Poetry Culminating

Poetry Anthology

1. Forward

The following is a collection of my poetic pieces in honour of the four poets that I have recently studied: Pablo Neruda, Carol Ann Duffy, e.e cummings and Theodore Roethke. While each of these four poets has influenced me emotionally and intellectually with their poetry, the first three aforementioned poets have left the strongest impression on my outlook of poetry. Therefore, this anthology will be dedicated to these three poets as I attempt to write poems that have been inspired by the unique writing styles of Neruda, Duffy and cummings.
There are four poems in total in this anthology, three of which are tributes to three of the poets that have been studied and the last being a love poem. The poem written in tribute to Neruda is in the form of an ode, a well-known poetic form that Neruda likes to write in. In fact, Ode to Phor T. Tu, is written to elevate the mundane number, fourty-two. This number is valued at such a high degree that it exists as the character “Phor T. Tu”, the man who grades present IB students and grants admission to future IB students. The reason for choosing this number is because fourty-two is the perfect raw score in the IB program; hence it becomes the goal that most IB students strive for or hope to achieve. The second tribute is inspired Duffy, who is popular for her creative dramatic monologues. Moreover my dramatic monologue, A Poor Painted Queen is a response to her dramatic monologue, My Last Duchess, where the old duchess gives warning to future duchess candidates of her experiences with the green-eyed Duke. The last tribute is dedicated to cummings, who is famous for his neologisms and illogical (paradoxical) syntax. My poem, which are You?, attempts to mimic cummings’ selective capitalization and his celebratory tone (when addressing God). However, the subject matter of this poem is not religious as it serves to elevate just poetry, but I believe that it is appropriate to adapt a celebratory tone towards this topic. The poem serves to highlight the infinite nature of poetry. The love poem, I know an island, is a poetic piece that was constructed and inspired from words that were found in Neruda’s poems. The speaker is a young man who longs to meet a young woman he sees, but unfortunately distance becomes the obstacle that prevents him from interacting with her, as they both inhabit different islands. Hence, the poem becomes the young man’s fantasies for his counterpart, but seeing as he cannot reach her, all his daydreaming is in vain.
The strengths of this collection lie within the two collaborative poetic pieces that I have written with my colleagues; the first being the tribute to Neruda, Ode to Phor T. Tu and the other being, I know an island, written on the topic of unrequited love. These two poems show the most diversity and creativity, while still keeping the subject matter intact, because my colleagues and I are writing towards a common goal: creating a piece of literature with our imaginative and inspired minds.

Word Count: 516

2. An ode, written in tribute to Neruda (In-class activity)

Ode to Phor T. Tu
Group Members: Fred Cao, Trudy Li, Muhammad Osama, Yubo She and Sean Zhou

He reviewed us one by one staring into our naïve, clueless eyes Harvard, Yale the paved road to success built upon
42s

He read the essays of our hopeful, idealistic dreams.
“i want to be challenged” we swore one after another.

Day and night
Night
and day (Fred’s eyes are read again today) the sun sets the work begins work work until dawn breaks one step closer to
Mister Tu

Six sevens illuminate the sky above this bottomless pit of fury angst drowing in tears of I
B booklets

Synonymous to the meaning of life we aim for You so desparately.

You are our God
You are our paragon
You are the perfection to which we strive for

The perfection of
Your
form
The purity of
Your essence
You’re a-cute face divisible by
Your curvy bossom turning at every corner

Mister Tu, i beg You please bestow me with the bountiful wellspring of
Truth

The forbidden Phor T. fruit rises higher and higher beyond our reach the massacre beneath the tree trade our souls to taste its seeds in hopes of
Elysium

You are not an infatuation but rather our
Lust
of Phor years in our company our fond memories never fade and now
Mister Tu
You
hang on my wall immortalized behind glass.

3. Love poem (In-class activity)

I know an island
Group Members: Vinoth M, Saranga S, Libesha A, Nofil N, Fred C and Rachel G

I know an island,
Lustrous, lone, lost
In her rosy flesh, sandy complexion
Life sprouts from her palms like
Trees whistling her whispered words

Her eyes are twilight, winking
And opened, fresh like happy coconuts
Like butterflies
In my belly, I heed my eager
Bird at her nest

Teats like pearls, adored
Brilliant like shiny baubles under the sun
Kissed fleece, beauty robed in silk
A smile curls on her cherry lips,
Plum cheeks ripen with blush,

Gold woven into fine threads
That ripple like water, her tresses riverbeds,
I thirst for the taste of syrup
Her honeysuckle
Skies stretch from finger to finger

Pounding against the tide
I clench mounds of your sandy shores
In vain
My heart leaps forth from my chest,
Burning a festering sore under

The sun rises and sets with her
And I will wake to you
In the mourning, I will be here
And you will be beautiful
I see an island

I know an island
And I ache

4. Two tribute poems to Duffy, Cummings and/or Roethke

 Tribute to e.e Cummings (Celebratory tone)

which are You?

If roses are red and violets are blue, then which color are You, Poem?

You are white with childhood innocence but blackened with a veteran’s recount.

You are sunny; a bright summer’s day when the sun sets, You bruise an orange-purple hue as if exhausted throughout the day by many pair of eyes.

You blossom like the vegetation that peeks from winter’s leave gradually, You redden, with the season’s change and become a dull dry brown but no matter.

it does not matter which color i choose to define You with:

even a veteran’s recount on Your page can be relief to his soul even when Your sun sets, you are reborn at dawn even though You decay by autumn,
Your remains provide a means of life. You, Poem, are the colors of a diamond when a light shines through:
A continuous spectrum of expressions.

 Tribute to Carol Ann Duffy (Dramatic Monologue)

A Poor Painted Queen

Oh what a glorious day, wouldn’t you say?
I’d like to tell a story, if I may.
Please take a seat, don’t be shy
Lend an ear to what I say –it is no lie.
The man you love is not so great; the pain
He brought to me made me rather be slain!
My dear, your lips so divine, full yet slim,
Shouldn’t wear a smile for any but him.
What’s that? You say you have an easy heart?
Then fortune tells you’ll be a work of art!
There’s nothing left to hide so here’s advice,
Devote yourself only to him or pay the price.
Jealous, he found a way to silence me;
My soul, forever, a poor painted queen.

5. Two response journals

 A Far Cry From Two Hearts

I found this poem to be a very clever parody of Derek Walcott’s A Far Cry From Africa. The poet strategically uses the theme of the betrayal in loving two women as the substitute for the two cultures that Walcott is torn between. I felt that the usage of Kurtz’s native mistress as a metonymy for the African culture as well as the usage of the Goddess of Britannia as a metonymy for the British culture was a well thought out representation of Walcott being poisoned with the “lanmou” (love) of both women rather than the blood of both cultures. Using the Petrarchan sonnet to establish the content of the poem, the poet successfully conveys the two contrasting ideas that exist within the poem: being loyal to your African roots versus adopting the elegant language of British poetics. Usually, the last six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet serve to resolve the subject matter of the poem, however this is not seen to be the case in A Far Cry From Two Hearts. The majority of the last six lines end in questions, ones that fail to clarify anything in the speaker’s decision in which women to choose. The questions only further complicate the speaker’s situation and thus draw even more emphasis to the speaker’s problem rather than serving to provide an answer to the subject of the poem.
Although it may have been written from a very different perspective, the poem still conveys the same post-colonial dilemma: Walcott cannot choose between the two women (cultures) because he has an irrevocable attraction to both of them.

Word Count: 265

 The Fool

I believe that the oral presentation of this found poem left a stronger impression on me, in terms of the subject matter, opposed to if I were to read it in my head. While the reader’s tone was monotonous, it contributed towards conveying the overall tone of the poem; the speaker is depressed and is surrounded by the recurring symbol of darkness. In fact, the reader was also very calm when presenting the poem, further developing an eerie atmosphere despite the serious subject matter in regards to revealing the lie of civilization. However, I noticed that there were certain sections of the poem when the reader’s tone became tense, perhaps to mimic a growing sense of urgency or to highlight the imagery produced by certain words. For example, in the lines, “Light/ Life/ Lie/ A veil” in the first stanza, the reader paused between each line, drawing attention to this section. In this case, I believe the reader created these pauses in order for the audience to picture the imagery of these lines in their minds. For me, while “light” and “life” are nouns associated with goodness, the further of addition of “lie” contrasts the initial imagery of all that is good, which serves to reveal the falsehood of civilization as all these factors exist within civilization. Moreover, the addition of “a veil” after these lines creates an image where civilization is trying to conceal something behind a veil: the fact that it is a lie itself. Overall, when the poet reads his or her poem aloud, the presentation allows for the audience to understand the content on a sensory level as the narrative voice can synthesize the atmosphere as well as the speaker’s tone in the poem. Hence, many other features of the poem are also made apparent when read aloud, such as alliteration, repetition and the speaker’s expression. These features add to the poem’s depth by recreating the speaker’s situation for the audience and they are the qualities of a poetic piece that would otherwise be overlooked.

Word Count: 339