It's a New Day with Longfellow

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We only have today. Let us begin."
     -Mother Teresa

"A Psalm of Life"
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solenm main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing, 
With a heart for any fate; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor and to wait.

     This poem by Longfellow is a true carpe diem poem. Its entirety is summed up in the sixth stanza, when Longfellow writes, "Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! / Let the dead Past bury its dead! / Act, - act in the living Present! / Heart within, and God o'erhead!" In essence, Longfellow is arguing that one should forget the past and not focus on the future, but rather live in the "now". Seize the day, be present, and worry about only the things that can be controlled. Be happy with the opportunities that are presented, and make the most of every second. Life is only so long, so it might as well create unforgettable memories.

     Just before composing this particular poem, Longfellow was completing lectures on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer. He was very inspired by this particular man's life. Longfellow then had a heartfelt conversation with Cornelius Conway Felton, a close friend and Harvard professor. They discussed matters involving the soul and life's battles. The next day, Longfellow wrote this poem, "A Psalm of Life." Everyone has a point in their lifetime that causes them to take a moment to reflect and be grateful for everything they have. Whether it's an injury, a loss of a loved one, a close call or just a simple conversation, everyone experiences these moments. It's a moment of realization in which one can truly appreciate life. The poem was simply Longfellow's moment of realization.

Langston Hughes was Somebody

To Be Somebody
by Langston Hughes

Little girl
Dreaming of a baby grand piano
(Not knowing there's a Steinway bigger, bigger)
Dreaming of a baby grand to play
That stretches paddle-tailed across the floor,
Not standing upright
Like a bad boy in the corner,
But sending music
Up the stairs and down the stairs
And out the door
To confound even Hazel Scott
Who might be passing!

Oh!

Little boy
Dreaming of the boxing gloves
Joe Louis wore,
The gloves that sent
Two dozen men to the floor.
Knockout!
Bam! Bop! Mop!

There's always room,
They say,
At the top.

--The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, p. 374

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This poem really spoke to me about seizing the day because it sounds like Hughes is encouraging these children to go out and seek their dreams. He does not put them down. He does not show them reality. He believes "There's always room... at the top". In my mind that reads as words to be taken to heart. The poem works to help and progress what the little girl, and little boy aspire for. Seize the opportunities, and do what it takes to get to the top. 

Scholars believe the children aspiring to be Hazel Scott, a famous piano player, and Joe Louis, a successful boxer, both living and showing popularity in the first half of the 20th century. Hughes is addressing the children in the poem, maybe because of his notary success. He, a mixed American during times of bias and bigotry, can be considered a huge success story that came out of the blue, just like these aspiring children. One may also be able to look at the aspects of hoping for a better future. Just like many people in his time, himself included, looked for a brighter future, just as these children do (but unlike the children, he and many others looked for equality, not a dream profession).

Questions on "In The Nursing Home"by Jane Kenyon. Charnley Worth

A incite into how Jane Kenyon integrated a Carpe Diem theme into the poem In The "Nursing Home".

In the Nursing Home

She is like a horse grazing
a hill pasture that someone makes
smaller by coming every night
to pull the fences in and in.

She has stopped running wide loops,
stopped even the tight circles.
She drops her head to feed; grass
is dust, and the creekbed’s dry.

Master, come with your light
halter. Come and bring her in.

I chose the poem “In the Nursing Home”. Kenyon writes many of his poems around depressing and somber subjects. However, by manipulating bad times and portraying them in an honest way can have a positive effect on the way people should lead their lives. The poem talks about a woman in a nursing home. Kenyon relates her to a horse in a field, “she is like a horse grazing/a hill pasture…” The scene here seems peaceful and free. As we move on Kenyon changes this image of freedom by describing that the field is in fact closing in on her “smaller by every coming night”. The simile here is strong. By using this shift in momentum the reader has been given the illusion of freedom and belief. Suddenly this is just a fantasy, it is really a prison. This may be not be a literal sense of the nursing homes been a prison but her life at this time is just a prison. She is restricted and trapped by what I can guess as age. The next stanza goes on to explain how the women has just given up “she has stopped running wide loops”. Kenyon is showing there is no hope for this person she is just surviving.  The very last stanza also talks about her accepting death, “master, come with your light/ halter. Come and bring her in “. This poem made me think of the great quote from William Wallace “Every man dies, not every man really lives”, this women is just surviving not living. The moral is exactly the topic of this question “Carpe Diem”, live every day like it’s your last before you too become trapped. Seize your day.

Jane Kenyon was diagnosed with leukaemia. This was an aggressive form which I’m sure restricted her doing thing she loved to do. She was the woman she was restricted, trapped. There maybe a point in her life where she gave up fighting and accepted her fate, like the women in the poem. However, the message she brought across which ties in tightly to her personal experience was to never give up and appreciate every day.

Carpe Diem Poems

Perhaps one of my top ten movies of all-time, Dead Poets Society was released the summer after my freshman year at boarding school. While I will never be the charismatic character, Mr. John Keating, that Robin Williams plays, I've tried my best over the last eleven years in the English classroom. My true inspiration are real teachers - not Hollywood depictions. In my four years at Andover, I was blessed with many great teachers as well as a few professors at Penn. Four summers at Middlebury's Bread Loaf School of English, I had incredible professors. Here at WRA, I have worked with many dedicated teachers.

For this assignment, I asked the seniors to select a book of poems from the library - an actual book rather than a Google search. For almost an hour students read poems by one author and found many with the theme.  I too read from John Updike, a collection of 40 years of poetry. His poems were chronologically order and shared a lifetime of reflections - some funny, some sweet, some nostalgic, some candid and even crass. All are an honest window to a man's soul - a timeless legacy left for readers to find words to speak their thoughts.

Lately, carpe diem has been more than a theme in dusty books. I hope the following poems resonate with you - inspire you.

Football Poems

The Hit That's Remembered

The football fans, adorned in red and white, rose from their seats when their team scored.
They were agitated by the fierce atmosphere created by the other team's fans.
A look of distress overtook their faces; their quarterback had fallen to the ground.
Just like that, the crowd became silent, as if they were at a funeral.
Motionless - he lay prone - face down as players circled him afraid to move him after the late hit.
Rushing to his aid, the quarterback's father leaped from the stands, and ran to his son's side.
He kneeled by his son, his pride in life, but still he lay there, unable to get up.
Minutes have passed.
Life was breathed into the young man. His eyes opened, seeing the beautiful world around him.
A man speaking in a riddle welcomes him to his world.
The gurneys outnumber the patients, his toes curl, and his eyes open to find himself alone, dazed, and confused.
_________________________________________________________________________________

He's a Sports Fan

The football fans, adorned in their team's colors of red and white, rose from their seats when their team scored.
Annoyed with the opposing fans, the fans took this opportunity to rub it in the other team's faces that they were now winning the game.
Suddenly, a look of distress overtook their faces; their quarterback had fallen to the ground in pain.
Silence overtook the fans as if they were at a funeral.
Motionlesss - he lay prone - face down as life had been sucked out of him after the late hit.
Rushing to his aid, the medical staff sprinted onto the field hoping the injury wasn't as bad as it looked.
With tears streaming down her face, the quarterback's girlfriend soon arrived at his side.
Minutes passed - for many the longest minutes of their lives - and the medics loaded the boy onto a stretcher and into an ambulance to rush him to the emergency room.
After defribillation and emergency surgery, the quarterback woke up they next day - still dazed but with a smirk on his face - with his father by his side.
The first words out of the boy's mouth were, "Did our team win the game?"
"Of course they did, they won for you," replied the dad. "But why are you smiling."
"Because the man upstairs told gave me a second chance. Turns out he's a sports fan and he said my team will be needing me!"

Part I: Why Poetry Matters - Student Responses

Installment: Thoughts on Jay Parini’s Why Poetry Matters.  

Does it matter?

Does it matter to you?

Does it matter to everyone?

Should it?

Quoting Quotes - and altering quotes:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/02/

John Waldon:

A quote from the very first page, its the sign before an exit thats guiding you towards a destination, direct no offer of a counter Adrienne Rich writes “If our language is inadequate, our vision remains formless, our thinking and feeling are still running in the old cycles, our process may be ‘revolutionary’ but not transformative.” She clearly relates word choice to your ability to create visualizations and change moods and minds.

“Language offers tools for picking at reality, for dislodging shards of meaning, thus allowing us to communicate with one another in practical ways” language literally helps us communicate with one another. Word choice can change who is able to understand you or what they get out of it

“How comes it that human beings, whose contacts with the world are brief and personal and limited, are nevertheless able to know as much as they do know?” This quote resonated in my soul because it actually makes no sense that we are able to express things we never need to. Nature calls it self no name yet we constantly try to define it. 

Matt Hard:

”The assumption that language reflects reality struck him as simplistic and distorting, even in his own (rather complex) formulation of this notion; he had begun to think the ways in which language transforms reality, embodies it, and even creates it” (26). I really do not like this statement and disagree with it in the sense that I do not believe what Parini chooses to highlight from Wittgenstein says. Reality is reality. What is real is real. You cannot transform reality, but rather you can influence people’s views, and how they perceive reality. I agree that language can, however, embody and create reality. Of course language is influential and can closely imitate reality, but never, ever, transform what is.

”there is an odd fact about language that has been apparent for a long time: there are only so many words; yet from these relatively few words one can create an endless variety of nuanced meaning. In fact, there seems to be no end to what can be produced from these limited materials” (30-31). This piece really stuck with me. It made me think about how many words we actually use. From person to person there  is going to be an obvious difference in vocabulary, whether it be in the size or sophistication. But in total, there are only so many words that we use, or even have access to. You would think that you will be limited in what you can say and how you can make people feel with these words based off of how many words you use. Yet there are an infinite feelings you can make someone feel. There is an infinite number of stories you can tell. While we may be limited by these words that have existed and been evolving for a long we still are capable of creating new structures.

BRANDON KRAMER:

Have you ever wondered how human beings know so much and how there is so much technology in this world? Parini offers this quote from Chomsky in his chapter about language. “‘How comes it that human beings, whose contacts with the world are brief and personal and limited, are nevertheless able to know as much as they do know?’” (Parini 29). The more you think about this quote, the more it makes sense, and the more it astounds you. Why does new technology keep appearing when humans have about the same life expectancy? Shouldn’t we gain the same amount of knowledge in our 80 years of life and a person did in the 1800’s that lived for 80 years? This is where language comes in. Though we were not alive 200 years ago, our generation learns from those that were alive and builds upon their knowledge. Language allows humans to share ideas and continue moving forward. It’s amazing that with a lot of dirt, a lot of water, and some minerals, humans can now make smartphones, robots, planes and everything else to do with technology.

John Stuart Mill also makes an interesting quotes about poems in general and their length regarding to language. Parini quotes Mill, writing “all real poems should be ‘short poems; it being impossible that a feeling so intense...should sustain itself at its highest elevation for so long.’” I completely agree with this quotation. The longer a poem is, the shorter the reader’s attention span will be. Eventually, the reader will lose focus and the poem will lose its meaning. This is why its hard to make a meaningful poem that is longer. There will be a few particular interesting ideas within a longer poem, but it is impossible to mantain the level intensity and emotion that a poem requires.

Josh:

"Painting is mute poetry, and poetry a speaking picture," says Simonides of Ceos. Though this saying can appear to be confusing, Simonides describes poetry as mirroring reality. Painting and poetry go hand and hand. Since we are unable to speak through pictures poetry gives these mute images words, both trying to represent a sense of reality.  This quote is significant because it truly exemplifies how "linguistics begins to bleed over into other areas".

Charnley:

Language is the main focus topic in the 2nd chapter. Parini discusses how language is used in poetry to create meaning and to communicate with the reader, ‘...language offers tools for picking at reality, for dislodging shards of meaning, allowing us to communicate with one another...’.(Parini 27)This quote expresses that poetry isn't just a recreation of an image or an idea, it takes apart the picture and analyses every piece and finds a deeper meaning in seemingly ordinary objects or events.

Parini then goes on to start relating paintings to poetry, ‘ Painting and poetry have something in common, in that they attempt to represent reality in certain intensified ways.’ ( Parini pg 33 ) The way in which to completely different arts using completely different methods can reach a common goal. The relationship between poetry and art breaks down after further analysis, ‘ “ A metaphor cannot run on all four legs, “ Samual Taylor Cloeridge once said.’ ( Parini pg 33 ) The way that Colerigde expresses that a metaphor can only take you so far, the image has to be generated by the reader itself, this unlike a picture, is completely personal to the reader.

Alex Rinker:

“Poetry allows us to articulate matters of concern in such a way that they become physical, tangible, and immediate.” (Parini 25)

Parini talks about the difference between poetry and other forms of writing.  He states that poetry differs from newspaper writing because it allows the author to describe something in such detail that he essentially creates the object from the writing.  The reader, through good poetry, physically sees the image displayed before him.  I chose this quote because it shows the difference between poetry and a description in, for example, a book or magazine.  Poetry goes much more in depth as it shows the scene rather than tell about it like other forms of writing do.


“The poet quickens our sense of language, and our sense of life as well.  This is why language matters in a poem, and why poetry matters.” (Parini 38)

The last three words of this quote drew me in.  They made me think about why we read this chapter for homework.  They made me think about whether or not KOB would have chosen this chapter because of these words, or if he even based the course title from this very quote.  Either way this quote stood out because it directly answers the main question of our english class this semester.  Parini believes that poetry matters because it increases our sense of life, our being.  Through poetry we learn appreciate the world we live in.


“[A]ll real poems should be ‘short poems; it being impossible that a feeling so intense . . . should sustain itself at its highest elevation for long.’” (Parini 35)

This quote spoke to me because it is a concept that I have found to be true of my writing and most of that which I read.  I lose interest quickly when I read “short” stories that end up droning on forever with no end in sight. To maintain a reader’s interest, one must either write an engaging book, in which the reader is immersed completely in the world in which the events take place, or the author should offer a portal into a story or poem through which the reader can leap in, spend his time, and exit again after his quick exciting journey into someone else’s life. The short story must be detailed enough so the reader can enjoy his stay within the words, but it must not be so long as to keep him a prisoner between the pages for, as shown in the reading, the longer the story is, the less likely it is that the story is the most interesting it could be.


Kevin M. Hoover

“Painting is mute poetry, and poetry a speaking picture”

- Simonides of Ceos

According to Parini, we cannot actually write in pictures, and thus the comparison is wrong, but he takes it far too literally. What is meant by the quote is that poetry describes the things that be through words, while painting attempts to imitate the world through visual replication.

"Makers of tables and beds simply imitate the idea of

things, whereas the artist has another avenue of approach,

that of 'turning a mirror round and round'"

-Plato

This quote says that while most people try to copy things that other people have already done, an poet, or any other artist, makes a new creation every time, because as the mirror turns, the picture constantly changes. Additionally, while craftsmen follow instructions to recreate what has been done before, the artist makes an exact depiction of everything within the mirror at that moment

"...all real poems should be 'short poems; it being impossible

a feeling so intense... should sustain itself at its highest

elevation for long'"

-John Stuart Mill

In my opinion, the quote is saying that only a short poem can sustain the great passion that most people look for when reading poetry, because in a longer poem, the feeling will begin to die down. Thus, passion can be expressed far better in short bursts than in long, rambling epics.

Benfu Zhu:
Jay Parini argues that the people have the ability to express themselves in words mark the true distinction between the humans and animals. He then concludes his thought into one sentence the ¨language is, then, a property of the species, and unique to it¨(31). The ability to talk to people makes us a unique species on earth, a true human being. But there are some distinctions in the use of language. The poetic language draws a true distinction between the daily take and even the prose because the poetics voice and the metaphor use in the poetry. Furthermore, a poet´s originality depends on a deep understanding of the nature. So, why a human being is unique compared to the animal, because he or she has the gift to dig out the true beauty of the nature and speak and even write about it. The poetry has the power of open mind to the nature and transforms lives. Poetry indeed matters.


Andrew Fazekash:

Prefacing this quote, Jay Parini says how M.H. Abrams said “The Lucretian theory that language began as a spontaneous expression of feeling”(Parini 34), and thus, the original meaning of language and words was, by nature abstract. This quotation gives more meaning to how poets continue to preserve the roots of language in their works:

“Poets consistently attempt to return words to their original sense; this is one of the most vivid functions of poetry: to refresh language by drawing words back into alignment with their original pictorial, concrete, and metaphorical associations.” (Parini 37)

This quote struck me as interesting because, in general, people assume that the original meaning of a word is what one might find in a dictionary. However, this Lucretian theory that Parini elaborates on in this quotation gives a different perspective to the origin of words. This shows that language truly evolved as an abstract art, and the precision obsessed world of today has mutilated language so that it more nearly is associated with definition rather than the context of the word. “Poets really love the ‘possibilities of context’”(Parini 40). This concentration on the mere “context” of each word is how poets attempt to bring words to their original, more “tangible” and abstraction form of expression; the true meaning of each word. This theory shows us why poetry is written. To preserve language in its purest form; abstract and “pictorial”(Parini 37), just how each word is inherently meant to be perceived.



Maddy Stoopack:

“Poetry both creates “new materials of knowledge“ and “engenders in the mind a desire to reproduce and arrange them according to a certain rhythm and order in which may be called beautiful and the good“ (Parini 16)

In Chapter One, Parini essentially what poetry is- a replication and interpretation of reality. I chose this quotation because it ties in all of Parini’s thoughts to one phrase, summarizing the meaning and process of creating poetry.

When discussing the process of places thoughts into words and words into sentences, Parini says, “...if something cannot be formulated in language, it remains beyond thought, or possibly beyond consciousness, unmediated and unrealized“ (Parini 26) All thoughts go unrealized unless the poet is capable of forming words from thoughts and combining words producing syntactically well-formed sentences.

“Poets consistently attempt to return words to their original sense; this is one of the most vivid functions of poetry: to refresh language by drawing words back into alignment with their original pictorial, concrete, and metaphorical associations“ (Parini 37).
Before I read this, I thought that poets simply wrote and had no intentions, but Parini made me realize (with this quote) that poets DO use the true meanings of words. The words chosen depict images that only that word can create. I like this passage because I learned something new and will have this thought in my head when reading poetry instead of just reading to read.   


Marissa Perrett:

Parini quoting Richard Rorty.
“Language offers tools for picking at reality, for dislodging shards of meaning, thus allowing us to communicate with one another in practical ways. It provides a means for coping with the world as we find it” and “One creates reality through languages” (Parini 27).  Languages are what makes humankind unique. It’s a the way of communication. Without languages, humans would not have been able to share discoveries, ideas, innovations, or establish relationships.

“The poems, and its language, draws the sense to a fine point, to a pitch of expression....Ideally, it returns us to our deepest concerns, our most intense and original feelings” (Parini 36).
“What will vary from poem to poem is the method used to intensify or heighten the language” (Parini 35). These quotes go together. Language is the foundation of poetry, without which poetry cannot be created. The arrangement of words are to express emotions, tell a story, or send a message. The intensity of the poem is determined by the way language is used.

John Donne

John Donne

 

John Donne was born between January 24 and June 19, 1572. He was primarily raised by his mother, Elizabeth, because his father died in 1576. He was born and raised in London in a wealthy Catholic family when England was strongly anti-Catholic. Donne attended Oxford for 3 years, and Cambridge for 3 years, yet he did not end up receiving a degree in anything. John Donne is most well known for his "erotic love poetry"; his most famous works include "Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "The Flea" and "The Broken Heart". Donne somehow manages to incorporate both the "raunchy" and the "religious" in his works, and the language is dense which makes his poetry great to read. He died March 31, 1631.

THE FLEA. by John Donne MARK but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is ; It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be. Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;     Yet this enjoys before it woo,     And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;     And this, alas ! is more than we would do. O stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, yea, more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is. Though parents grudge, and you, we're met, And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.     Though use make you apt to kill me,     Let not to that self-murder added be,     And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee? Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now. 'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ; Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me, Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

http://blog.sfgate.com/drader/2011/03/03/the-10-greatest-poets-my-list/
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/john_donne/poems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne