Sleeping on the Wing: An Anthology of Modern Poetry with Essays on Reading and Writing

267 Pages·1982·1.03 MB·English

by  Kenneth Koch

TO DAN AND SHANE FARRELL
Acknowledgments
A few years ago, Michael Spring commissioned
a series of reading-and-writing essays
on modern poems for Scholastic’s magazine
Literary Cavalcade. Some of these essays, which
first appeared in the magazine and in a
Scholastic anthology, were early versions of
essays in this book; and it was doing these
first essays that gave us the idea to do such a
book. We thank Michael Spring. And Myra
Klahr of the New York poets-in-the-schools
program, who found high school classes in
which we could try out the teaching ideas
presented here. And the students in Kate
Farrell’s classes at Garden City High School,
Valley Stream High School North and Valley
Stream High School South, and the students
in Kenneth Koch’s classes at Columbia
University, where we tried the ideas out. And
for other invaluable assistance we thank Gary
Fisketjon, Carolyn Lumsden, and John
Sterling.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
The Poets in this Book
Modern Poetry
Reading Poetry
Talking About Poetry
Using the Writing Suggestions in This Book
Writing Poetry on Your Own
WHITMAN, WALT (1819–1892)
From Song of Myself
DICKINSON, EMILY (1830–1886)
I Heard a Fly Buzz
The Wind Took Up the Northern Things
We Like March
Bee! I’m Expecting You!
The Last Night That She Lived
The Crickets Sang
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
HOPKINS, GERARD MANLEY (1844–1889)
Pied Beauty
Heaven-Haven
God’s Grandeur
Felix Randal
Spring and Fall
The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo
RIMBAUD, ARTHUR (1854–1891)
After the Flood
Dawn
Royalty
The Lice Seekers
Poets Seven Years Old
Vowels
Sensation
YEATS, WILLIAM BUTLER (1865–1939)
The Song of Wandering Aengus
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Adam’s Curse
The Wild Swans at Coole
For Anne Gregory
Crazy Jane on the Day of Judgment
STEIN, GERTRUDE (1874–1946)
Susie Asado
Ladies’ Voices
Yet Dish
RILKE, RAINER MARIA (1875–1926)
Five sonnets from Sonnets to Orpheus
Childhood
STEVENS, WALLACE (1879–1955)
Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Metaphors of a Magnifico
Depression Before Spring
Ploughing on Sunday
Anecdote of the Jar
Gubbinal
Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks
The Brave Man
A Rabbit As King of the Ghosts
APOLLINAIRE, GUILLAUME (1880–1918)
Zone
The Little Car
It’s Raining
WILLIAMS, WILLIAM CARLOS (1883–1963)
Nantucket
The Red Wheelbarrow
To a Poor Old Woman
The Locust Tree in Flower
Between Walls
This Is Just to Say
January Morning
The Act
The Last Words of My English Grandmother
LAWRENCE, D. H. (1885–1930)
Butterfly
Bavarian Gentians
The White Horse
Little Fish
Nothing to Save
Snake
POUND, EZRA (1885–1972)
The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
Separation on the River Kiang
Taking Leave of a Friend
The Garret
The Garden
Sestina: Altaforte
Alba
ELIOT, T. S. (1888–1965)
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Preludes
MAYAKOWSKY, VLADIMIR (1893–1930)
From A Cloud in Trousers
CUMMINGS, E. E. (1894–1962)
Spring Is Like a Perhaps Hand
My Sweet Old Etcetera
Paris; This April Sunset Completely Utters
Somewhere I Have Never Travelled, Gladly Beyond
LORCA, FEDERICO GARCÍA (1899–1936)
The Moon Rises
Ballad of Luna, Luna
Little Viennese Waltz
Dawn
Song of Black Cubans
AUDEN, W. H. (1907–1973)
This Lunar Beauty
1929 215
The Wanderer
GINSBERG, ALLEN (1926-)
From Howl, Parts I and II
A Supermarket in California