Name: ___________________________________American Poetry Unit: Final Paper and Presentation

CENTRAL QUESTIONWhat crisis is the poem responding to? What is the author’s message to his or her audience?

Final PaperFor six weeks – as interrupted as they were – we refreshed and expanded skills related to reading, explicating, and writing about poetry. At the same time, we continued to refine our brainstorming, evidence-gathering, thesis composition, and CER-paragraph writing skills.

This unit will culminate in your performing these skills independently with a poem of your choosing (well, I’ll provide you will a collection of a dozen poems from which to choose).

Sequential order of events:

1. Determine whether you’d like to work alone, with a partner, or in a trio

2. Peruse the selection of poems and choose one about which you will study, present, and write an argument

3. Read and annotate the poem

4. Determine the crisis to which the poem is responding and the author’s potential message to his or her audience

5. Provide evidence of brainstorming

6. Provide evidence of evidence-gathering

7. Compose a draft thesis and submit to Madson no later than the end of class Wednesday. This thesis paragraph should contain multiple components and meet all the requirements of a debatable and substantial thesis

8. Develop a 5-8 paragraph outline and submit to Madson no later than the end of class Thursday

9. Individually, compose a 5-8 paragraph, CER-formatted, evidence-based expository essay

10. Final essays will be do no later than the start of class Monday, March 2

PresentationOn Friday, you will a close-reading of your poem to three of your colleagues. You should plan on reading the poem aloud (if it’s a longer poem, locate sections you’ll read) and walking the group through your thesis and your analysis of one or two pieces of evidence.

Name: ______________________________American Poetry Unit: Willie Perdom’s “Nigger-Reecan Blues”

Nigger-Reecan Blues Willie Perdomo (for Piri Thomas)

Hey, Willie. What are you, man? Boricua? Moreno? Que?

I am.

No, silly. You know what I mean: What are you?

I am you. You are me. We the same. Can’t you feel our veins drinking thesame blood? 5

—But who said you was a Porta Reecan?—Tú no eres Puerto Riqueño, brother.—Maybe Indian like Gandhi Indian.—I thought you was a Black man.—Is one of your parents white? 10—You sure you ain’t a mix of something like—Portuguese and Chinese?—Naaaahhhh…You ain’t no Porta Reecan.—I keep telling you: The boy is a Black man with an accent.

If you look closely you will see that your spirits are standing right next to 15our songs. Yo soy Boricua! You soy Africano! I ain’t lyin’. Pero mi pelo eskinky y kurly y mi skin no es negra pero it can pass…

—Hey, yo. I don’t care what you say—you Black.

I ain’t Black! Everytime I go downtown la madam blankeeta de madeeson avenue sees that I’m standing right next to her and she holds her purse just 20a bit tighter. I can’t even catch a taxi late at night and the newspapers saythat if I’m not in front of a gun, chances are that I’ll be behind one. I won-der why…

—Cuz you Black, nigger.

I ain’t Black, man. I had a conversation with my professor. Went like this: 25

—Where are you from, Willie?—I’m from Harlem.—Ohh! Are you Black?—No, but—

—Do you play much basketball? 30 Te lo estoy diciendo, brother. Ese hombre es un moreno!Míralo!Mira yo no soy moreno! I just come out of Jerry’s Den and the coconut spray off my new shape-up sails around the corner, up to the Harlem 35River and off to New Jersey. I’m lookin’ slim and I’m lookin’ trimand when my homeboy Davi saw me, he said: “Coño, Papo. Teparece comoun moreno, brother. Word up, bro. You look like a stone blackkid.” 40

—I told you—you was Black.

Damn! I ain’t even Black and here I am sufferin’ from the youngBlack man’s plight/the old white man’s burden/and I ain’t evenBlack, man/a Black man/I am not/Boricua I am/ain’t never reallywas/Black/like me… 45

—Leave that boy alone. He got the Nigger-Reecan Blues

I’m a Spic!I’m a Nigger!Spic! Spic! No different than a Nigger!Neglected, rejected, oppressed, and depressed 50From banana boats to tenementsStreet gangs to regiments…Spic! Spic! I ain’t nooooo different than a Nigger.

Willie Perdomo is the author of The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon (Penguin Poets, 2014), Smoking Lovely (Rattapallax, 2003), winner of the PEN Beyond Margins Award, and Where a Nickel Costs a Dime (W.W. Norton, 1996).

His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, BOMB, Mandorla, and African Voices. 

He is founder/publisher of Cypher Books, a VONA/Voices faculty member, and is currently an Instructor in English at Phillips Exeter Academy, located in Southern New Hampshire.

Name: ______________________________American Poetry Unit: Nikki Giovanni’s “Nikki-Rosa”

Nikki-Rosa

childhood remembrances are always a drag   if you’re Blackyou always remember things like living in Woodlawn   with no inside toiletand if you become famous or something 5they never talk about how happy you were to have   your motherall to yourself andhow good the water felt when you got your bath   from one of those 10big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in   and somehow when you talk about home   it never gets across how much youunderstood their feelingsas the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale 15and even though you rememberyour biographers never understandyour father’s pain as he sells his stock   and another dream goesAnd though you’re poor it isn’t poverty that 20concerns youand though they fought a lotit isn’t your father’s drinking that makes any difference   but only that everybody is together and youand your sister have happy birthdays and very good    25Christmasesand I really hope no white person ever has cause   to write about mebecause they never understandBlack love is Black wealth and they’ll 30probably talk about my hard childhoodand never understand thatall the while I was quite happy

Name: ___________________________________American Poetry Unit: T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Stanza I Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherized upon a table;Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,The muttering retreatsOf restless nights in one-night cheap hotelsAnd sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:Streets that follow like a tedious argumentOf insidious intentTo lead you to an overwhelming question ...Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and goTalking of Michelangelo.

Stanza II The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,And seeing that it was a soft October night,Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

Stanza III And indeed there will be timeFor the yellow smoke that slides along the street,Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;There will be time, there will be timeTo prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;There will be time to murder and create,And time for all the works and days of handsThat lift and drop a question on your plate;Time for you and time for me,And time yet for a hundred indecisions,And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and goTalking of Michelangelo.

Stanza IV And indeed there will be timeTo wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”Time to turn back and descend the stair,With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)Do I dareDisturb the universe?In a minute there is timeFor decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Stanza V For I have known them all already, known them all:Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;I know the voices dying with a dying fallBeneath the music from a farther room.               So how should I presume?

Stanza VI And I have known the eyes already, known them all—The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,Then how should I beginTo spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?               And how should I presume?

Stanza VII And I have known the arms already, known them all—Arms that are braceleted and white and bare(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)Is it perfume from a dressThat makes me so digress?Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.               And should I then presume?               And how should I begin?

Stanza VIII Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streetsAnd watched the smoke that rises from the pipesOf lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged clawsScuttling across the floors of silent seas.

Stanza IX And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!Smoothed by long fingers,Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,And in short, I was afraid.

Stanza X And would it have been worth it, after all,After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,Would it have been worth while,To have bitten off the matter with a smile,To have squeezed the universe into a ballTo roll it towards some overwhelming question,To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—If one, settling a pillow by her head               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;               That is not it, at all.”

Stanza XI And would it have been worth it, after all,Would it have been worth while,After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—And this, and so much more?—It is impossible to say just what I mean!But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:Would it have been worth whileIf one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,And turning toward the window, should say:               “That is not it at all,               That is not what I meant, at all.”

Stanza XII No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;Am an attendant lord, one that will doTo swell a progress, start a scene or two,Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,Politic, cautious, and meticulous;Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Stanza XIII Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

Stanza XIV I have seen them riding seaward on the wavesCombing the white hair of the waves blown backWhen the wind blows the water white and black.We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownTill human voices wake us, and we drown.

Name: ______________________________________American Poetry Unit: June Jordan’s “A Poem about Intelligence for My Brothers and Sisters”

A Poem about Intelligence for My Brothers and SistersJune Jordan

A few years back and they told me Black   means a hole where other folks   got brain/it was like the cells in the heads   of Black children was out to every hour on the hour naps   

5 Scientists called the phenomenon the Notorious   Jensen Lapse, remember?   Anyway I was thinking   about how to devisea test for the wise

10 like a Stanford-Binetfor the C.I.A.you know?Take Einsteinbeing the most the unquestionable the outstanding

15 the maximal mind of the centuryright?And I’m struggling against this lapse leftoverfrom my Black childhood to fathom whyanybody should say so:

20 E=mc squared?I try that on this old lady live on my block:She sweeping away Saturday night from the stoopand mad as can be because some absolutejackass have left a kingsize mattress where

25 she have to sweep around it stains and all shedon’t want to know nothing about in the first place“Mrs. Johnson!” I say, leaning on the gatebetween us: “What you think about somebody come upwith an E equals M C 2?”

30 “How you doin,” she answer me, sideways, like she don’twant to let on she know I ain’combed my hair yet and here it isSunday morning but still I have the nerveto be bothering serious work with these crazy

35 questions about“E equals what you say again, dear?”Then I tell her, “Wellalso this same guy? I thinkhe was undisputed Father of the Atom Bomb!”

40 “That right.” She mumbles or grumbles, not too politely“And dint remember to wear socks when he put onhis shoes!” I add on (getting desperate)at which point Mrs. Johnson take herself and her brooma very big step down the stoop away from me

45 “And never did nothing for nobody in particularlessen it was a committeeandused to say, ‘What time is it?’and

45 you’d say, ‘Six o’clock.’andhe’d say, ‘Day or night?’andand he never made nobody a cup a tea

50 in his whole brilliant life!and[my voice rises slightly]andhe dint never boogie neither: never!”

55 “Well,” say Mrs. Johnson, “Well, honey,I do guessthat’s genius for you.”

Name: _________________________________________American Poetry Unit: John Crowe Ransom’s “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter”

Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter

There was such speed in her little body,   And such lightness in her footfall,   It is no wonder her brown studyAstonishes us all.

5 Her wars were bruited in our high window.   We looked among orchard trees and beyond   Where she took arms against her shadow,   Or harried unto the pond

The lazy geese, like a snow cloud10 Dripping their snow on the green grass,   

Tricking and stopping, sleepy and proud,   Who cried in goose, Alas,

For the tireless heart within the little   Lady with rod that made them rise

15 From their noon apple-dreams and scuttle   Goose-fashion under the skies!

But now go the bells, and we are ready,   In one house we are sternly stoppedTo say we are vexed at her brown study,   

20 Lying so primly propped.

Name: ______________________________________American Poetry Unit: Wallace Stevens’s “Sunday Morning”

Sunday Morning

I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and lateCoffee and oranges in a sunny chair,And the green freedom of a cockatooUpon a rug mingle to dissipateThe holy hush of ancient sacrifice.She dreams a little, and she feels the darkEncroachment of that old catastrophe,As a calm darkens among water-lights.The pungent oranges and bright, green wingsSeem things in some procession of the dead,Winding across wide water, without sound.The day is like wide water, without sound,Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feetOver the seas, to silent Palestine,Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

       II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?What is divinity if it can comeOnly in silent shadows and in dreams?Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or elseIn any balm or beauty of the earth,Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?Divinity must live within herself:Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;Grievings in loneliness, or unsubduedElations when the forest blooms; gustyEmotions on wet roads on autumn nights;All pleasures and all pains, rememberingThe bough of summer and the winter branch.These are the measures destined for her soul.

       III

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.No mother suckled him, no sweet land gaveLarge-mannered motions to his mythy mind.He moved among us, as a muttering king,Magnificent, would move among his hinds,Until our blood, commingling, virginal,With heaven, brought such requital to desireThe very hinds discerned it, in a star.Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to beThe blood of paradise? And shall the earthSeem all of paradise that we shall know?The sky will be much friendlier then than now,A part of labor and a part of pain,And next in glory to enduring love,Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

       IV

She says, “I am content when wakened birds,Before they fly, test the realityOf misty fields, by their sweet questionings;But when the birds are gone, and their warm fieldsReturn no more, where, then, is paradise?”There is not any haunt of prophecy,Nor any old chimera of the grave,Neither the golden underground, nor isleMelodious, where spirits gat them home,Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palmRemote on heaven’s hill, that has enduredAs April’s green endures; or will endureLike her remembrance of awakened birds,Or her desire for June and evening, tippedBy the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

       V

She says, “But in contentment I still feelThe need of some imperishable bliss.”Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreamsAnd our desires. Although she strews the leavesOf sure obliteration on our paths,

The path sick sorrow took, the many pathsWhere triumph rang its brassy phrase, or loveWhispered a little out of tenderness,She makes the willow shiver in the sunFor maidens who were wont to sit and gazeUpon the grass, relinquished to their feet.She causes boys to pile new plums and pearsOn disregarded plate. The maidens tasteAnd stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

       VI

Is there no change of death in paradise?Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughsHang always heavy in that perfect sky,Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,With rivers like our own that seek for seasThey never find, the same receding shoresThat never touch with inarticulate pang?Why set the pear upon those river banksOr spice the shores with odors of the plum?Alas, that they should wear our colors there,The silken weavings of our afternoons,And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,Within whose burning bosom we deviseOur earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

       VII

Supple and turbulent, a ring of menShall chant in orgy on a summer mornTheir boisterous devotion to the sun,Not as a god, but as a god might be,Naked among them, like a savage source.Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,Out of their blood, returning to the sky;And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,The windy lake wherein their lord delights,The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,That choir among themselves long afterward.They shall know well the heavenly fellowshipOf men that perish and of summer morn.And whence they came and whither they shall go

The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

       VIII

She hears, upon that water without sound,A voice that cries, “The tomb in PalestineIs not the porch of spirits lingering.It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.”We live in an old chaos of the sun,Or old dependency of day and night,Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,Of that wide water, inescapable.Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quailWhistle about us their spontaneous cries;Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;And, in the isolation of the sky,At evening, casual flocks of pigeons makeAmbiguous undulations as they sink,Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Name: _______________________________________American Poetry Unit: Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night”

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,5 Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

10 Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

15 Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Name: _______________________________________American Poetry Unit: William Carlos Williams’ “Danse Russe”

Danse Russe

If I when my wife is sleepingand the baby and Kathleenare sleepingand the sun is a flame-white disc

5 in silken mistsabove shining trees,—if I in my north roomdance naked, grotesquelybefore my mirror

10 waving my shirt round my headand singing softly to myself:“I am lonely, lonely.I was born to be lonely,I am best so!”

15 If I admire my arms, my face,my shoulders, flanks, buttocksagainst the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am notthe happy genius of my household?

Name: _______________________________________American Poetry Unit: Lorine Niedecker’s “[I Married]”

[I married]Lorine Niedecker

I married

in the world’s black nightfor warmth                  if not repose.

5                   At the close—someone.

I hid with himfrom the long range guns.                  We lay leg

10 in the cupboard, headin closet.

A slit of lightat no bird dawn—                  Untaught

15                   I thoughthe drank

too much.I say                  I married

            20       and lived unburied.I thought—

Name: ___________________________________American Poetry: Helene Johnson’s “Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem”

Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem

Sonnet to a Negro in HarlemYou are disdainful and magnificant—Your perfect body and your pompous gait,Your dark eyes flashing solemnly with hate,

5 Small wonder that you are incompetentTo imitate those whom you so despise—Your shoulders towering high above the throng,Your head thrown back in rich, barbaric song,Palm trees and mangoes stretched before your eyes.

10 Let others toil and sweat for labor's sakeAnd wring from grasping hands their need of gold.Why urge ahead your supercilious feet?Scorn will efface each footprint that you make.I love your laughter arrogant and bold.

15 You are too splendid for this city street.

Name: ________________________________________American Poetry Unit: Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die”

If We Must Die

If we must die—let it not be like hogsHunted and penned in an inglorious spot,While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,Making their mock at our accursed lot.

5 If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,So that our precious blood may not be shedIn vain; then even the monsters we defyShall be constrained to honor us though dead!Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;

10 Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!What though before us lies the open grave?Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Name: ________________________________________American Poetry Unit: Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I’ve known rivers:I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

5 I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy

10 bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Name: __________________________________________American Poetry Unit: Amiri Baraka’s “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note”

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

Lately, I've become accustomed to the wayThe ground opens up and envelopes meEach time I go out to walk the dog.Or the broad edged silly music the windMakes when I run for a bus . . .

Things have come to that.

5 And now, each night I count the stars,And each night I get the same number.And when they will not come to be counted,I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night, I tiptoed upTo my daughter's room and heard herTalking to someone, and when I

10 openedThe door, there was no one there . . .Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands.

Name: ___________________________________American Poetry Unit: Reading a Poem

Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway-CarDan Pagis

here in this carloadI am evewith abel my sonif you see my other son

5 cain son of mantell him I

Name: ___________________________________American Poetry Unit: Reading a Poem

Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway-CarDan Pagis

here in this carloadI am evewith abel my sonif you see my other son

5 cain son of mantell him I

Name: ___________________________________________American Poetry Unit: Final Poetry Assignment

Poet / Poem Notes

Willie Perdom’s “Nigger-Reecan Blues”

Nikki Giovanni’s “Nikki-Rosa”

T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

June Jordan’s “A Poem about Intelligence for My Brothers and Sisters”

John Crowe Ransom’s “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter”

Wallace Stevens’s “Sunday Morning”

Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night”

William Carlos Williams’ “Danse Russe”

Lorine Niedecker’s “[I Married]”

Helene Johnson’s “Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem”

Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die”

Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”

Amiri Baraka’s “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note”