand of a veteran this coming Memorial Day, remind us as well.

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Poetry Friday: National Poetry Month Coda

May 2, 2014 — 5 Comments

On the Studio 360 website, the following photo of a poem written by a 1st grader is posted as the best poem to celebrate National Poetry Month 2014. I would agree that there is something universally appealing about this child’s observations that were created with considerable attention to the way words sound…

first_grade_poem_embed

 

We did the soft wind.
We danst slowly. We swrld
Aroned. We danst soft.
We lisin to the mozik.
We danst to the mozik. 
We made personal space. 

The poem by this 1st grader is strikingly similar to Gwendolyn Brook’s short poem. She also pays considerable attention to the way words sound:

 

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.

My students have always commented on the inferences that Brooks creates in her eight lines of verse in characterizing the seven pool players. They write about the pool players’ attitudes and their fatalistic approach to life. My students also comment on what is missing in drawing their conclusions. They are satisfied with providing interpretations in the “spaces” of the poem, filling in their own ideas what is not explicit. They agree with T.S. Eliot’s statement: “poetry communicates before it is understood.”

The unnamed 1st grade poet of the poem above communicates the slow, swirling, soft relationship between music and dance in seven short statements on six lines of verse. What does it matter if the reader may never understand if the personal space for the poet is made because of the room needed for the dance or the space made personal by the dance ? In filling in the “space” of the 1st grader’s poem, I like to think that line was probably added because of a teacher’s repeated plea to a room of dancing 6 year- olds:

“PERSONAL SPACE! Remember…PERSONAL SPACE!!”

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Poetry Month is Here- So, “Look in Thy Heart and Write”

April 18, 2014 — Leave a comment

April is Poetry Month. What should you do about this?
Take advice from Sir Philip Sidney and “Look in thy heart and write.”

Sidney composed “An Apology for Poetry”  (Defence of Poesie) in 1575, and in this essay maintains poetry combines the liveliness of history with philosophy, and this combination is more effective than either history or philosophy in inspiring readers. According to Sidney, poetry acts in a way that “awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought.”

Sidney himself was an accomplished poet who wrote a sequence of 108 English sonnets known as “Astrophil and Stella” where Astrophil is the star lover, and Stella is his star.

The first sonnet in the sequence sets the conceit; the meaning embedded in the last line (bolded):

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show
That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn’d brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay,
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seem’d but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite–
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”

writeMeaning? Stop thinking about writing a poem and start writing a poem. Your heart will guide your pen.

So, what to write during Poetry Month?

  • Write a poem and share on a website. There are hundreds of sites. (ex: poetry.com)
  • Write about your favorite poem and share the poem.
  • Write about a lesson on poetry you remember.
  • Write about a lesson on poetry you taught.
  • Write a post for #PoetryFriday, a platform where poets and readers of poetry share their writing.  Each week, a blogger is tasked with rounding up the #PoetryFriday posts around the blogosphere and hosting posts on his or her website.

As Sidney suggests, the best way to know what you think about poetry is to sit and write about poetry.
It’s April.
It’s Poetry Month.
Your muse is impatiently waiting.

Write!

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An Irish #PoetryFriday with a Seamus Heaney Sonnet

March 14, 2014 — 6 Comments

The poems of Seamus Heaney get a great deal of attention in mid-March probably because everything Irish gets attention around St. Patrick’s Day (March 17). Heaney is well represented in our curriculum; we read his Beowulf translation in grade 10. This Nobel prize-winning interpreter,, playwright and poet passed away in September 2013, leaving a legacy he described as one of “…words as bearers of history and mystery.”

Screenshot 2014-03-14 07.32.13I taught his Sonnet, In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984 to my Advanced Placement English Literature class this week. They listened first to hear him read the poem: (NOTE: be sure and listen to the little comment about “x’s and o’s” he makes at the end)

The cool that came off the sheets just off the line

Made me think the damp must still be in them

But when I took my corners of the linen

And pulled against her, first straight down the hem

And then diagonally, then flapped and shook

The fabric like a sail in a cross-wind,

They made a dried-out undulating thwack.       (sonnet continues…..)

“Is this about death?” asked my 4th period class. They were curious.
“This is about sex,” stated my 1st period class. They were emphatic.
Ultimately, they came to agree that the “thwack” could be either.

This past week has been “Sonnet Hell Week” where I teach my students to read, analyze, and then respond in draft form about a selected sonnet in preparation for the exam this coming May. This kind of exercise has the potential to poison anyone’s love for poetry, and they had written several essays before getting to this poem.
Despite the danger, I was confident that Heaney’s poem could withstand even the most jaded 2nd semester senior’s interpretation.

“I like it,” was the collective sentiment. These lines from a few of their quick draft essays reflect their appreciation:

Heaney uses comparisons to tell the reader that folding sheets makes him feel like his wife is still around, as the two end up “hand to hand” just from folding alone.

He describes their romance in moves when he was “x and she was o”…XOXO commonly represents hugs and kisses, creating the heartfelt connection.

This touching and pulling away symbolizes her physical existence on earth and her abrupt departure through the onomotopoeic “thwack.”

Just like the finality of the chore of folding sheets that they used to do together will never stop being a chore, she is forever present. She is in every fiber sewn in the sheets, every old flour sack used.

He must face the perils of household chores without help, endure his worst fears without his best friend. He must make his bed and sleep in it too.

The New York Times ran a wonderful opinion-documentary (Op-doc) on Heaney in December 2013. Watch and listen (yes, listen!) to the lovely tribute to Ireland’s great literary talent:

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In #poetryfriday, 12th grade, Advanced Placement Literature, Education, Poetry, Reader , , , , , , ,
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Poetry Friday: This Winter’s Ice, Not Fire

February 28, 2014 — 2 Comments

In New England this winter and in many other areas of the United States, we are experiencing the Polar Vortex, a phenomenon of cold-core low-pressure areas that strengthen during the winter. That is the scientific explanation for the record cold of early 2014.

A literary lens would suggest this uncomfortable freeze is akin to Dante’s ninth circle of Hell detailed in the Inferno section of The Divine Comedy. This last inner circle of Hell is reserved for those whose sins are related to treachery. The ninth circle is divided into four sections, and all sinners are trapped in the frozen lake, Cocytus. Satan himself is frozen waist deep in the lake with an icy wind ensuring his immobility.

That icy wind sound familiar? Looking at my dashboard this morning, I noted the following temperature reading:

photo (18)Welcome to Hell!

Robert Frost, a New England man himself, considered the destructive power of cold and ice in his short poem “Fire and Ice” (read here by Richard Burton)

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Frost’s association of fire with desire is recognizable. There are fires of passion or fires to make something “pure”. One symbol for knowledge is a lamp on fire, and a warm place by the fire is welcome during this recent freeze. Ending in fire may mirror the beginning, if one holds to the Big Bang Theory.

In contrast, his association of ice with hate creates a hostile tone. This association is also recognizable, describing someone as having  an icy heart or with ice in his/her veins leaves an unpleasant impression. The break-up song “Cold as Ice” by Foreigner lyrics state, “You’re as cold as ice/You’re willing to sacrifice our love…”. Economically, there is the dreaded “black ice,” a costly force of destruction on roads that sends thousands of vehicles to body shops annually. Scenes like these have played out all too frequently this year:

One final destructive power of ice to consider is the “melting” danger. National Geographic featured interactive maps in the story If All the Ice Melted  demonstrating what North America and the other six continents would look like if all the ice in the world melted. The result would increase the sea level by an estimated 216 feet.

Screenshot 2014-02-28 08.06.12

Frost’s short poem suggests that destruction by either ice or fire has the same result. However, I would like to point out that in the above-mentioned ice-melting scenario, my home would finally be waterfront, possibly with an ocean view!

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Poetry Friday: Poetic Patterns Meet the Spiral of Theodorus

February 20, 2014 — 3 Comments

The amazing artwork in the hallways of the middle school was created by….(wait for it)…math classes!

Last week, Ms. Nihan, the 8th math teacher posted drawings created by students who were studying a geometrical pattern based on the work of a 5th Century Greek mathematician, Theodorous of Cyrene. He developed a pattern called the Spiral of Theodorous, a square root spiral composed of contiguous right triangles.

The artwork on the walls represents a Common Core Mathematical Standard:

CCSS.Math.Practice.MP7 Look for and make use of structure.

“Mathematically proficient students look closely to discern a pattern or structure.” This standard can also represent poetry patterns. Rhythm, rhyme scheme, repetition are all part of poetic patterns and structure that proficient students in English should use in close reading.

Therefore, a tribute to a few of student drawings is in order; each is matched with a poem with a distinct pattern.

First up, a “lullaby” with a rhyme scheme and refrain pattern  (a-a-a-refrain-b-b-b-refrain).  Like “Rock a Bye Baby”, this poem is more frightening than comforting, as the narrator clearly plans to place the child in a hazardous area!

photo (9)

Lullaby

Samuel Hoffenstein (1890-1947)

Yes, I’ll take you to the zoo,
To see the yak, the bear, the gnu,
And that’s the place where I’ll leave you–
Sleep, little baby!
You’ll see the lion in a rage,
The rhino, none the worse for age;
You’ll see the inside of a cage–
Sleep, little baby!

Next up, a quick tribute to the flamingo. This is an offering with the pattern of iambic tetrameter and a single rhyme (glum/gum).

photo (1)

The Flamingo Poem

Richard Medrington

Flamingos dress in fetching pink
can be rather glum, 

Their legs being made of plastic tubes
And bits of chewing gum.

from An Absird Book of Burds (Edinburgh: Puppet State, 2003)

The next poem is a humorous offering titled “X-ray” with two quatrains, each containing one rhyme (Jones/bones; sight/night):

photo (10)

X-Ray

by Joan Horton

“This is your x-ray,”

Said young Doctor Jones.

As he held up a picture

And showed me my bones.

(continued here)

In making these extraordinary drawings, students had to follow a specific pattern for the Spiral of Theodorus:

The spiral is started with an isosceles right triangle, with each leg having unit length. Another right triangle is formed, an automedian right triangle with one leg being the hypotenuse of the prior (with length √2) and the other leg having length of 1; the length of the hypotenuse of this second triangle is √3. The process then repeats; the ith triangle in the sequence is a right triangle with side lengths √i and 1, and with hypotenuse √i + 1.

Screenshot 2014-02-05 09.23.35 (wikipedia)

The original rendering by Theodorus is remarkably like a seashell, so here is an Amy Lowell poem matched with a seashell and its inhabitant, a small hermit crab. This poem has similarities to a Sonnetina Due-a 10 line poem with rhyming couplets. The poem also has a repeated “sing-song” line “Sea Shell, Sea Shell“:

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Sea Shell

Amy Lowell

Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing me a song, O Please!
A song of ships, and sailor men,
And parrots, and tropical trees,
Of islands lost in the Spanish Main
Which no man ever may find again,
Of fishes and corals under the waves,
And seahorses stabled in great green caves.
Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing of the things you know so well. 

Some of the other drawings are seen here:

“Beach Umbrellas” http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewPoetry.asp?id=299495
“Peacock” 3 short poems: http://www.voicesnet.org/displayonepoem.aspx?poemid=223518

Patterns in math meet patterns in poetry, and I am happy to report that no square roots were harmed in this enterprise…Thanks to Ms. Nihan and the 8th grade practitioners of patterns!

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