An Original Poem by Me

As promised recently, I've decided to share a poem that I wrote with my seventh grade mind. The class at the time had to create a poetry journal that included freeverse/unmetered poems, freeverse/metered poems, sonnets, limericks, Haiku, and cinquain poems by various poets as well as our own original work under the same categories. I included work by the following poets in my journal: Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, e.e. cummings, Ogden Nash, Robert Frost, Shiki, Basho, Daigaku Horiguchi, Okura, Shakespeare, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

My Freeverse/Unmetered Poem.....


Spring Garden

In the spring garden
Where the tulip grows
In the path beneath,
A girl is walking.

© Stephanie Lewis, 1985


* Look for more of my seventh grade poems in the future.

Paula Rego

May's art quote (above) is by artist Paula Rego.

The Policeman's Daughter, oil on canvas, 213 x 152 cm, 1987

The Policeman's Daughter has always been one of my favorite Rego works. It is striking in content, composition, and emotional impact. It has always made me think of Sylvia Plath's poem, "Daddy." (1) (2)

Here's what the Saatchi Gallery website had to say about this image:

"In the late 1980's Paula Rego made a series of painting to explore close family relationships. All the relationships seem somewhat dysfunctional, particularly those between the fathers and the daughters. The Policeman's Daughter is angry, her hand rammed into her father's boot as she cleans it, a drawing for the painting shows its genesis in a relationship that is a little more innocent - a younger girl, cradling the boot as she cleans it, a toy castle symbolising security at her feet. In the painting, the castle has become a mistrustful cat, and the pose of the girl, taken from a sexually-explicit Robert Mapplethorpe photograph, anything but innocent."

More of her works are available for viewing on the Saatchi Gallery website. (3)

A Poem:The Duck, by Ogden Nash

In seventh grade, we made a poetry journal. We had to collect a percentage of poems from other poets and write some of our own as well. This poem by Ogden Nash is one I remember fondly. Maybe at some point, I'll try to find that poetry journal and publish some of my original poems in my seventh grade mind here on my blog.

A Poem

I was reminded of a poem today--or I reminded myself. It was back in high school that I first encountered it and it immediately attracted me to the work of e.e. cummings.







maggie and millie and mollie and may
by e.e. cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach(to play one day)



and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and



milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;



and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and



may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.



For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it's always ourselves we find in the sea

Poetry: William Blake

I've been thinking about this poem lately:

THE TYGER
(from Songs Of Experience)

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
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

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

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

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

1794

(Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Indeed.)

A Poem

This poem has been on my mind lately. I don't know why.



The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

A Classic Poem: Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost

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

Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken (1915)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

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

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere 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.

_________________________

When I was in 7th or 8th grade in a little Lutheran grade school in Ellisville, Missouri (suburb of St. Louis), we had a pastor who taught us English literature. Fortunately, he was more than qualified and very passionate about the subject. He had us read some of the greatest short stories by O. Henry, Shirley Jackson, etc. He was a big fan of Hemingway (which I never really developed into-- I did enjoy "The Short, Happy Life of Francis MacComber," however). He had us read "The Old Man and the Sea." He had us memorize 600+ vocabulary words and their definitions one semester. The other thing he had us do was keep a poetry notebook. He exposed us to some of the greats: Carl Sandburg, e.e. cummings, Robert Frost, etc. Then, he had us write our own examples of various types of poetry (cinquain, limerick, sonnet, haiku, free verse, etc.) and illustrate our own bound book of OUR collected works, which I still have to this day.

We must have spent two weeks on the above poem. It made an indelible mark on my psyche to the extent that whenever I make major decisions, I can still hear it recited in my head. 'Convenience' and 'ease' are American watchwords for our culture and it seems to be embedded in everything we say or do, our choices for entertainment, how we acquire our material goods, and on and on and on. I am always refreshed when students go the extra mile or try something different on an assignment in my classes. It is ALWAYS rewarding for them as well as myself.

There have been several times in my life when I have chosen the road not taken (or less traveled by) and they have definitely been ways that lead on to ways. I'm glad I took the risks to choose art instead of psychology as the field of my career choice. I'm glad I chose a spontaneous road trip to Alaska instead of staying and working a 40-hour-a-week two weeks out of my summer in 1995. I'm glad I majored in painting in grad school with minimal experience at the time in painting and a background in drawing and printmaking. I'm glad I took the Arts Center job a few years back, even though I had never done anything like it. All of these were scary decisions and vast unknowns, but yielded extremely fruitful results.

________________________

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere 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.