Poem Memorizations
Poem Memorizations There Is No Frigate Like a Book Emily Dickinson There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away, Nor any coursers like a page Of prancing poetry. This traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of toll; How frugal is the chariot That bears a human soul! Dream Deferred 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?
Nothing Gold Can Stay Robert Frost Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. HERE DEAD WE LIE A. E. Housman Here dead we lie Because we did not choose To live and shame the land From which we sprung. Life, to be sure, Is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, And we were young. Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins 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. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore. 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. How to Eat a Poem Eve Merriam Don’t be polite. Bite in. Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that may run down your chin. It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are. You do not need a knife or fork or spoon or plate or napkin or tablecloth. For there is no core or stem or rind or pit or seed or skin to throw away.
My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold William Wordsworth
My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky; So was it when my life began; So it is now I am a man; So be it when. I shall grow up, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety Swift Things are Beautiful Elizabeth Coatsworth Swift things are beautiful: Swallows and deer, And lightning that falls Bright-veined and clear, Rivers and meteors, Winds in the wheat, The strong-withered horse, The runner’s sure feet. And slow things are beautiful: The closing of the day, The pause of the wave That curves downward to spray, The ember that crumbles, The opening flower, And the ox that moves on In the quiet of power. A Jelly-Fish Marianne Moore Visible, invisible, a fluctuating charm an amber-tinctured amethyst inhabits it, your arm approaches and it opens and it closes; you had meant to catch it and it quivers; you abandon your intent.
The Crocodile
Lewis Carroll
Langston Hughes
Emily Dickinson
How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!
Sometimes a crumb falls From the tables of joy, Sometimes a bone Is flung. To some people Love is given, To others Only heaven.
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all,
How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws! Steam Shovel Charles Malam The dinosaurs are not all dead. I saw one raise its iron head To watch me walking down the road Beyond our house today. Its jaws were dripping with a load Of earth and grass that it had cropped. It must have heard me where I stopped, Snorted white steam my way, And stretched its long neck out to see, And chewed, and grinned quite amiably.
The Falling Star Sara Teasdale I saw a star slide down the sky, Blinding the north as it went by, Too burning and too quick to hold, Too lovely to be bought or sold, Good only to make wishes on And then forever to be gone.
Shirley Said Dennis Doyle Who wrote “kick me” on my back? Who put a spider in my mac? Who’s the one who pulls my hair? Tries to trip me everywhere? Who runs up to me and strikes me? That boy there – I think he likes me.
Fire and Ice Robert Frost 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.
homage to my hips Lucille Clifton
You are a tree A sapling by the river With buds straining for the winter sun You are my child Together we are a forest Against the wind
these hips are big hips. they need space to move around in. they don’t fit into little petty places. these hips are free hips. they don’t like to be held back these hips have never been enslaved, they go where they want to go they do what they want to do. these hips are mighty hips. these hips are magic hips. i have known them to put a spell on a man and spin him like a top!
Luck
Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
Trees Walter Dean Myers I am a tree. Strong limbed and deeply rooted My fruit is bittersweet I am your mother
And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I’ve heard it in the chilliest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. First Memory Louise Glück Long ago, I was wounded. I lived to revenge myself against my father, not for what he was— for what I was: from the beginning of time, in childhood, I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved. Leaving Forever Denise Levertov He says the waves in the ship’s wake are like stones rolling away. I don’t see it that way. But I see the mountain turning, turning away its face as the ship takes us away.
It’s Dark In Here Shel Silverstein I am writing these poems From inside a lion, And it’s rather dark in here. So please excuse the handwriting Which may not to be too clear. But this afternoon by the lion’s cage I’m afraid I got too near. And I’m writing these lines From inside a lion, And it’s rather dark in here.
Nothing Gold Can Stay Robert Frost Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. HERE DEAD WE LIE A. E. Housman Here dead we lie Because we did not choose To live and shame the land From which we sprung. Life, to be sure, Is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, And we were young. Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins 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. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore. 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. How to Eat a Poem Eve Merriam Don’t be polite. Bite in. Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that may run down your chin. It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are. You do not need a knife or fork or spoon or plate or napkin or tablecloth. For there is no core or stem or rind or pit or seed or skin to throw away.
My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold William Wordsworth
My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky; So was it when my life began; So it is now I am a man; So be it when. I shall grow up, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety Swift Things are Beautiful Elizabeth Coatsworth Swift things are beautiful: Swallows and deer, And lightning that falls Bright-veined and clear, Rivers and meteors, Winds in the wheat, The strong-withered horse, The runner’s sure feet. And slow things are beautiful: The closing of the day, The pause of the wave That curves downward to spray, The ember that crumbles, The opening flower, And the ox that moves on In the quiet of power. A Jelly-Fish Marianne Moore Visible, invisible, a fluctuating charm an amber-tinctured amethyst inhabits it, your arm approaches and it opens and it closes; you had meant to catch it and it quivers; you abandon your intent.
The Crocodile
Lewis Carroll
Langston Hughes
Emily Dickinson
How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!
Sometimes a crumb falls From the tables of joy, Sometimes a bone Is flung. To some people Love is given, To others Only heaven.
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all,
How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws! Steam Shovel Charles Malam The dinosaurs are not all dead. I saw one raise its iron head To watch me walking down the road Beyond our house today. Its jaws were dripping with a load Of earth and grass that it had cropped. It must have heard me where I stopped, Snorted white steam my way, And stretched its long neck out to see, And chewed, and grinned quite amiably.
The Falling Star Sara Teasdale I saw a star slide down the sky, Blinding the north as it went by, Too burning and too quick to hold, Too lovely to be bought or sold, Good only to make wishes on And then forever to be gone.
Shirley Said Dennis Doyle Who wrote “kick me” on my back? Who put a spider in my mac? Who’s the one who pulls my hair? Tries to trip me everywhere? Who runs up to me and strikes me? That boy there – I think he likes me.
Fire and Ice Robert Frost 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.
homage to my hips Lucille Clifton
You are a tree A sapling by the river With buds straining for the winter sun You are my child Together we are a forest Against the wind
these hips are big hips. they need space to move around in. they don’t fit into little petty places. these hips are free hips. they don’t like to be held back these hips have never been enslaved, they go where they want to go they do what they want to do. these hips are mighty hips. these hips are magic hips. i have known them to put a spell on a man and spin him like a top!
Luck
Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
Trees Walter Dean Myers I am a tree. Strong limbed and deeply rooted My fruit is bittersweet I am your mother
And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I’ve heard it in the chilliest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. First Memory Louise Glück Long ago, I was wounded. I lived to revenge myself against my father, not for what he was— for what I was: from the beginning of time, in childhood, I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved. Leaving Forever Denise Levertov He says the waves in the ship’s wake are like stones rolling away. I don’t see it that way. But I see the mountain turning, turning away its face as the ship takes us away.
It’s Dark In Here Shel Silverstein I am writing these poems From inside a lion, And it’s rather dark in here. So please excuse the handwriting Which may not to be too clear. But this afternoon by the lion’s cage I’m afraid I got too near. And I’m writing these lines From inside a lion, And it’s rather dark in here.
