"Golden Retrievals," Mark Doty

Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention

seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.

Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh

joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue

of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?

Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk,

thinking of what you never can bring back,

or else you’re off in some fog concerning

—tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:

to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,

my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,

a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,

entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.

"Dog's Death," John Updike

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, “Good dog! Good dog!”

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest’s bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.

Action List: 27 April 2011

We'll have a "Bloggies" day today; browse the blogs of our classmates and nominate your favorite blog in a reply to this post. Then, make a post on your own blog about it that links to a couple of your favorite posts there--personal, logs, videos, whatever--and then discuss why you like what they are doing with their little piece of the internet. The top three winners will get to skip tomorrow's vocab test!

After that, take some time to log your recent reading, make a personal post, comment on some poems, and do some silent reading, if you're up for that kind of thing.

"Unmediated Experience," Bob Hicok

She does this thing. Our seventeen-

year-old dog. Our mostly deaf dog.

Our mostly dead dog, statistically

speaking. When I crouch.

When I put my mouth to her ear

and shout her name. She walks away.

Walks toward the nothing of speech.

She even trots down the drive, ears up,

as if my voice is coming home.

It’s like watching a child

believe in Christmas, right

before you burn the tree down.

Every time I do it, I think, this time

she’ll turn to me. This time

she’ll put voice to face. This time,

I’ll be absolved of decay.

Which is like being a child

who believes in Christmas

as the tree burns, as the drapes catch,

as Santa lights a smoke

with his blowtorch and asks, want one?

"The Blue Bowl," Jane Kenyon

Like primitives we buried the cat

with his bowl. Bare-handed

we scraped sand and gravel

back into the hole.

They fell with a hiss

and thud on his side,

on his long red fur, the white feathers

between his toes, and his

long, not to say aquiline, nose.

We stood and brushed each other off.

There are sorrows keener than these.

Silent the rest of the day, we worked,

ate, stared, and slept. It stormed

all night; now it clears, and a robin

burbles from a dripping bush

like the neighbor who means well

but always says the wrong thing.

"To Tell the Truch," Alicia Ostriker

To tell the truth, those brick Housing Authority buildings

For whose loveliness no soul had planned,

Like random dominoes stood, worn out and facing each other,

Creating the enclosure that was our home.

Long basement corridors connected one house to another

And had a special smell, from old bicycles and baby carriages

In the storage rooms. The elevators

Were used by kissing teenagers.

The playground—iron swingchains, fences, iron monkey bars,

Iron seesaw handles, doubtless now rusted—

Left a strong iron smell on my hands and in the autumn air

And rang with cries. To me it is even precious

Where they chased the local Mongoloid, yelling “Stupid Joey! Stupid Joey!”

Now I’ve said everything nice I can about this.

"Interstate Sonnet," Carl Marcum

A cigarette kiss in the desert. The wind-proof arc

of flame sparks inside the speeding Buick. Menthol:

a break from the monotony of highway nicotine—

most intimate of drugs. Make this mean sorrow

or thermodynamics, whatever small gesture

there is time for. Light another one, the vainglorious

interstate dusk and ash—the long, silver tooth.

This shirtless abandon, this ninety-mile-an-hour

electric laugh. The edges of windshield, haphazard

chatter. The clatter of the hubcap and the thunderclap:

the white-hot retinal memory of your life as a Joshua tree.

Permanence in the passenger seat. This long haul,

this first drag—nothing like cinnamon, nothing

like the iron taste on the back of your mortal tongue.

"Sonnet," by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson

I had not thought of violets late,

The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet

In wistful April days, when lovers mate

And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.

The thought of violets meant florists' shops,

And cabarets and soaps, and deadening wines.

So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,

I had forgot wide fields; and clear brown streams;

The perfect loveliness that God has made,—

Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.

And now—unwittingly, you've made me dream

Of violets, and my soul's forgotten gleam.

My gallery response.

Rachel Dafforn, "Edge."

With Rachel Dafforn’s futuristic, tunic-like dress “Edge,” the muted colors, clean lines, and surprising geometry project a subdued and dignified playfulness. Dafforn crafts her dress with a soft, brushed cotton and corduroy, and her color palette is narrow, ranging from the soft black of the high-waisted black skirt to the mossy green that hides behind a gray top. The unusual triangular cut from this top, combined with the comfortable, wide wale of the corduroy provide an interesting mix of the modern and the traditional. This mixture of style and material makes Dafforn’s dress as fun and friendly as it is earnest and thoughtful.

Round 1 Winners

Daniel, Chelsey, Mary, Hannah, Londen, Christine, Abby, Kyle D, Amanda, Scott, Cole, Daniyal, Vanessa, Kyle G, Angela, John.

Congratulations, winners, and great job making your readings personal and enjoyable for us as your audience.

Round 2 will be on Monday of next week. Everyone must have their one paragraph response done and printed for that day. Winners must print theirs with an alias, while non-winners simply need their names.

Sonnet Week, Day 2: "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed and Why," Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

"Farewell to Love," Michael Drayton (1563-1631)

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have giv'n him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

"Spring," Mary Oliver

I lift my face to the pale flowers

of the rain. They’re soft as linen,

clean as holy water. Meanwhile

my dog runs off, noses down packed leaves

into damp, mysterious tunnels.

He says the smells are rising now

stiff and lively; he says the beasts

are waking up now full of oil,

sleep sweat, tag-ends of dreams. The rain

rubs its shining hands all over me.

My dog returns and barks fiercely, he says

each secret body is the richest advisor,

deep in the black earth such fuming

nuggets of joy!

Tuesday Action List

Dan Martensen and Shannan Click at home with their dog.

Hi, everyone. Here are your blog assignments for today. It is important to me that today be a quiet work day; people will be trying to memorize their poems, writing, reading. Let the classroom be a quiet space so that these things can happen with focus and concentration.

Your tasks for today: (don't forget to add the label "Tuesday Response" to your post for action item #2, below)

1. One reading log entry.

2. One brief analytical paragraph about one of the following three homes. This may feel slightly new, but it is just another application of the process we began using with Gene Kelly's dancing, the "Falling Bough" painting, and the ATW essay.

Pick one of the following homes photographed by up-and-coming photographer Todd Selby and write a brief, 100 word response that discusses the effect created by its setting. Your claim should have two parts:

[General observations about Setting] verb [tone words that capture the mood of that home].

It is important that you dig into your tone sheet to find words that accurately convey the tone you're sensing as you look at these homes. Here is a sample claim that could apply to Homestead:

[Homestead High School's long expanses of white halls and bewildering floor plans, punctuated by dashes of colorful Art Club mural projects] create [a sense of cold, clinical formality and oppressed creativity.]

Choose one of these homes:

Pharrell Williams Modern Miami home of the well-known rapper known as Pharrell.

Dan Martensen and Shannan Click Upstate New York farmhouse of a photographer and his artist wife.

Jamie Isaia and Anthony Malat Interesting Brooklyn apartment of another arty couple.

3. Memorize your show for tomorrow. Do this throughout the day today. Read a few lines, work on your action list, look at a few more lines. At lunch today, try out a few lines for friends. Don't be afraid to take this seriously. As an audience, we want nothing more than to see that you care about what you are saying to us up there.

"Song of the Builders," Mary Oliver

Song of the Builders

On a summer morning

I sat down

on a hillside

to think about God -

a worthy pastime.

Near me, I saw

a single cricket;

it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.

How great was its energy,

how humble its effort.

Let us hope

it will always be like this,

each of us going on

in our inexplicable ways

building the universe.

About Mary Oliver

from The Poetry Foundation.

"Sleeping in the Forest," Mary Oliver

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,

she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths

among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms

breathing around me, the insects,

and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water,

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.