A question for poets and poetry lovers

[carrie]

Can anyone recommend a poem (or two!) that

• *would be suitable for 9th graders
  *has as its theme "Crossing Borders" or "Other Worlds," both casting a very wide net
  *does not have references to sex, drugs, or alcohol.

If it can also be by a so-called minority poet, all the better!

Thanks!
carrie

[Joseph E. Smith]

Perhaps not a minority poet, but likely never heard of by ninth graders...

e. e. cummings: anyone lived in a pretty how town.

[emmline]

My first thought was "The Cremation of Sam McGee," by Robert Service. I don't think it quite fits your theme.

[djm]

"The Road Goes Ever On and On" by JRR Tolkien.

djm

[dubhlinn]

What age group are we talking here?

Over on this side of the Pond, Ninth Grade is an unknown term

Slan,
D.

[emmline]

13 to 15 year olds.

[dubhlinn]

13 to 15 year olds.

Thanks..I'll have a think about it for a while.

Slan,
D.

[izzarina]

This one is kind of about "other worlds" but I'm not sure if it's the world you're wanting, since he's talking about death It's fairly well known, though.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

[izzarina]

You know, thinking about this, Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" might also be appropriate, if they have not already read it. Good grief...I must be in a Robert Frost mood today

[anniemcu]

Some of these are more juvenile oriented, but we really have enjoyed some of these at all ages...

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropol ... l#FreeToBe

[Jayhawk]

Here's one by an old college prof. of mine, Victor Contoski:

Walk in the Woods

For the love of wood
I kneel down
and offer it my hands.

If I am very still
and wait a long time
bark will grow over them.


Not sure why I like that one so much, but to me it has that other world type of theme.

Eric

[dubhlinn]

There are many very wise and witty poets who have a great appeal to teenagers. Spike Milligan and Roger McGough are a good place to look.

Another verse which springs to mind is one of my all time favourites Heredity by Thomas Hardy.
I hope that this will help, somehow.

Slan,
D.

[JS]

A Blessing
by James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.




Copyright © 2005 James Wright. From Selected Poems. Reprinted with permission of Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

From the poets.org website--great resource.

[JS]

After a Death
by Tomas Tranströmer
Translated by Robert Bly

Once there was a shock

that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.

It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.

It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.



One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun

through brush where a few leaves hang on.

They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.

Names swallowed by the cold.



It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat

but often the shadow seems more real than the body.

The samurai looks insignificant

beside his armor of black dragon scales.




From The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations by Robert Bly, published by Harper Collins. Copyright © 2004 by Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission of Robert Bly. All rights reserved.

Maybe it was that good Victor Contoski poem that put me in mind of this one, or maybe I was just looking for an excuse to post it--Transtromer is such a good poet. The border crossing/other worlds part may be a little more oblique though... Poets.org, again.

[Innocent Bystander]

Alan Jackson:

Alan Jackson is Scottish. The Pentlands is a range of hills just south of Edinburgh. “Wifie” means “married female”.

“This Wifie”

This wifie wi a shoppin basket,
A goes up tae her an says
Hey wifie, see, there’s the wild Pentlands
Just behind ye.

She drapped it.

***

The Sentries

The sentries patrol the city walls
With orders
Shoot the barbarians
Watch the gates
Behind them on the cool air of the night
Music and light
‘some lucky Basmatis are having fun’
(breaking glass a shout)
to be there... to be one


but it would take eighty years
to buy themselves out
and in
to the barbarians

***


Robert Graves:

Welsh Incident

‘But that was nothing to what things came out
From the sea-caves of Criccieth yonder.’
‘What were they? Mermaids? Dragons? Ghosts?’
‘Nothing at all of any thing like that.’
‘What were they, then?’
‘All sorts of queer things,
‘Things never seen or heard or written about,
Very strange, Un-Welsh, utterly peculiar
Things. Oh, solid enough they seemed to touch,
Had anyone dared it. Marvellous creation,
All various shapes and sizes, and no sizes,
All new, each perfectly unlike his neighbour,
Though all of them came moving slowly out together.’
‘Describe just one of them.’
‘I am unable.’
‘What were their colours?’
‘Mostly nameless colours,
Colours you’d like to see; but one was puce
Or perhaps more like crimson, but not purplish.
Some had no colour.’
‘Tell me, had they legs?’
‘Not a leg or foot among them that I saw.’
‘But did these things come out in any order?
What o’clock was it? What was the day of the week?
Who else was present? What was the weather?’
‘I was coming to that. It was half-past three
On Easter Tuesday last. The sun was shining.
The Harlech Silver Band played Marchog Jesu
On thirty-seven shimmering instruments,
Collecting for Caernarvon’s (Fever) Hospital Fund.
The populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth,
Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhynduedraeth,
Were all assembled. Criccieth’s mayor addressed them
First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,
Twisting his fingers in his chain of office,
Welcoming the things. They came out on the sand,
Not keeping time to the band, but moving seaward
Silently at a snail’s pace. But at last
The most odd, indescribable thing of all,
Which hardly one man there could see for wonder,
Did recognizably a something.’
‘Well, what?’
‘It made a noise.’
‘A frightening noise?’
‘No, no.’
‘A musical noise? A noise of scuffling?’
‘No, but a very loud, respectable noise –
Like groaning to oneself on Sunday morning
In Chapel, close before the second psalm.’
‘What did the mayor do?’
‘I was coming to that.’


***

The Broken Girth


Bravely from Fairyland he rode forth, on furlough,
Astride a tall bay given him by the Queen
From whose couch he had leaped not half-an-hour since,
Whose lilies-of-the-valley shone at his helm.

But alas, as he paused to assist five Ulstermen
Sweating to raise a recumbent Ogham pillar,
Breach of a saddle-girth tumbled Oisín
To common Irish earth. And at once, it is said,
Old age came on him with grief and frailty.

So Patrick asked: would he not confess the Christ? –
Which for that Lady’s sake he laothed to do,
But northward, bravely turned his eyes in death.
It was Fenians bore the corpse away
For burial, keening.
Curse me all squint-eyed monks
Who misconstrue the passing of Finn’s son:
Old age, not Fairyland was his delusion.

***

Okay, I'm not going to repeat the rest in full, but:

WH.Auden:

Roman Wall Blues

The Quest (long!)

....okay, that's enough for now, maybe.