The teacher becomes the student...

Kate is the one who inspired last week's assignment, so she gets her own post, and as I know how generous she is, I know she won't mind Andrea hitchhiking along!



I might go the first route suggested "of poetry in other forms"...I've always loved the writings of William Faulkner and his "tip of the hat" to poetry writing always touched me, "I’m a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing." I found his "stream of consciousness" technique enormously poetic... and so The Sound and the Fury, followed by As I lay Dying....hold a special place in my heart.
***************************************as for an actual poem:
Robert Frost's --A Tuft of Flowers, a common poem perhaps, but it resonates my feeling of contentment with being alone. I like how Frost contrasts a sense of aloneness with a sense of empathic intuitiveness to reveal his "theme" of the common bond between men. Thus for me, I personally feel more "human" when I'm alone and outside with nature.Gabs, I don't know if we have room or the need for A Tuft of Flowers to be posted...here it is is you like to put it up.

The Tuft of Flowers

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been -- alone,
'As all must be,' I said within my heart,
'Whether they work together or apart.'
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly
,Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach
.'Men work together,' I told him from the heart,
'Whether they work together or apart.'

****************************
by Andrea



by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Richard Corey


WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.


And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.


And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.


So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.


My Mother used to read us poetry from a black leather bound volume. She could read The Raven and have you believe you were in the room with the narrator. We always requested this one-perhaps we were just morbid children or perhaps it was our Mom's way of teaching us "Be happy with what you have"
My favorite line, apart from the shocking last one, was always
"In fine, we thought that he was everything to make us wish that we were in his place."
(We THOUGHT that he was everything... )
My Mother, and this poem, helped me to look past the facades and see the people underneath- for better or worse.