Everything is poetic substance

Where do these poems come from? Are they sophisticated poems? What accounts for sophistication? “Conceptists” versus “Baroquists”?

Personal experience (in/directly) (events and observations)

Draw on friends and relatives (relationships) (complex emotions)

Probing Your True Feelings Examining Ambivalence Playing with Language

in life one is always balancing

like we juggle our mothers against our fathers

or one teacher against another (only to balance our grade average)

3 grains of salt to one ounce truth

our sweet black essence or the funky honkies down the street

and lately i've begun wondering if you're trying to tell me something

we used to talk all night and do things alone together

and i've begun

(as a reaction to a feeling) to balance the pleasure of loneliness against the pain of loving you

Nikki Giovanni

World-Observer-Word = WOW = Poem World-World = WW = Text - Artifact Observer = O = Poet Senses & Thoughts World = Relationships (People - Places - Nature –

Events - Issues Everything is Poetic Substance) Word = Sounds – Rhythm - Lines – Images -

Density

Born Thelma Lucille Sayles

June 27, 1936 Raised in Depew,

New York. Poet Laureate,

Maryland, 1979-1985

Creative Writing Fellowships,1970,1973

Learn to do good,; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Isaiah 1, 18

when I watch you wrapped up like garbage sitting, surrounded by the smell of too old potato peels or

when I watch you in your old man's shoes with the little toe cut out sitting, waiting for your mind like next week's grocery

I saywhen I watch youyou wet brown bag of a woman who used to be the best looking gal in

Georgiaused to be called the Georgia RoseI stand upthrough your destructionI stand up

In poems, “sentence structure and the idea of feeling expressed often continue smoothly into the next line.

These are called enjambment or run-on lines.

This double use of line length and grammatical structure is unique to poetry” (Minot 2003, 2).

sweet jesus superman,if i had seen youdressed in your blue suiti would have known you.maybe that choir boyclarkcan stand aroundlistening to storiesbut not you, not withmetropolis to saveand every crook in townfilthy with kryptonite.

lord, man of steeli understand the cape,the leggings, the wholeball of wax.you can trust me,there is no planet strangerthan the one i'm from.

Ecology and “Noah’s Ark” themes Rivers and streams Oceans and seas Birds and Animals

and the gulf enters the sea and so forth,none of them emptying anything,all of them carrying yesterdayforever on their white tipped backs,all of them dragging forward tomorrowit is the great circulationof the earth's body, like the bloodof the gods,

Lucille Clifton

this river in which the pastis always flowing. every wateris the same water coming round.everyday someone is standing on the edgeof this river, staring into time,whispering mistakenly:only here. only now

Lucille Clifton

if there is a river more beautiful than this bright as the blood red edge of the moon if there is a river more faithful than this returning each month to the same delta if there

is a river braver than this coming and coming in a surge of passion, of pain if there is

a river more ancient than this daughter of eve mother of cain and of abel if there is in

the universe such a river if there is some where water more powerful than this wild water

pray that it flows also through animals beautiful and faithful and ancient and female and brave

English poet Chief representative of

the Victorian age in poetry.

Tennyson is now regarded as a great poet for his technique, his sensuous language, and the depth of his thought.

Tennyson was made poet laureate in 1850.

He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson(1851)

“Conceptists” versus “Baroquists”? Depth of ideas as a form of sophistication Reflection as poetic value Truth in a nutshell?

Born: December 30, 1865)Bombay, India

Died: 18 January 1936 (aged 70)Middlesex Hospital, London, England

Occupation: Short story writer, novelist, poet, Journalist

Nationality: British Genres: Short story, novel,

children's literature, poetry, travel literature, Science Fiction

Notable award(s): Nobel Prize in Literature, 1907

If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt youBut make allowance for their doubting too,If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breath a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: "Hold on!“

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;If all men count with you, but none too much,If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Born: Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis BorgesAugust 24, 1899Buenos Aires, Argentina

DiedJune 14, 1986 (aged 86)Geneva, SwitzerlandOccupationwriter, poet, critic, librarian

)

Si pudiera vivir nuevamente mi vida, en la próxima trataría de cometer más errores. No intentaría ser tan perfecto, me relajaría más. Sería más tonto de lo que he sido, de hecho tomaría muy pocas cosas con seriedad.

If I could live my life again, In the next I would try to commit more errors.I would not try to be so perfect, I would relax more.I would be more foolish than I've been, In fact, I would take few things seriously.

Sería menos higiénico. Correría más riesgos, haría más viajes, contemplaría más atardeceres, subiría más montañas, nadaría más ríos.

Iría a más lugares adonde nunca he ido, comería más helados y menos habas, tendría más problemas reales y menos imaginarios.

I would be less hygienic.I would run more risks, take more trips, watch more sunsets, climb more mountains, swim more rivers.

I would go to more places where I've never been, I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans, I would have more real problems and less imaginary ones.

Yo fui una de esas personas que vivió sensata

y prolíficamente cada minuto de su vida; claro que tuve momentos de alegría. Pero si pudiera volver atrás trataría de tener solamente buenos momentos.

I was one of those people that lived sensiblyand prolifically each minute of his life; Of course I had moments of happiness.If I could go back I would tryto have only good moments.

Por si no lo saben, de eso está hecha la vida, sólo de momentos; no te pierdas el ahora.

Yo era uno de esos que nunca iban a ninguna parte sin un termómetro, una bolsa de agua caliente, un paraguas y un paracaídas; si pudiera volver a vivir, viajaría más liviano.

Because in case you did not know, that is what life is made: only of moments; don't lose the now.

I was one of those that never went anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, an umbrella, and a parachute; If I could live again, I would travel lighter.

Si pudiera volver a vivir comenzaría a andar descalzo a principios de la primavera y seguiría descalzo hasta concluir el otoño.

Daría más vueltas en calesita,

contemplaría más amaneceres, y jugaría con más niños, si tuviera otra vez vida por delante.

Pero ya ven, tengo 85 años... y sé que me estoy muriendo.

If I could live again, I would begin to walk barefoot from the beginning of springand I would continue barefoot until autumn ends.

I would take more cart rides, contemplate more dawns,

and play with more children, If I had another life ahead of me.

But already you see, I am 85, and I know that I am dying.

"A humorist is a person who feels bad, but who feels good about it."

"There's one thing about baldness, it's neat."

"Don't ever slam a door, you might want to go back."

"Poverty must have many satisfactions, else there would not be so many poor people."

“Unhappiness is not knowing what we want and killing ourselves to get it.”

There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.