The Tay Bridge Revision

McGonagall's Stanza

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seemed to frown,
And the Demon of the air sem'd to say--
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."


Revised Stanza:

A moon that blotted out the blood red sun,
A wind that mangled and twisted itself within the trees,
A rain that battered down all the dared to stand,
Accompanied a thunderhead, as messengers of catastrophe.
Then a stealthy menance that screeched to all,
"Tonight the Bridge of Tay will fall."


--Bethany S., Danyel, Jocelyn

Editing Bad Poetry

Julia A. Moore’s version:

On that pleasant evening, the moon shone clear and bright,
And every heart among the crowd was filled with great delight.
It was a merry party, for lady Dell was there
Her merry laugh above the rest was heard by all, so fair.

Our version:

The moon beamed through the evening air
Illuminating the impatience
Of every heart longing for lady Dell.
A single laugh sounded above the rest.

-- Bethany W., Bryden, Kristen, Maura

Found Poem

Die Young, Stay Pretty

Cinematheque cinema talk

Killed the cinephiles,

and then reanimated, restructured

Newly restored the illustrious

Nature, scale, and scope.

$9.99 matinee premiere

Through the rear door of

the Room.

An independent renegade

Silent running to a city

Of Sadness.... And God

Created women or et dieu

Créa la femme died young,

Stayed pretty.

Programs subject to change.

All the words I used were found. I wasn't sure if we could use other words, but this is what I got out of it.

A New Begining

This world of enchantment brings smiles to many

Friends and family joined by the most everlasting of love.

Bound like chains, vows simply unbreakable, undeniable.

Lush flowers of all hues cluster all around

Purity and change emerge from the senses of violets and hydrangeas

While childlike excitement fills those who wait in anxiousness

For the exquisite bride to awaken in her elegant and stunning attire.

Watchful eyes stare as her beauty erupts leaving her lover speechless at the end of their path

She floats to the crowd like a new found spirit shining for all to see

Her stunning attraction brings all to gaze in amazement.

Old emotions are rekindled with a new exotic sense of adventure

Two hearts thrive, ready to embark on this journey of wonder and renewal.

*** bold words are found in pamphlet

Found Poem

High above my head I See

That bright Star who is my Queen.

She Winks and Smiles at me all night

And she is the one who warms my Heart.

but soon I learn, when I am all alone,

That she is truly made of Ice and Stone.

For with the morning comes a bitter End.

She has Vanished. To me she is Dead.

The bold words are the words I found in a pamphlet.

Found Poem

Life in the Universe

Life,
Coming soon to a planet near you.
Living things moving,
Surrounding each object,
Helping it to grow and prosper.

Brightly glowing embers
Shine all above,
Bringing joy and life to each planet.
It's inhabitants can always look up,
and be presented with something divine.

Life in the Universe,
what more could one ask?
With beauty and life that's sure to arrive,
Who has the whole world to treat as its flourishing beehive.

Plants and animals sprout like little babies grown old,
The inhabitants of each planet look at and smell the plants that grow.
Up, up, up, and away they go,
Growing until they can no longer grow.

Life in the Universe,
What a sight to see,
Full of all types of prosperous life,
What a beautiful sight to see.

-Tiarra Thomas
9/16/09

Found poem

THE QUEEN

They remember
the Queen of dreams
on her shoulders
a giant
a crystal
a beauty
her odd works
her truth
so numerous
exhiliarating to witness
a god amongst gods
magic and miracle
millions remember
the Queen of dreams
intellectuals envied
nations battled
in her name
th best of the best
her elliptical presence
they remember
the Queen of dreams
horrific her rueful work
impassioned with blood
deteremined to rule
her nation a graveyard
we remember
the Queen of dreams
we escape
the sandman's magic
survive the dream
her grim wild dreams
we remember
the Queen of dreams

Found Poem

A Minority Affair (Folk Music is Alive and Well)

Or is it?

Monotonous, backward, old-fashioned –

A blond boy in knickers

Shouting from the hilltops.

Echoing.

“Ewigi Liebi.” And no amount of

Telegenic yodeling or

Hip hop fiddling is going to change it.

It echoes still.

Today, tomorrow – Yodeling is enjoying

A pop revival. It is

Flinging itself into the cool Swiss air,

Over the hilltops,

No longer echoing.

It is prized by

Connoisseurs and aficionados.

Banished by the radio.

It is gone.

And rightly so, since that allows it to

Preserve its craggy authenticity

Instead of whoring

After fickle

Popular taste.

--Maura Roth

Poetry Submission:

The Mythical Trickster

Clever, immortal fool,
Using cunning to deceive the righteous.
Freed from Social and Moral restraints,
always the Duper, never the Duped.
Sacred and Profane, Creator and Destroyer,
Rules by Appetites and Passions.
Across time and space, using unprincipled
wit to make the wiser seem lesser.
Be gone false idol!

[the bolded words and phrases were taken from my found advertisement, a poster for Religion 312.]

Poetry Submission

A Matter of Time

Is it really
On our side?
Just when it seems,
I've got some to kill,
I am surprised to realize
That I have been its slave
And it is slowly killing me.
Fortunate are we that
In quantities large enough
It heals all wounds.
So why
Can't I
Turn it back?
If I could
Take a little
Of it,
To figure out
How to stop it
In its tracks...

I don't believe it!
Times up.

Jamaica Kincaid At CWRU

Jamaica Kincaid, author of My Garden (Book) and Autobiography of My Mother, will give the annual Anisfield-Wolf/SAGES Lecture at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 22, in Amasa Stone Chapel. The free, public event is presented by the humanities center, the Cleveland Public Library and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Online registration is encouraged. To register, go to this page http://artsci.case.edu/bakernord/ and find the posting under upcoming events.

Your Manifesto?

As we discussed last week, "poetry" can mean a lot of things to different people. Wordsworth, Wilde, Marinetti, and MacLeish all had different views about what poetry is and what its purpose should be. Now that you have the beginnings of a manifesto from the group activity, I would like for you to create your own manifesto about how you define what poetry is. Keep in mind the three categories we used to discuss the other manifestos: author, reader, and text. Try to develop at least one idea for each of those categories. Hope you had a great weekend!