American Poetry Past and Present
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American Poetry Past and PresentI am looking for students to study the works of Alphonso G. Newcomer. 
Alphonso Gerald Newcomer (1864-1913) joined the pioneer faculty as an assistant professor in 1891, teaching and writing about composition, rhetoric, and literature. When Anderson gave up administrative duties in 1906, Newcomer took over as executive head of the department, a position he held until his death at 49 in 1913. An 1887 graduate of the University of Michigan, he earned a master’s degree at Cornell in 1888 and taught French and Latin at Knox College before coming to Stanford. Books by; Alphonso Gerald Newcomer http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-701&p=books+by+%2Balphonso+gerald+newcomer&fr2=sp-qrw-orig-top&norw=1 Please follow the guidelines in the school guide, and do not quote. Thank you Thoughts Last edited by ThoughtCaster 06-03-2010 at 08:05:59 AM |
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Social Verse in Our Modern TimesWrite a poem in Social Verse: from Chapter 1: Last edited by ThoughtCaster 06-06-2010 at 06:34:47 PM |
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RE: American Poetry Past and PresentMr. ThoughtCaster, 
I am registering my seat, I have many Irons in the fire, so please bare with me.I have read the preface, and introduction. Seems to me, that you want to see what the last 100 years in poetry have gave us. The Country has grown a lot since 1901, and we are on the verge, of a new world, so I find this interesting, as my Phantom is to me. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=ooo 2 June, 2010 After reading Chapter 1, it proves my theory, that this web site IS A LIVING BOOK I like how he breaks it down so far in History, Poetry, Theology John Smith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smith_(explorer) like I said before Ironically is similar to my life, but I am an American, not just limited to a state. The ending of chapter one brought back, my child hood memories on birds. I didn’t want to kill'em, I wanted to capture them for the home, lol. So far their poetry was a protest against everything modern, so far, I am just beginning. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=0o0o0o 4, June, 2010 Ben Franklin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin could have been a great poet, but he chose not too. His glass/water organ made up for that, lol Ok, in chapter three, I like the Paine quote. "These are the times that try men souls" Makes me think tho, same as King David times, and now. Seems like some one needs some-thing to cry about- Keep that thought, lol. The Hale in the Bush poem rocks' Source= http://boldhearts.com/nathan_hale.htm woot woot lmao, history repeats its self lol check it+ Joel Barlow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Barlow purpose was good. "This," he declared, "is the moment in America to give such a direction to poetry, painting, and the other fine arts, that true and useful ideas of glory may be implanted in the minds of men." But the poetry was not good, and the minds of men refused to take kindly to such implanting. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=0o0o 7 June, 2010 Part 2 The New Environment Charles Brockden Brown http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Brockden_Brown seems awesome to me, his piece story Arthur Mervyn, was an observation from the ground to the roof, looking to the roof, and the houses, tells me he noticed the hard work of construction, early Gothic sweet. Washington Irving http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Irving here, lets us see into a time, that we will never experience. That place must Now be eroded with trash, and oil. “”"Ah, blissful and never-to-be-forgotten age! when everything was better than it has ever been since, or ever will be again, when Buttermilk Channel was quite dry at low water, when the shad in the Hudson were all salmon, . . . when as yet New Amsterdam was a mere pastoral town, shrouded in groves of sycamores and willows, and surrounded by trackless forests and wide-spreading waters, that seemed to shut out all the cares and vanities of a wicked world."“” // the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, acknowledged Irving's role in promoting American literature: "We feel a just pride in his renown as an author, not forgetting that, to his other claims upon our gratitude, he adds also that of having been the first to win for our country an honorable name and position in the History of Letters".// He is also generally credited as one of the first to write both in the vernacular, and without an obligation to the moral or didactic in his short stories, writing stories simply to entertain rather than to enlighten.// We may readily grant, indeed, that Irving,s greatness did not lie in originality. He was not so well fitted to create a tradition as to perpetuate one or give it a new direction. There was nothing revolutionary in his make-up; literature was good enough as he found it, and he preserved to the end a conservative, almost aristocratic ideal of its office. It is well, too, that he did so, since it was to be his task to force from English readers the first reluctant approval. Largely because he was not revolutionary, he was admitted at once to their favor; his homely, sentimental, or mediaeval themes were entirely safe ones; and his style, formed upon familiar British models, found its audience prepared. At the same time, the American atmosphere lurked about it all, and so, almost imperceptibly, he bridged the gulf between the two nations and linked our literature to theirs. That this service was a great one is unquestionable. // Yet, without being either a poet or a scholar, be goes so directly to all that is best in human nature that he wins for his admirers both poets and scholars, and at the same time that great audience of the uncritical that poets and scholars cannot always win. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-0o0o 8 June 2010 James Fenimore Cooper, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Fenimore_Cooper Cooper was roused to a consciousness of his powers. He had discovered that writing is a trick not necessarily learned at schools; he had discovered, too, something of the wealth of his own imagination, and of the joys of creation., lol // Cooper differs from other sea-romancers by making the reader feel that he is on shipboard, not as a passenger and spectator merely, but as one of the crew, with an exact knowledge of all the dangers that beset him from wind and tide and rock and shoal, and with a power to calculate to a nicety the reliance to be placed upon every force arrayed against those dangers, from spring of mast to draught of keel. It is the nearest substitute for actual experience that art can give.// He was too little of an artist and too much of a moralist to be a perfect writer of tales. ( Hmm all about balancing).// Had his insight and his art been equal to his idealizing imagination, he would have been second to no writer of modern romance.// ((goes forth to battle like David of old, with a sling in his hand and a song on his lips)) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-0o0o 8 June, 2010 Chapter 4 William Bryant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cullen_Bryant This youth in his seventeenth year had quite unconsciously produced a poem which none of the brilliant galaxy of poets then ascendant in England would have been ashamed to own. If it be true, as we have said, that no American boy can afford not to read Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, it is almost equally true that no one who cares to cultivate a love of the best in poetry can afford not to learn by heart the eighty-one lines of Thanatopsis.// a poem that engraves itself on the memory; to read it is to add a permanent picture to the mind, so that ever afterward the slightest suggestion is sufficient to call up the vision of that dark-limned fowl pursuing its way along the pathless coast. These vivid effects are produced, of course, by a vivid imagination, an imagination that always derives from intensely seized fact.// New England has her own flowers and birds, and we can only rejoice that they found their poet. ( a language ambassador of an area), lol, nice.// http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/Bryant/thanatopsis.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 9 June, 2010 Chapter 5 Poe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe With Irving and Cooper, both also of New York, the creative imagination was finally unfettered and American literature came into being. Little then remained but to refine upon the work of these two prolific writers,—to combine the art of the one with the inventive faculty of the other, and to make those further excursions into the regions of the supernatural or the spiritual that afford the final test of the romancers power. This is virtually what was done by two writers of the second third of the century, Poe and Hawthorne—the greatest representatives of our literature on its purely creative side.// For of Poe’s poetry, as of his highest prose, it must be said that it makes almost no moral appeal. Nothing is conceived on a moral plane. He has nothing to teach us—no mission, no message. But the sounds and the visions remain, the poets mastery over the secrets of the terrible, the mysterious, the sublime, and the beautiful; and we may well rest content to listen without questions to the wild measures of Israfel's lute, to gaze awe-stricken upon the city in the sea, or to pass speechless by the dim lake of Auber and through the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.// But Poe was Poe. We may account for Longfellow, for Hawthorne, for Emerson; but the individual note, the '' inexpressible monad" which evolutionary science itself as yet fails to account for, was peculiarly strong in Poe, and we must leave him underived. Abroad he has long been considered as a creative writer of the first rank. It is to the shame of Americans that they have seldom been able to take quite his full measure; but our best critics have been instinctively attracted to him, and it is worthy of note that his works have lately been honored with a scholarly and fairly definitive critical edition—an honor which, not to consider statesmen, like Franklin.// Hawthorne [urlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hawthorne[/url] he declared, seeing his elder sister in three months, avoiding society and walking out by night, he was left to pursue whatever course of intellectual work or idleness his fancy prompted. He was actually accomplishing far more than he would have then dared to believe. He could dream undisturbed; he was quietly gathering a precious store of material, some of which may be read now in the American Note Books ; he was slowly perfecting himself in the art of composition; and above all he was developing the individual traits of his genius in a way that would have been practically impossible had he been surrounded, like Longfellow and Lowell, by the diverse influences of travel and men and books.// He seemed to understand precisely the nature, if not entirely the scope, of his powers; and he never felt around for something better or easier or pleasanter to do. He burned many manuscripts, but they were all experiments in the one direction of prose romance, the necessary apprentice work by which he perfected himself in his difficult art. Even the various Note Books that were published after his death were but gathered threads of experience to be woven at a favorable opportunity into the magic web of his dreams.// Hawthorne plays upon language as upon an instrument of many stops, and the swiftest changes, from irony to pity and from humor to pathos, are made without a discordant note.// if only Poe had imported more of the human element into his eerie fancies. The realists might have the real world and welcome; he preferred that twilight world of the fancy where objects take on all the strange shapes imaginable, and where, if beauty is not, we can still create it at will.// At any rate, he came to know accurately the line that divides the ideal from the real. // However wide the excursion of his fancy, he is careful not to lose the way; and so he never loses even the most prosaic reader's confidence. This is his immense advantage over Poe.// One is tempted to say that by some special dispensation he was given worldly wisdom without contact with the world.// His imagination, too, enabled him to learn as by divination. He did not need to fight a duel, his friend Cilley fell in a duel and he got the whole spiritual experience. We know that he had, however it was obtained, that admixture of worldliness so necessary to breadth of genius.// When a Longfellow writes a poem like Hiawatha we admire the art, but we know it to be largely mechanical—a thing of much study and experiment. A Hawthorne writes as he must. It was one of Emerson's theories that worthy matter may safely be left to find its own form. Hawthorne wrote greatly and nobly because he felt greatly and nobly. He invested art with an almost religious sanctity. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 11 June 2010 Ralph Waldo Emerson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson He called himself an intellectual saunterer, ' 'sinfully strolling from book to book, from care to idleness." //' 'I do not think I know a creature who has the same humor, or would think it respectable." He had to "slink" away.// One of his earliest poems, the familiar "Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home," was written at the time when, toward the end of his schoolteaching, he went with his mother to her new home in the wooded seclusion of Canterbury Lane, where for a time he sought to put himself "on a footing of old acquaintance with Nature, as a poet should."// Nature always wears the colors of the spirit." "The eye is the best of artists." '' Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue." '' Every natural action is graceful." "A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world." "All things are moral." "A man is a god in ruins." "It is a sufficient account of that appearance we call the world that God will [*. e., wills toj teach a human mind, and so makes it the receiver of a certain number of congruent sensations, which we call sun and moon, man and woman, house and trade." "Build, therefore, your own world." .// ." What was the need of men standing together when they could stand alone? He was stirring up a nation's moral heroism by giving to each man the courage of his opinion.// Never mind dogmas or other men's opinions; never mind appearances; never mind the conclusions of logic;—simply do what you feel to be right. If you will accept the place that Providence has given you, living your own life without envy or self-effacing imitation, all will be well."// He takes particular delight in the paradoxical, often finding the greater truth in inversion. ' 'Books are for the scholar's idle times." "The highest price you can pay for a thing is to ask it." "The borrower runs in his own debt." "Our strength grows out of our weakness." "We are wiser than we know." // He had a good ear for melody but not for the higher harmonies of verse. In his poetry lame lines and imperfect rhymes are frequent. Perhaps he followed too implicitly his own theory that truth, uttered under conviction, would find its own perfect form. He fell most naturally into the simplest of metres, the four-foot couplet, and some of his best thoughts found their final expression in this form.// Youth is our perennial idealist, and young readers find in his work precisely the faith and cheer that keep courage and nobility alive in the world.// "The American Scholar",[47] then known as "An Oration. In the speech, Emerson declared literary independence in the United States and urged Americans to create a writing style all their own and free from Europe. Link to it below, there are two pages so look for the next button: http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm Quote: Who can doubt that poetry will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in the constellation Harp, which now flames in our zenith, astronomers announce, ehall one day be the pole-star for a thousand years ? . . .Ralph Waldo Emerson (This page is a must read for inspiration, Don’t trust me, :P )** http://books.google.com/books?id=FvFBuwZiEcUC&pg=PA162&output=text#c_top =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 18 June 2010 Henry David Thoreau http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau The Walden http://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205.txt He went to jail rather than pay his tax, when he felt that the tax was supporting a government that supported slavery. It was his way of protesting against a great wrong; and when Emerson looked into his cell and, said, "Henry, why are you here?" his reply was, "Why are you not here ?" // His attitude toward nature, however, was the poet's rather than the naturalist's. He was lured by the charm of her variety and mystery, and cared more to feel than to know.// We have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition.// If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets.// In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it. // I find this man fascinating: More on you tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGdreCP6shU Oratory A grammar of the Anglo-Saxon tongue: with a praxis By Rasmus Rask http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&dq=saxon+tongue&sig=vKmVaNlnJrXq7iERIO2Eq_c31E4&ei=rUQcTIqJBYKClAfOp6GYDQ&ct=result&id=ah778hrc3hkC&ots=OxzQzA2pPk&output=text =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 19 June 2010 Another book lead from this one, I need to read: Literature and life By Edwin Percy Whipple http://books.google.com/books?id=E9sNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR2&ots=pM9zNVb-T1&dq=Edwin+Percy+Whipple+Literature+and+Life&output=text =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 20 June 2010 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow [ur]http://www.online-literature.com/henry_Longfellow/[/url] His versatility was greater than that of any other American poet. Though most at ease in lyric poetry, he essayed also, as we have seen, both epic and dramatic, with the minor varieties of ballad and pastoral. As a story-teller in verse he belongs to that band of English rhymers led by Chaucer and Scott. He was almost as thorough a romanticist, too, as Scott—steeped in medievalism and Germanism. In form, his range was as wide as in substance. He tried all forms, and seemed to master one as easily as another, with the single exception of heroic blank verse, which was too stately for his agile Muse. But the mastership, which in blank verse he has to yield to Bryant, he holds in an equally difficult form. As a sonnet writer he has had no rival in America.//Through these things—his simplicity, his breadth, his receptive faculty, his versatility—Longfellow became our great teacher. He was a scholar himself, to begin with,—one of America's earliest and best.// Though much of his work is categorized as lyric poetry, Longfellow experimented with many forms, including hexameter and free verse. His published poetry shows great versatility, using anapestic and trochaic forms, blank verse, heroic couplets, ballads and sonnets. Typically, Longfellow would carefully consider the subject of his poetic ideas for a long time before deciding on the right metrical form for it. Much of his work is recognized for its melody-like musicality. As he says, "what a writer asks of his reader is not so much to like as to listen". =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 22 June 2010 John Greenleaf Whittier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Greenleaf_Whittier Whittier reverts to the Bible for phrases and images as naturally as Keats reverts to classical mythology or Longfellow to mediaeval legend. // Whittier’s poetic imagination. One is the slender body of legendary lore that has come down from the colonial days of New England, including a few tales of the trials and persecutions of the early Quakers. The other favorite field of Whittier’s imaginative exercise was the humble rural life in which his private interests were earliest centered.// We must therefore add to the three classes of poems we have already described—the poems of freedom, the legendary ballads, and the New England idylls—a fourth, the religious poems and hymns. That Whittier knew something of the trials of faith and the heart-shaking questions that assailed the man in the land of Us.// His publisher that in that dialect war and law, Martha and swarthy, pasture and faster, were good rhymes. Uncultured he might be called; he did not care. He looked at life through no medium of tradition or false education. It was poetry’s loss, possibly, and may account for the fact that we have scarcely any single work of magnitude from his pen; for the fruit of this productive period of his life is to be sought in our social and not in our literary history.// =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 23 June 2010 James Russell Lowell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Russell_Lowell A Fable for Critics http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&dq=A%20Fable%20for%20Critics&client=firefox-a&id=edeTZE9VnrcC&output=text&pg=PP5 Lowell believed that the poet played an important role as a prophet and critic of society. He used poetry for reform, particularly in abolitionism.// Vision of Sir Launfal. http://www.kellscraft.com/Launfal/launfalcontent.html It is a poem such as a man must write in youth or not at all—a poem of boundless faith and high ideals, and all-including worship of beauty and purity. And the poem is for youth: teachers know that it is a positive moral force in our schools to-day. We are scarcely willing to accept it, however, as a product of high poetic genius.// He wrote to a friend that death "is a private tutor. We have no fellow-scholars, and must lay our lessons to heart alone".// Lowell chose to speak on "The English Poets", telling his friend Briggs that he would take revenge on dead poets "for the injuries received by one whom the public won't allow among the living".// He focused on teaching literature, rather than etymology, hoping that his students would learn to enjoy the sound, rhythm, and flow of poetry rather than the technique of words. He summed up his method: "True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exists, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment".// He composed his poetry rapidly when inspired by an "inner light" but could not write to order. He subscribed to the common nineteenth-century belief that the poet was a prophet but went further, linking religion, nature, and poetry, as well as social reform.// The belief that writers have an inherent insight into the moral nature of humanity and have an obligation for literary action along with their aesthetic function--- Lowell did not advocate for the creation of a new national literature. Instead, he called for a natural literature, regardless of country, caste, or race, and warned against provincialism which might "put farther off the hope of one great brotherhood". He agreed with his neighbor Longfellow that "whoever is most universal, is also most national". As Lowell said: I believe that no poet in this age can write much that is good unless he gives himself up to [the radical] tendency ... The proof of poetry is, in my mind, that it reduces to the essence of a single line the vague philosophy which is floating in all men's minds, and so render it portable and useful, and ready to the hand ... At least, no poem ever makes me respect is author which does not in some way convey a truth of philosophy.// "few American writers or speakers wield their native language with the directness, precision, and force that are common as the day in the mother country".// The allusions are often so profuse as to discourage all but very well-informed readers, while for those who can understand and enjoy them the reading is turned into a kind of intellectual debauch. Allusion is packed within allusion, metaphor within metaphor, like a Chinese wooden-egg. Or, to change the figure, his fancies loom up one behind the other like the roofs, towers, and steeples of a distant city. You never know when you have found all that is hidden in one of Lowell's pages. Lowell rarely professes to set up standards—he will not sink the poet in the critic. ***Mr. Walter Raleigh, has said: "The main business of criticism, after all, is not to legislate, but to raise the dead." =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 24 June 2010 Oliver Wendell Holmes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes Old Ironsides & More poems http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/owh/oldiron.html Yet to be able to write good occasional verse is a rare accomplishment, eves if not a very high one. Our poets who have tried to write odes for great and serious occasions, centennial and the like, have seldom succeeded.// A poet's final place, however, is most likely to be determined by his serious work.// Quote: Holmes was descended from Massachusetts Governor Simon Bradstreet and his wife, Anne Bradstreet (daughter of Thomas Dudley), the first published American poet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bradstreet She rejects the anger and grief that this worldly tragedy has caused her and instead looks toward God and the assurance of heaven as consolation, saying: "And when I could no longer look, I blest his grace that gave and took, That laid my goods now in the dust. Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just. It was his own; it was not mine. Far be it that I should repine." Anne Bradstreet Holmes was moved to write "Old Ironsides" in opposition of the ship's scrapping. The patriotic poem was published in the Advertiser the very next day and was soon printed by papers in New York, Philadelphia and Washington. It not only brought the author immediate national attention, but the eight-stanza poem also generated enough public sentiment that the historic ship was preserved. [I]Now that is an accomplishment.[/I] The Last Leaf-Literary critic Edgar Allan Poe called the poem one of the finest works in the English language.// http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/owh/ll.html Holmes did not consider turning to a literary profession. Later he would write that he had "tasted the intoxicating pleasure of authorship" but compared such contentment to a sickness, saying: "there is no form of lead-poisoning which more rapidly and thoroughly pervades the blood and bones and marrow than that which reaches the young author through mental contact with type metal".// In 1884, Holmes published a book dedicated to the life and works of his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. Later biographers would use Holmes's book as an outline for their own studies, but particularly useful was the section dedicated to Emerson's poetry, into which Holmes had particular insight.// Towards the end of his life, Holmes noted that he had outlived most of his friends, including Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. As he said, "I feel like my own survivor... We were on deck together as we began the voyage of life... Then the craft which held us began going to pieces."// Holmes in particular believed poetry had "the power of transfiguring the experiences and shows of life into an aspect which comes from the imagination and kindles that of others".// Referring to this demand for his attention, he once wrote that he was "a florist in verse, and what would people say / If I came to a banquet without my bouquet?"// Emerson noted that, though Holmes did not renew his focus on poetry until later in his life, he quickly perfected his role "like old pear trees which have done nothing for ten years, and at last begin to grow great."// =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 26 June 2010 Bayard Taylor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayard_Taylor He had an exalted conception of the office of poet, believing that poetry, or pure imaginative creation, was the highest goal toward which a man could strive, and he strove toward it with a heroism that compels admiration.// Taylor,s version of the two parts of Goethe,s Faust, in the metres of the original, was published in 1871-72. It is perhaps enough to say of this that it is the standard English translation of Faust, and it seems likely that Taylor,s fame in the future will rest more securely upon it than upon his original work.// Walt Whitman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. He sought some new form of expression. He discarded both metre and rhyme, and, after much different Acuity, all stock poetic phrases, preserving still a poetic semblance by writing in long, uneven lines marked with a rude rhythm. (Pages 256 to 258 are missing, L) He designed and built his own tomb.// Whitman would say, is in accordance with the subject. Democracy is all-inclusive. American life is a great welter and chaos, and all this must go into the poem. But even chaos might be suggested without enumerating its particulars. The cunning painter knows how to put vast crowds into his canvas without painting all the individuals. Whitman insists on the particulars and makes no attempt at concentration.// We have seen how he came to put himself so conspicuously into His Aims. His poems. It was not to parade himself as an exceptional being, but rather as an " average man "—to hold the mirror up to other men and declare his kinship with them. // He had honestly tried to give this new America a new poem, worthy of its new ideals; granted that he had failed, it was something that he had gained a hearing and perhaps pointed the way for a future and more able bard. The projected song of the soul, to supplement his song of the body, he had not sung, or had sung only in hints and fragments. That greater task he was willing to leave for the future bard. Even what he had done was rough and inchoate. "I round and finish little, if anything." "The word I myself put primarily is the word Suggestiveness. . . Another impetus-word is Comradeship. . , Other word signs would be Good Cheer, Content, and Hope."// Whitman's work breaks the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like. He also used unusual images and symbols in his poetry, including rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris. He also openly wrote about death and sexuality, including prostitution. He is often labeled as the father of, though he did not invent it. He throws out hints and clews which the reader must follow for himself. His poems open upon vistas.// He did not write to please, but to arouse and uplift. '' The true question to ask respecting a book, is, has it helped any human soul? "// Poetic theory Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, "The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." He believed there was a vital, symbiotic relationship between the poet and society.// Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,'// Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,'// =-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The progress was one that looked always toward making "the bounds of freedom wider yet." =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 27 June 2010 PART III As of 1901-Prose and poetry have from the outset existed side by side, with a perceptible leaning toward prose as the more natural form of expression. The prose which we shall find supplanting the poetry of the South is still in a measure poetic; the poetry of the West often tends to employ the free and homely idioms of prose.// Mark Twain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain He is a genuine creator of character. A national literature can scarcely deserve the name until it has created characters which are seen to typify in the largest and best sense national traits.// He was fascinated with science and scientific inquiry. He developed a close and lasting friendship with Nikola Tesla, and the two spent much time together in Tesla's laboratory.// His book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court features a time traveler from contemporary America, using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. This type of storyline would later become a common feature of the science fiction sub-genre, Alternate history.// A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT: http://bulfinch.englishatheist.org/yank/86-h.htm Twain was a master at rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes and language. Francis Bret Harte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bret_Harte He was our real pioneer in the field of the short story—the story of strong realism reinforced by local color and piquant dialect; and the best writers in this kind at the present day, among them Mr. Kipling, are deeply indebted to him. // He gave the bad with the good, though with the natural result that the good gains immensely by the juxtaposition. Indeed, one secret of his charm is the way in which his vivid pictures of vileness, dissoluteness, squalor, and misery are illuminated by deeds of the tenderness charity and the highest heroism.// =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 29 June 2010 Emily Dickinson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson The Realm of Dickinson http://www.originalpoetry.com/forum/view/topic/topic_id/1430 Poems http://www.bartleby.com/113/ She said some where in a great metaphor, that a true friend is like a one thin strand of hair. Let me find it, asap Emily Dickinson is considered one of the most original 19th Century American poets. She is noted for her unconventional broken rhyming meter and use of dashes and random capitalization as well as her creative use of metaphor and overall innovative style. She was a deeply sensitive woman who questioned the puritanical background of her Calvinist family and soulfully explored her own spirituality, often in poignant, deeply personal poetry. Classification and comparison, in the case of Emily Dickinson, avail nothing. She was modern ; beyond that the chances of time and place do not signify; her life and her poetry were passed in seclusion at Amherst, Massachusetts. The poems baffle' description. They seldom have titles, and sometimes no more words than poets three centuries ago put into their titles, for she pours her words as a chemist his tinctures, fearful of a drop too much. Two stanzas, of four lines each, imperfectly rhymed, and with about four words to the line, are her favorite form. A fourteen-line sonnet is spacious by the side of such poems. Yet few sonnets have ever compressed so much within their bounds. To read one is to be given a pause that will outlast the reading of many sonnets; for they come with revelation, like a flash of lightning that illuminates a landscape by night and startles with glimpses into an unimagined world. They bear witness in every word to their high inspiration. But stamped though they be with the celestial signature, they are but fragments, and in the temple of art, which keeps its niches for the perfect statue, they must shine obscurely. Dickinson's poetry reflects her loneliness and the speakers of her poems generally live in a state of want, but her poems are also marked by the intimate recollection of inspirational moments which are decidedly life-giving and suggest the possibility of happiness. Her work was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New England town which encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and conservative approach to Christianity. Structure and Syntax: The extensive use of dashes and unconventional capitalization in Dickinson's manuscripts, and the idiosyncratic vocabulary and imagery, combine to create a body of work that is "far more various in its styles and forms than is commonly supposed". She did not write in traditional iambic pentameter (a convention of English-speaking poetry for centuries), and did not even use a five-foot line. Her line lengths vary from four syllables or two feet to often eight syllables or four feet. Her frequent use of approximate or slant rhyme attracted attention since her work first appeared in print. Her poems typically begin with a declaration or definition in the first line ("The fact that Earth is Heaven"), which is followed by a metaphorical change of the original premise in the second line ("Whether Heaven is Heaven or not"). Dickinson's poems can easily be set to music because of the frequent use of rhyme and free verse. Written for the most part in common meter or ballad-meter, they can also be set to songs that use the same alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Late 20th-century scholars are "deeply interested" by Dickinson's highly individual use of punctuation and lineation (line lengths and line breaks). Dickinson left no formal statement of her aesthetic intentions and, because of the variety of her themes, her work does not fit conveniently into any one genre. Dickinson's "relentlessly measuring mind ... deflates the airy elevation of the Transcendental". Apart from the major themes discussed below, Dickinson's poetry frequently uses humor, puns, irony and satire. Dickinson's poetic styling as a result of lack of knowledge or skill, modern critics believed the irregularities were consciously artistic In a 1915 essay, Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant called the poet's inspiration "daring" and named her "one of the rarest flowers the sterner New England land ever bore". =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 6 July 2010 Ok I have finished the book, and I am inspired, educated, and ready to move into the 20th Century, this link here is where NewComer see’s the dawn of the 20th century, and it Is interesting, he notes that Cananda is a force to be reckoned with, interesting, another avenue to study. Here is a link to the last chapter to see for yourself. http://books.google.com/books?id=FvFBuwZiEcUC&pg=PA296&output=text#c_top =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-o0o0 Book Link- http://books.google.com/books?id=FvFBuwZiEcUC&pg=PA1&output=text =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=0o0o Ok here are my picks for the 20th century I have two pick to more Poe, and Dickinson are from the 19th Century, lol =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=--=--=-=-==-=---=0o0o East but not Least I have to find one from the east Wallace Stevens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Stevens Quote: things that have their origin in the imagination or in the emotions very often take on a form that is ambiguous or uncertain. It is not possible to attach a single, rational meaning to such things without destroying the imaginative or emotional ambiguity or uncertainty that is inherent in them and that is why poets do not like to explain. That the meanings given by others are sometimes meanings not intended by the poet or that were never present in his mind does not impair them as meanings.....Wallace Stevens Best of the West Ezra Pound http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound In his essays, Pound wrote of rhythm as "the hardest quality of a man's style to counterfeit' I like that that's that signature sound, like Dave Mustaines, Lead Growl, yep. Robert Frost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost "Frost taught English at Amherst College, Massachusetts, notably encouraging his students to account for the sounds of the human voice in their writing." I love that Emily D's School, so cool, Frost was 86 when he spoke and performed a reading of his poetry at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy , now that is an accomplishment, Mouths of the South Edgar Allan Poe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Alan_Poe http://www.thepoearchive.0catch.com/ THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION Is amazing, you can feel Poes soul in this. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/poe/composition.html THE POETIC PRINCIPLE I ‘am currently reading the poetic principle, this is amazing and it adds To the study here, on the direction poetry was going, and went. Very beneficial to these studies http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/poe/poetic.html A Few Words on Secret Writing http://www.eapoe.org/works/essays/fwsw0741.htm Quote: He who shall simply sing, with however glowing enthusiasm, or with however vivid a truth of description, of the sights, and sounds, and odors, and colors, and sentiments which greet him in common with all mankind- he, I say, has yet faded to prove his divine title. There is still a something in the distance which he has been unable to attain. We have still a thirst unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. Edgar Allan Poe Sterling Allen Brown http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Allen_Brown As a teacher, Brown encouraged self-confidence among his students, urging them to find their own literary voices and to educate themselves to be an audience worthy of receiving the special gifts of black literature. http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=2345 Swords of the North T.S. Eliot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot Eliot argues that art must be understood not in a vacuum, but in the context of previous pieces of art: “In a peculiar sense [an artist or poet] ... must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past. // His proposition that good poems constitute ‘not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion'; and his insistence that ‘poets…at present must be difficult. // Eliot particularly praised the metaphysical poets' ability to show experience as both psychological and sensual, while at the same time infusing this portrayal with—in Eliot's view—wit and uniqueness. // He had argued that a poet must write “programmatic criticism"; that is, a poet should write to advance his own interests rather than to advance “historical scholarship". // Eliot wrote in The Sacred Wood: "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." Hart Crane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Crane http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/crane02.html As to technical considerations: the motivation of the poem must be derived from the implicit emotional dynamics of the materials used, and the terms of expression employed are often selected less for their logical (literal) significance than for their associational meanings. Via this and their metaphorical inter-relationships, the entire construction of the poem is raised on the organic principle of a 'logic of metaphor,' which antedates our so-called pure logic, and which is the genetic basis of all speech, hence consciousness and thought-extension. // The 'logic of metaphor' was simply the written form of the 'bright logic' of the imagination, the crucial sign stated, the Word made words.... As practiced, the logic of metaphor theory is reducible to a fairly simple linguistic principle: the symbolized meaning of an image takes precedence over its literal meaning; whether or not the vehicle of an image makes sense, the reader is expected to grasp its tenor. // If the poet is to be held completely to the already evolved and exploited sequences of imagery and logic--what field of added consciousness and increased perceptions (the actual province of poetry, if not lullabies) can be expected when one has to relatively return to the alphabet every breath or two? In the minds of people who have sensitively read, seen, and experienced a great deal, isn’t there a terminology something like short-hand as compared to usual description and dialectics, which the artist ought to be right in trusting as a reasonable connective agent toward fresh concepts, more inclusive evaluations? // New conditions of life germinate new forms of spiritual articulation. ...the voice of the present, if it is to be known, must be caught at the risk of speaking in idioms and circumlocutions sometimes shocking to the scholar and historians of logic. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=o0o0 I have selected these poets to study, and interview, based mainly on originality, then skill, and direction. The North MADELYNN http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/Madelynn Madelynn, can take elements, objects and emotions, and turn them into complete Entities, with full sensory detail, now that to me is hard to do, with each line, There is a magical breath, going back and forth between her concepts, that truly come alive. (so far from just reading the Love Letters to the Wind, and Rain) EPIKSONIK http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/EpikSonik [I]Imagery is his sword of choice, and the blade is sharper than southern men guarding their homestead with shotguns. Figures of Speech, you have to be a master yourself to fully grasp his. The poem, Shadow Birth, is full assault of skill he bestows. What I can say so far in my study is that, he has the ability to cage a thought, and throw away the key. You have to fully lock on the images, and create the images in motion, to decipher the film, poem, thoughts meaning, and that takes skill alone to appreciate his poems.[/I] ( Poem marker-small flower and up) DANO http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/Dano [I]An organic poet of the dark, dreams and nightmares flared with non Capitals, this to me signals his identity over his waking feats, a swifter move I say. Roped in couplets ( a master of the couplet), braided visions of memories, that still act in realism. Stating they are still playing out in the same dimension just some where else. I love that, a theory to love. Dano’s great, and on the verge of being greater. He’s someone to be aware of. A true Gothic Poet![I/] (poem marker-i will not fear (when my eyes are blind) KLASSIK http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/Klassik Priceless lines in his poems, powerful, simply fire in word form. If you were a tree, he could squeeze the love out of thee. I see that he keeps an eye on the youth I think for he sees their folly. (Poet mark- butterflies and up) The South ORSONAV http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/orsonav Orson is a poet with strength, with the power of Gods word, As of now I read a young man with a strong positive heart, learning and reaching out, on the path he has chosen. I see for sure a poet for righteousness and love. (Poet mark-New Drum and up to the Michael Jackson poem) MALIK PETTERSON http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/MalikPeterson BRET D. ISERNHAGEN http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/BDIsernhagen As in his own words, Indeed he dares the midnight air, I think he dares himself, And finds a greater self, his toolbox for poetry is fully opened and used. A young master of metaphor (poet mark- A Paver and a Pilgrim and up) HELIOS http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/Helios The East GINGA http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/ginga KAH http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/Kah Kim shows no mercy on the reader, she is a poet that Transverses to all realms of writing, as a collaborating poet with her For the Bleed for a Cause Project,And a class mate in OP’s School of Poetry, I feel honored to write her with her, she’s a poet (with her words here) That can take your junk drawer and show you your junk in your junk drawer, just from her poem, lol, now that's cool (Poem mark- strange animal and up) SUPERCHICK76 http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/SuperChick76 KELLER http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/Keller Keller, a dark Poet, rumor has it that his poems have been banned, They must have been very touching. Keller seems to know what he intends In his work, very efficient poet. (poet mark- the Horror I Can Bring) The West HAMPTON http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/Hampton GMCOOKIE http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/GMCookie Glen is so swift with his wit in poems, his heart is truly in poetry. When I first read him he hit my nerve, and still he writes with Words to settle on you, very impressed with his positive knowledge (Poem mark-Tribute to Nkosi and up) IZZY GUMBO http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/IzzyGumbo SPRINGSIZE http://www.originalpoetry.com/poet/Springsize Susan is very unique, and skilled, at putting her thoughts in Poetic form, she has sea-shell effect in her work. As a fellow classmate with her, I see that she’s not Letting up some any time soon, she can open one’s imagination, and swift with it, Poem mark- The Dance of the SoulMate Kiss =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-===-=-=-=-=-=--=-=--=-=-=--=-=-=0o0o Book Link- http://books.google.com/books?id=FvFBuwZiEcUC&pg=PA1&output=text =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-===-=-=-=-=-=--=-=--=-=-=--=-=-=0o0o THIS IS VERY CLOSE TO TIME TRAVEL, I love it John E WordSlinger Treacherous urges steadily spur on the dreadful adventure of what we lure P.S. I’d like to thank OP, and all the Teachers, Poets and, Readers to make studies possible with the power of the net. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-===-=-=-=-=-=--=-=--=-=-=--=-=-=0o0o Assignments Poem 1 Write a poem in Social Verse: from Chapter 1: social verse,"—a somewhat inexact and general term for various kinds of sentimental effusions that are light without levity and grave without gravity, that, in other words, range freely all the way from laughter to tears without quite touching upon either. Rhyming Patterns: ABABCCC I added the triple c to make more volume Theme: if you had three minutes what would you say in a rhyme to these men, or some one else. A Conversation with Obama, the CEO of BP, or some other high official person living today in the modern world. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Refills For Free, Only to the Swiftly Heaven! Heavy as we hunger In wisdom we must starve Today, living in less wonder Promises deeply carved Grasped on the tails of toads Lapse on the rails of roads Enhance as time unfolds (I feel the rail roads are an answer to a lot of people problems, like public transportation, and cargo, transit, plus the RxR needs and overhaul, that means work, I'd love to work on the RxR) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-===-=-=-=-=-=--=-=--=-=-=--=-=-=0o0o Poem 2 inspired by this course, and lessons. I ’ve time traveled and figured something out, lol. I love it, I love my job. The Poetry in the Days of Jesse James http://www.originalpoetry.com/the-poetry-in-the-days-of-jesse-james http://www.originalpoetry.com/the-poetry-in-the-days-of-jesse-james =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-===-=-=-=-=-=--=-=--=-=-==0o0o Poem 3 Dreams in Invisible Praise Houses A slaves ritual, thoughts spiritual Can be an ordinary principal to return to service an earthly master Can a prophet cease from mans’ disaster? Alas the serpent is loose, sways the noose? Time keeps approaching with a shaking truce, Shaking pride into a solar eclipse The sun appears bluish, and green in trip Quite weapons are the choice policy With trust, fellows against insurgency There was a boy with tears on his small face His spared spirit hid in a small fire place Freedom’s always been on the back burner But I was called by God, me Nat Turner http://www.originalpoetry.com/dreams-in-invisible-praise-houses =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-===-=-=-=-=-=--=-=--=-=-==0o0o Poem 4 Whittiers' Coat To Pennsylvania with cause in poetry and pen Then to New Hampshire to free men With a deep horror of human butchery He-Whittier held his word in anti-slavery Yokes of youth, as time spurns in our dominion Rights to claim, learn, and marvel on opinion In depth-belief, and all things glory of God As now, in all wraths of today’s Ichabod Little romances slipped him quietly away, Imparted into his poetry still today In strain we still hold his name, Whittiers' coat is warmth, his great love-faith is still afloat http://www.originalpoetry.com/whittiers-coat =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-===-=-=-=-=-=--=-=--=-=-==0o0o **If you are reading my work, and not reading the book, than you are cheating, lol, right?** 
=-=-=-=- A Time-Line of Poetry in English Old English 449-1066 Middle English 1066-1485 Early Modern English 1485-1800 Renaissance 1485-1603 17th Century 1603-1667 Augustans 1667-1780 Present-day English 1800-present Romantics 1780-1830 Victorians 1833-1903 Georgians 1903-1920 Moderns 1920-1960 The Beat Generation 1950-1970 The Movement 1960-1980 Postmoderns 1980-1999 The 21st Century-The WordSlingers, lol 2000 and beyond- Note that these divisions simplify the history of poetry and are useful only for characterizing general trends. A poet in one period may have more in common with a poet in another than with contemporaries. Last edited by WordSlinger 08-30-2010 at 11:38:24 PM |
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RE: American Poetry Past and PresentI have read much of the above and will agree with most of what I've read, the single biggest exception is the praise heaped on Cooper. I, of course, have been heavily influenced by Clemens, and must agree with him in considering Cooper the most overated, undertalented writer of his age. Read (or re-read) Clemens' critique of Cooper and even a blind man would agree with us. |
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Land, land this our land, James Gang Stands stands 4 Red White and Blue, #2 comiWhen I started the forum, the idea was based on those wanting to grow poetically- not for OP members to gain self-stardom. I feel that we have ALL gained a substantial amount of knowledge to date( the partcipants,as well as the readers) However, I know that we can't learn from our instructors- or each other if we pretend to 'know everything already'. So, let's allow each of us to do our assignments without interferance from other OP family members. |
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RE: American Poetry Past and PresentJohn E, |
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RE: American Poetry Past and PresentThoughts, |
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JAZZ AND AMERICAN POETRYI found this Hunting Poets, more info for the School/Class |
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I am Now a Poet Hunter Dead or AliveToday, Aug 21, 2001 
Oil Producer; born in Butler County Kansas, July 5, 1875. Education; High School; Wichita College. Contributor to; Many Newspapers, anthologies Kansas Authors Club Recreation and Hobbies: Rifle Target Shooting Lives in Kansas Loving Meteor Where you ever out on the lonely hills, On a dark and gloomy night? Where you ever out on lonely hills, Where coyotes howl and fight? Were you ever surprised by the things you’ve seen, Through your dark, and speck-tickle brow, In driving over a flinty ridge, Covered by cattle and cow? My thoughts were not on heavenly plans Or on unseen things from above I never had dreamed of old mother earth Having a sense of love But out of the heavens a body came, A visiting beau in chains, He dashed along the fiery way, And he lit up the range Old mother earth was sweet and fair, All covered with flowers out in the air; Her beau belonged to God’s creation, She must have loved him true. He may have been around her, Dashing by on high, But on this night he found her, And came down from the sky. If likened to her children, The school girls and their Mom, She must have liked a lover, in story and song Then her loving meteor, When coming down to dine, His chains in reddened heat, Exploded like a mine That thrilling, jerking tremor. I shall never forget, As he buried himself deeper, In the sands among the gyp http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GScid=92004&GRid=15315814&CScnty=891& http://www.ou.edu/special/albertctr/archives/MurrayInventory/whmbox5.htm =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Poet-3 Charles Sumner Beard Farmer; born near Economy, Ind, July 25, 1874. Education; High School Contributor to; spirit of the Free; Indiana Farmer; Practical Farmer; Prairie Farmer; Times-Star Successful farming; Richmond Item. American friend; Pasadena Poems Broadcasting over WZW. Recreations or Hobbies; Growing Evergreen Trees; Writing Poetry. Lives in Indiana. 
My Window Look out my window, and what do I see- The long trailing leaves of an old walnut tree; It’s gray drooping branches bring coolness and shade, A waving green vision of pendulous braid. Look out of my window, and what do I hear- A mocking bird pouring out melody clear; His nest is not far, in an evergreen tree, And he’s telling the world, in his joyous glee. Look out of my window, and what do I see- A mountain squirrel seeking for food that is free, Not rationed by man in his blundering way; The wild people gather and store it away. Look out my window, and what do I hear- A downy woodpecker is signaling near; On the underneath side of each twig and bough He is seeking for food to take to his frau Look out of my window, and what do I see- An Oriole’s nest, and he’s singing to me; And the world is made gladder by that uplifting song, And he sways in the breeze as it passes along. Look out of my window, and what do I hear- A Katydid calling that Autumn is near; A Chorus of insects blends into one tone, And the leaves on the tree whisper: Summer is done A passing cicada came down in my tree And sang his unmusical tweedle-de-de; He tightened his wings like a violin’s strings, And walked as he scraped out his lone melody. Look out of my window, the leaves falling fast, The walnuts hold on by their stems to the last; And when they come down they are garnered and stored, No permit is asked of the war ration board. Look out my window, it makes my heart sing. A chain hanging down where our kiddies did swing; Our grandchildren now frolic under this tree That once sheltered only the Mother and me. A woodbine she planted now spreads o’er its boughs, With all of the freedom Dame Nature allows; In its shade is the kiddies’ small merry-go-round Where neighboring children can often be found. A chair near my tree and inviting to ease, Will oft find her there doing something to please; A cot for the sleepy, though rusty and old, Still offers our age-weary bodies to hold. And the bittersweet vine that was planted near by With it’s tendrils entwined reaching out for the sky, Till it caught on a limb that was swinging so free, And pulled till it broke from the trunk of the tree. Look out of my window, though dark is the night, The fireflies are making the treetop so bright; Their fine fairy lanterns keep winking at me And signaling messages, you will agree. Look out of my window when cold is the night, And high in the heavens the moon shining bright; Bowing low with the snow weighing every limb down, My tree waits for Spring to regain its renown Of all the bright memories home has for me, That Nature has furnished, is this spreading tree; The forty odd years we have sat in its shade Are a pleasant remembrance that never will fade. Look out of my window, each morning it yields New hope for the day of our toil in the fields, Each night, as I lie down to end up the day, I gaze at my tree in a reverent way. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=69 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbeardC.htm =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Poet-4 William Clyde BeHunin Journalist; born, Tobar, Nevada, Mar 30, 1917 Education High School-Business College;U of Utah Contributor to Poetic Voice of America, Voice of the Press. Also writes short stories, novels essays; news Member of Maja league Recreations-Hobbies Photography Lived in Utah His Poem What the Germans Think Has some hard core lines, so I wont post it, So there is no controversy to me, or his family. But I found him, and he needs posted. 
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11479769 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Poet-5 Matilda S Birrer Born in Grainfield, Kansas, Aug, 11 1884. Education, Grainfeild Schools Contributor to Spirit of the Free Also writes songs, some of which have been published. Recreations or Hobbies; Reading; Collecting Poetry;, Writing lyrics Lived in Kansas All The Way All the way to the garden… for rest…and to pray… Thinking I’d be alone… in the garden…today. All alone with my master, as I knelt in prayer, And there at His dear feet I did cast every care. Our father whispers: ‘Come ye who are weary; your burdens I’ll bear In exchange for sweet peace, child, and my love gladly share.’ All the way to the garden… for rest… and to pray… Thinking I’d be alone… in the garden… today. But the breeze in the tree-tops, the leaflets did sway To the tune of the mocking bird singing happy and gay… Giving thanks to our Master in our own silent way… Each sought the garden wherein to sing, praise and pray. All the way to the garden… for rest… and to pray… All the way with my Master… in the garden… today.. Hark! ‘Tis His Voice speaking to you, both great and small: “Night and day with tender love and care, I’m watching over all. The birds and flowers trust in my care. And ye not more than they Come unto me today…give me your heart… Come all the way!’ http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=50909560 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Last edited by WordSlinger 08-31-2010 at 09:00:32 PM |
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I Love My Job As Poet HunterI have searched for 70 poets so far, only found two, Last edited by WordSlinger 08-30-2010 at 11:40:01 PM |
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RE: American Poetry Past and Present
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RE: American Poetry Past and PresentThis lesson on "American Poets, Past and Present" is awesome , Thanks to PoetCaster and John Wordslinger. Last edited by cousinsoren 09-04-2010 at 02:03:48 PM |
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RE: American Poetry Past and PresentThank You Oren, I have alot to add, 800 pages of poetry left of the American Poetry 1946 book, and the 20 Century Poets, plus our OP Poets, little by little, |
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) Greek philosopher.