Get your IMAGISTES here

Thanks to the MIT Comparative Media Studies graduate class of 2010 and Nick Montfort, it is now possible to read Ezra Pound's anthology Des Imagistes (1912) on-line. Enjoy!

http://www.desimagistes.com/about.html

Other links:

Ezra Pound, "A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste," Poetry (March 1913).

Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Metro," Poetry (April 1913).

Teach others, or yourself

The Academy of American Poets, on their website Poets.org, features some pages devoted to lesson plans, notably "Women in Poetry" developed by Carolyn Kohll, who teaches in a New York City high school.  Other topics include "Committed to Memory" by John Hollander, "The Literature of War" by Harvey Starbuck, and "Poetry in Translation" by Carol McCarthy.

Majors & Minors

Gain your students' respect by providing them with a challenging question in a first class. The following challenge, for teachers and students, has been made possible by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Give your students a copy of Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem "Little Brown Baby" to read. This will prove challenging to them (and to you). I practised reading the poem out loud for nearly two hours before feeling confident enough to read it without blunder in the classroom.

Little Brown Baby

Little brown baby wif spa’klin’ eyes,
Come to yo’ pappy an’ set on his knee.
What you been doin’, suh—makin’ san’ pies?
Look at dat bib— you’s ez du’ty ez me.
Look at dat mouf—dat’s merlasses, I bet;
Come hyeah, Maria, an’ wipe off his han’s.
Bees gwine to ketch you an’ eat you up yit,
Bein’ so sticky an sweet—goodness lan’s!

Little brown baby wif spa’klin’ eyes,
Who’s pappy’s darlin’ an’ who’s pappy’s chile?
Who is it all de day nevah once tries
Fu’ to be cross, er once loses dat smile?
Whah did you git dem teef? My, you’s a scamp!
Whah did dat dimple come f’om in yo’ chin?
Pappy do’ know you—I b’lieves you’s a tramp;
Mammy, dis heah’s some ol’ straggler got in!

Let’s th’ow him outen de do’ in de san’,
We do’ want stragglers a-layin’ ‘roun’ hyeah;
Let’s gin him ‘way to de big buggah-man;
I know he’s hidin’ erroun’ hyeah right neah.
Buggah-man, buggah-man, come in de do’,
Hyeah’s a bad boy you kin have fu’ to eat.
Mammy an’ pappy do’ want him no mo’,
Swaller him down f’om his haid to his feet!

Dah, now, I t’ought dat you’d hug me up close.
Go back, ol’ buggah, you sha’n’t have dis boy.
He ain’t no tramp, ner no straggler, of co’se;
He’s pappy’s pa’dner an’ playmate an’ joy.
Come to you’ pallet now—go to yo’ res’;
Wisht you could allus know ease an’ cleah skies;
Wisht you could stay jes’ a chile on my breas’ —
Little brown baby wif spa’klin’ eyes!

Any analysis of this poem is drawn first to the way the author has chosen to represent the oral speech of his fellow African Americans. We are lucky to have such poems that preserve the sound and musicality of this language. There is the Southern accent, of course, and the English reveals a lack of formal education. The sentiment of love for one's child is universal and builds an instant bridge between the speaker and the reader. The affinity one feels for the speaker is accentuated by his teasing of the child that demonstrates both the strength of the man's love and the force of his own endurance.

Once you feel the students have grasped and enjoyed the poem, the following test can be performed. Give them the handout below, and ask them which of the two poems was also written by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

-1-

Lullaby (For a Black Mother)

My little dark baby,
My little earth-thing,
My little love-one
What shall I sing
For your lullaby ?

Stars,
Stars,
A neck lace of stars
Winding the night.

My little black baby,
My dark body’s baby,
What shall I sing
For your lullaby ?

Moon,
Moon,
Great diamond moon,
Kissing the night

Oh, little dark baby,
Night black baby,

Stars, stars,
Moon,
Night stars,
Moon,

For your sleep-song lullaby.


-2-

In An English Garden

In this old garden, fair, I walk to-day
Heart-charmed with all the beauty of the scene:
The rich, luxuriant grasses’ cooling green,
The wall’s environ, ivy-decked and gray,
The waving branches with the wind at play,
The slight and tremulous blooms that show between,
Sweet all: and yet my yearning heart doth lean
Toward Love’s Egyptian fleshpots far away.

Beside the wall, the slim Laburnum grows
And flings its golden flow’rs to every breeze.
But e’en among such soothing sights as these,
I pant and nurse my soul-devouring woes.
Of all the longings that our hearts wot of,
There is no hunger like the want of love!


Links:

Paul Laurence Dunbar Website (University of Dayton)

Paul Laurence Dunbar Digital Collection with poems to read (Wright State University)

Paul Laurence Dunbar (Modern American Poetry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Paul Laurence Dunbar, a biography (Academy of American Poets)

The class behind the blog

No Time for Poetry?

Do you like reading poetry? Not only is it good for laughter (see Ogden Nash: “The cow is of the bovine ilk / one end is moo, the other milk”), it can sometimes contain serious political thought (see Geoffrey Hill’s poem “To the High Court of Parliament, November 1994”). 

Poetry as a vector for memory and history will be one of the focuses of our work together. 

Langston Hughes managed to get the greater part of the history of African Americans into his poem “Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz” (1961), and Donald Hall played baseball while expounding on contemporary America in “Baseball” (1993).

How can this class help you? Reading poetry out loud is one of the best ways to work on your pronunciation of English. Talking about poetry will enable you to perfect your argumentative faculties in a foreign language. Your vocabulary will be enriched from these texts, demonstrating that English is still more than just a language for world communication.

Poetry is also related to the power of language, the way language can accomplish what it sets out to do, the way it can become “performative.” Some poets spend time trying to undo the spin that words have been given so as to forge new meanings and most avoid cliché or use it to spin against itself.

In this course intended to be entertaining at times, as well as educational, a selection of poems distributed in class will form the basis for class discussion and written assignments relating to content as well as form. 

By the end of term, not only will you have found at least a few poems in English to admire, but you will have also learned about the major currents in English and American Poetry over the last 150 years, as well as the names of the most important English language poets. Not always appropriate table talk, this will most certainly be knowledge you can use when speaking about history or politics relating to English Language and Culture. Your English competency in oral and written comprehension and expression should improve as well.

So, plan to expand your cultural suitcase, and join us in finding some time for poetry.

Required Text: Jeffrey Wainwright, Poetry, The Basics, London:  Routledge, 2004.

*   *   *

The above course description applies to a class offered to Students in the Master's program at Sciences-Po (Institut d'Etudes Politiques) in Paris.  This course, a seminar for English (Level 4) has been taught in Spring 2005, Spring 2006, Autumn 2006, Autumn 2007, Autumn 2008 ...