Poems for ENG4U1

1. Using Critical and Literary Lenses(p. 1-2)

2. Renaissance Poems(p. 3-4)

3. Neo-classical Poems(p. 5-7)

4. Romantic Poetry(p. 8)

5. Victorian Poetry(p. 9-11)

6. Why Knowing the Canon is Important(p. 12-18)

7. Modern Poetry(p. 19-23)

8. Post-Modern Poetry(p. 24-28)

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claimBecause it was grassy and wanted wear,Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,10

And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to wayI doubted if I should ever come back.15

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere 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. 20

Paper Matches

By Paulette Jiles

My aunts washed dishes while the unclessquirted each other on the lawn withgarden hoses. Why are we in here,I said, and they are out there?Thats the way it is,5said Aunt Hetty, the shriveled-up one.I have the rages that small animals have,being small, being animal.Written on me was a message,At Your Service,10like a book of paper matches.One by one we were taken outand struck.We come bearing supper,our heads on fire.15

SONNET CXVI

By William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove:O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 5That looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's compass come: 10Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom.If this be error and upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

SONNET XVIII

By William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 5And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest; 10Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growest:So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

NOTE:

Shakespearean/English Sonnet ABAB CDCD / EFEF GG, iambic pentameter

Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet ABBA ABBA / CDD CDD or CDD ECE or CDD CCD, mixed meter

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Christopher marlowe

Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields Woods or steepy mountain yields

And we will sit upon the rocks, 5Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, 10A cap of flower, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold 15With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs; And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love. 20

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.

To a Mouse, on turning up her nest with a plow

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By robert burns

Tiny, sleek, cowering, fearful mouse, O, what a panic is in your breast! You need not start away so hasty, With pattering noises! I would be loath to run and chase you, With my murdering spade!

I'm truly sorry that my world, Has broken into your world, And justifies your ill opinion of men, Which makes you startle At me, you poor, earth-born companion, And fellow mortal!

I doubt not that at times you may steal; What then? poor little animal, you must live! An occasional ear of corn out of twenty -four sheaves Is a small request; I'll be blest with the rest of the corn, And never miss the ear you took!

Your tiny house, too, in ruin! Its fragile walls the winds are strewing! And nothing, now, to build a new one, Out of densely growing grass! And bleak December's winds are following, Both harsh and keen!

You saw the fields were bare and desolate, And weary winter coming fast, And cozy here, beneath the wind, You thought to dwell Till crash! the cruel plowshare passed Right through your cell.

That little heap of leaves and stubble, Has cost you many a weary nibble! Now you are turned out, for all your trouble, Of house and home, To endure the winter's sleety dribble, And hoarfrost cold!

But, Mousie, you are not alone, In proving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes of mice and men Go often astray, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me The present only touches you: But, Oh! I backward cast my eye. On prospects dreary! And forward, though I cannot see, I guess and fear!

[Why should a foolish marriage vow]

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By john dryden

Why should a foolish marriage vow,

Which long ago was made,

Oblige us to each other now

When passion is decay'd?

We loved, and we loved, as long as we could, 5

Till our love was loved out in us both:

But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:

'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

If I have pleasures for a friend,

And farther love in store, 10

What wrong has he whose joys did end,

And who could give no more?

'Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me,

Or that I should bar him of another:

For all we can gain is to give our selves pain, 15

When neither can hinder the other.

The Tyger

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

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.5Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 10And 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, 15Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spearsAnd waterd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 20

Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Sick Rose

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By william blake

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed 5Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

The World Is Too Much With Us

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By william Wordsworth

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;5

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 10

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Ozymandias*

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Percy B. Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command5Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich 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:10Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away".

*Greek name for RamesesII, 13th C. B.C.E. Pharaoh of Egypt.

A Daughter of Eve

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Christina Rossetti

A fool I was to sleep at noon,And wake when night is chillyBeneath the comfortless cold moon;A fool to pluck my rose too soon,A fool to snap my lily.5

My garden-plot I have not kept;Faded and all-forsaken,I weep as I have never wept:Oh it was summer when I slept,It's winter now I waken.10

Talk what you please of future springAnd sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,No more to laugh, no more to sing,I sit alone with sorrow. 15

My Last Duchess

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By robert browning

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Fr Pandolf's hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said5

'Fr Pandolf' by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)10

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not

Her husband's presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps15

Fr Pandolf chanced to say, 'Her mantle laps

Over my lady's wrist too much,' or 'Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat:' such stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough20

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast,25

The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace -- all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -- good! but thanked

Somehow -- I know not how -- as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill35

In speech -- (which I have not) -- to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark' -- and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set40

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,

-- E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;45

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet

The company below then. I repeat,

The Count your master's known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretence50

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed

At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,55

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

[Im nobody!]

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Emily dickenson

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!

They'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody!5

How public like a frog

To tell one's name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

[The pedigree of honey]

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Emily dickenson

The pedigree of honey

Does not concern the bee;

A clover, any time, to him

Is aristocracy.

My Ladys Presence Makes the Roses Red

BY HENRY CONSTABLE

My lady's presence makes the roses red,Because to see her lips they blush for shame.The lily's leaves, for envy, pale became,And her white hands in them this envy bred.The marigold the leaves abroad doth spread,5Because the sun's and her power is the same.The violet of purple colour came.Dyed in the blood she made my heart to shed.In brief: all flowers from her their virtue take;From her sweet breath their sweet smells do proceed;10The living heat which her eyebeams doth makeWarmeth the ground and quickeneth the seed. The rain, wherewith she watereth the flowers, Falls from mine eyes, which she dissolves in showers.

SONNET XXX

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 damask'd, red and white,5But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound;10I 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 rareAs any she belied with false compare.

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Rupert Brooke 18871915

Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights

Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.

Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!

Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,

Settled at Balham by the end of June. 5

Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,

And in Antofagastas. Still he went

Cityward daily; still she did abide

At home. And both were really quite content

With work and social pleasures. Then they died. 10

They left three children (besides George, who drank):

The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell,

William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,

And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.

Notes

5] Balham: district in Wandsworth, Greater London.

6] Can. Pacs. B. Debentures: securities or bonds in (possibly) Canada Packers.

7] Antofagastas: Antofagasta is a city in Chile.

Two Fish

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By KATHA POLLITT

Those speckled trout we glimpsed in a pool last year

you'd take for an image of love: it too should be

graceful, elusive, tacit, moving surely

among half-lights of mingled dim and clear,

forced to no course, of no fixed residence, 5

its only end its own swift elegance.

What would you say

if you saw what I way the other day:

that pool heat-choked and fevered where sick blue

bubbled green scum and blistered water lily?10

A white like a rolled-back eye or fishs belly

I thought I saw far out but doubtless you

prefer to think our trout had left together

to seek a place with less inclement weather.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Christopher marlowe

Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields Woods or steepy mountain yields

And we will sit upon the rocks, 5Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, 10A cap of flower, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold 15With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs; And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love. 20

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.

The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Sir Walter Ralegh (1600)

If all the world and love were young, And truth in every Shepherds tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move, To live with thee, and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold, 5When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb, The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields, To wayward winter reckoning yields, 10A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancys spring, but sorrows fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten: 15In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds, The Coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love. 20

But could youth last, and love still breed, Had joys no date, nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move To live with thee, and be thy love.

Ralegh Was Right

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By William Carlos Williams (1944)

We cannot go into the countryfor the country will bring us no peaceWhat can the small violets tell usthat grow on furry stems in the long grass amoung lance shaped leaves?5

Though you praise us and call to mind the poets who sung of our lovelinessit was long ago!long ago! when country people 10would plow and sow with flowering minds and pockets at ease if ever this were true.

Not now. Love itself a flower with roots in a parched ground.15Empty pockets make empty heads.Cure it if you can but do not believe that we can live today in the countryfor the country will bring us no peace20

Dover Beach

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By matthew arnold

The sea is calm tonight, The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 5Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 10At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago 15Heard it on the Agean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 20

The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25Retreating, to the breath Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems 30To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain 35Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The Dover Bitch

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By anthony hecht

A Criticism of Life: for Andrews Wanning

So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl

With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,

And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me,

And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad

All over, etc., etc.'5

Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read

Sophocles in a fairly good translation

And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,

But all the time he was talking she had in mind

The notion of what his whiskers would feel like10

On the back of her neck. She told me later on

That after a while she got to looking out

At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad,

Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds

And blandishments in French and the perfumes.15

And then she got really angry. To have been brought

All the way down from London, and then be addressed

As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort

Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.

Anyway, she watched him pace the room20

And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit,

And then she said one or two unprintable things.

But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,

She's really all right. I still see her once in a while

And she always treats me right. We have a drink`25

And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year

Before I see her again, but there she is,

Running to fat, but dependable as they come.

And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour.

Dulce et Decorum Est*

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Wilfred Owen (1917)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,And towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,5But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hootsOf gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumblingFitting the clumsy helmets just in time,10But someone still was yelling out and stumblingAnd flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight15He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,20If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungsBitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--My friend, you would not tell with such high zest25To children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie: Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.**

* It is sweet and proper

** It is sweet and proper to die for ones country. Line from an ode to military duty by Horace, 1st Century A.D. Roman poet.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner*

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Randall Jarrell

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. 5

* A ball turret was a plexi-glass ball suspended from the underside of some fighter planes during World War II. A man, generally a small one, would crawl into the turret and use a machine gun to fire at enemy aircraft.

A Virginal*

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Ezra pound

No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,For my surrounding air hath a new lightness;Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitlyAnd left me cloaked as with a gauze of aether;5As with sweet leaves; as with subtle clearness.Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearnessTo sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour,Soft as spring wind that's come from birchen bowers.10Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches,As winter's wound with her sleight hand she staunches,Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour:As white their bark, so white this lady's hours.

* Piano-like instrument popular among woman during the Renaissance.

One Perfect Rose

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By dorothy parker (1937)

A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.All tenderly his messenger he chose;Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet -One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;5'My fragile leaves,' it said, 'his heart enclose.'Love long has taken for his amuletOne perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yetOne perfect limousine, do you suppose?10Ah no, it's always just my luck to getOne perfect rose.

Sonrisas

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Pat mora (1986)

I live in a doorwaybetween two rooms. I hearquiet clicks, cups of blackcoffee, click, click like factsbudgets, tenure, curriculum,5from careful women in crisp beigesuits, quick beige smilesthat seldom sneak into their eyes.I peekin the other room seoras10in faded dresses stir sweetmilk coffee, laughter whirlswith steam from fresh tamalessh, sh, mucho ruido,*they scold one another,15press their lips, trap smilesin their dark, Mexican eyes.

* lots of noise

Theme for English B

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Langston Hughes

The instructor said,

Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you--- Then, it will be true. 5

I wonder if it's that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham*, then here to this college** on the hill above Harlem. I am the only colored student in my class. 10The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas, Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y, the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator up to my room, sit down, and write this page: 15

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you: hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page. (I hear New York too.) Me---who? 20Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. I like a pipe for a Christmas present, or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach. I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like 25the same things other folks like who are other races. So will my page be colored that I write? Being me, it will not be white. But it will be a part of you, instructor. 30You are white--- yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That's American. Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. 35But we are, that's true! As I learn from you,I guess you learn from me--- although you're older---and white--- and somewhat more free. 40

This is my page for English B.

* Cities in North Carolina **Columbia University

Erosion

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Linda Pastan

We are slowlyundermined. Grainby grain. . . .inch by inch. . . .slippage.5It happens as we watch.The waves move their long rowof scythes over the long beach.

It happens as we sleep,the way the clock's hands10move continuouslyjust out of sight,but more like an hourglassthan a clock,for here sand15is running out.

We wake to water.Implacably lovelyis this viewthough it will swallowus whole, soon20there will benothing leftbut view.

We have tried a seawall.We have tried prayer.We have planted grasses25on the bank, small tentacleshooks of green that catchon nothing. For the winddoes its work, the waterdoes sure work.30

One day the sea will simply take us. The childrenpress their faces to the glassas if the windows were portholes,and the house fills35with animals: two dogs,a bird, catswe are becomingan ark already.

The gulls will followour wake.40We are made of water anyway,I can feel it in the yieldingof your flesh, though sometimesI think that you are sand,moving slowly, slowly45from under me.

The Expensive Life

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By phillip whalen

Tying up my plastic shoesI realize I'm outside, this is the park & I am freeFrom whatever pack of nonsense & old tape loopsPlay with the Ayer's dogs, Barney & DaphneThey don't ask me why I shave my head5"Cut the word lines," Burroughs recommendsDaphne & Barney fatter than ever & only I am dieting(Crease along the dotted lines)Loops of tacky thinking fall unloosed. The sunGetting hotter than my flannel shirt requires10What about THE BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN CHINA?Won't read it now... too blind to see itAlmost too blind to write this, in my room no flowersThe service station wants four bits for compresssed airAt only 16 pounds per square inch15I can see the farthest mountain.

Chanson dOutre Tombe

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By phillip whalen

They said we was nowhereActually we are beautifully embalmedin PennsylvaniaThey said we wanted too much.Gave too little, a swift hand-job5no vaseline.We were geniuses with all kindsembarrassing limitationso if only we would realize our potentialo if only that awful self-indulgence10& that shoddy politics of irresponsibilityo if only we would grow up, shut up, die& so we did & do & chant beyondthe cut-rate grave diggedby indignant reviewers15o if we would only lay down & stayTHERE-In California, PennsylvaniaWhere we keep leaking our nasty radioactivewaste like old plutonium factoryWrecking your white expensive world20

You Too? Me Too Why Not? Soda Pop

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By Robert hollander (1968)

I am

look

ing at

the Co

caCola

bottle

which is

green wi

th ridges

just like

c c c

o o o

l l l

u u u

m m m

n n n

s s s

and on itself it says

COCA-COLA

reg.u.s.pat.off.

exactly like an art pop

statue of that kind of

bottle but not so green

that the juice inside

gives other than the co

lor it has when I pour

it out in a clear glass

glass on this table top

(Its making me thirsty

all this winking and

beading of Hippocrene

please let me pause

drinking the fluid in)

ah! It is enticing how

each color is the same

brown in green bottle

brown in uplifted glass

making each utensil on

the table laid a brown

fork in a brown shade

making me long to watch

them harvesting the crop

which makes the deep-aged

rich brown wine of America

that is to say which makes

soda pop

[l(a]

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

BY e. e. cummings

l(aleaffalls)oneliness

Barbie Doll

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By MArge Piercy

This girlchild was born as usualand presented dolls that did pee-peeand miniature GE stoves and ironsand wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:5You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,possessed strong arms and back,abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.She went to and fro apologizing.10Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,exhorted to come on hearty,exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.Her good nature wore out15like a fan belt.So she cut off her nose and her legsand offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she laywith the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,20a turned-up putty nose,dressed in a pink and white nightie.Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.Consummation at last.To every woman a happy ending. 25

Mirror

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

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. 5Most 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 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, 10Searching 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. 15Each 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.

Call Me

Sonnet Reversed

Sonnet Reversed

By frank ohara

The eager note on my door said "Call me,"call when you get in!" so I quickly threwa few tangerines into my overnight bag,straightened my eyelids and shoulders, and

headed straight for the door. It was autumn5by the time I got around the corner, oh allunwilling to be either pertinent or bemused, butthe leaves were brighter than grass on the sidewalk!

Funny, I thought, that the lights are on this lateand the hall door open; still up at this hour, a10champion jai-alai player like himself? Oh fie!for shame! What a host, so zealous! And he was

there in the hall, flat on a sheet of blood thatran down the stairs. I did appreciate it. There are fewhosts who so thoroughly prepare to greet a guest15only casually invited, and that several months ago. Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights

Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.

Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!

Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,

Settled at Balham by the end of June.

Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,

And in Antofagastas. Still he went

Cityward daily; still she did abide

At home. And both were really quite content

With work and social pleasures. Then they died.

They left three children (besides George, who drank):

The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell,

William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,

And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.

Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights

Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.

Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!

Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,

Settled at Balham by the end of June.

Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,

And in Antofagastas. Still he went

Cityward daily; still she did abide

At home. And both were really quite content

With work and social pleasures. Then they died.

They left three children (besides George, who drank):

The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell,

William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,

And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.

Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights

Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.

Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!

Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,

Settled at Balham by the end of June.

Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,

And in Antofagastas. Still he went

Cityward daily; still she did abide

At home. And both were really quite content

With work and social pleasures. Then they died.

They left three children (besides George, who drank):

The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell,

William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,

And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.