Preface
To the Instructor
About the Authors
Fiction
Talking with Amy Tan
1. READING A STORY
THE ART OF FICTION
TYPES OF SHORT FICTION
Sufi Legend, Death Has an Appointment in Samarra
Aesop, The North Wind and the Sun
Bidpai, The Tortoise and the Geese
Chuang Tzu, Independence
Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Godfather Death
PLOT
THE SHORT STORY
John Updike, A & P
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Wilhelm Grimm on Writing, On the Nature of Fairy Tales
THINKING ABOUT PLOT
CHECKLIST: Writing About Plot
TOPICS FOR WRITING on plot
TERMS FOR REVIEW
2. POINT OF VIEW
IDENTIFYING POINT OF VIEW
TYPES OF NARRATORS
how much does a narrator know?
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
Eudora Welty, Why I Live at the P.O.
James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
James Baldwin on Writing, Race and the African American Writer
THINKING ABOUT POINT OF VIEW
CHECKLIST: Writing About Point of View
topics for writing ON POINT OF VIEW
TERMS FOR REVIEW
3. CHARACTER
CHARACTERIZATION
MOTIVATION
Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall
Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Neil Gaiman, How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Raymond Carver, Cathedral
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Raymond Carver on Writing, Commonplace but Precise Language
THINKING ABOUT CHARACTER
CHECKLIST: Writing About Character
TOPICS FOR REVIEW ON CHARACTER
TERMS FOR REVIEW
4. SETTING
ELEMENTS OF SETTING
HISTORICAL FICTION
REGIONALISM
NATURALISM
Kate Chopin, The Storm
Jack London, To Build a Fire
ZZ Packer, Brownies
Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Amy Tan on Writing, Developing a Setting
THINKING ABOUT SETTING
CHECKLIST: Writing About Setting
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SETTING
TERMS FOR REVIEW
5. TONE AND STYLE
TONE
STYLE
DICTION
Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
William Faulkner, Barn Burning
IRONY
O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi
Alice Munro, How I Met My Husband
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Ernest Hemingway on Writing, The Direct Style
THINKING ABOUT TONE AND STYLE
CHECKLIST: Writing About Tone and Style
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON TONE AND STYLE
TERMS FOR REVIEW
6. THEME
PLOT VERSUS THEME
SUMMARIZING THE THEME
FINDING THE THEME
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
Luke, The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Harrison Bergeron
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on Writing, The Themes of Science Fiction
THINKING ABOUT THEME
CHECKLIST: Writing About Theme
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON THEME
TERMS FOR REVIEW
7. SYMBOL
ALLEGORY
SYMBOLS
RECOGNIZING SYMBOLS
John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums
Tobias Wolff, Bullet in the Brain
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Shirley Jackson on Writing, Biography of a Story
THINKING ABOUT SYMBOLS
CHECKLIST: Writing About Symbols
Sample Student Paper on Symbols , An Analysis of the Symbolism in Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SYMBOLS
TERMS FOR REVIEW
8. READING LONG STORIES AND NOVELS
ORIGINS OF THE NOVEL
NOVELISTIC METHODS
READING NOVELS
Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Franz Kafka on Writing, Discussing The Metamorphosis
THINKING ABOUT LONG STORIES AND NOVELS
CHECKLIST: Writing About Long Stories and Novels
TOPICS FOR WRITING on long stories and novels
TERMS FOR REVIEW
9 GENRE FICTION
ROMANCE VERSUS REALISM
WHAT IS GENRE?
TYPES OF GENRE FICTION
GENRE AND POPULAR CULTURE
Ray Bradbury,A Sound of Thunder
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wife’s Story
H. P. Lovecraft, The Outsider
Dashiell Hammett, One Hour
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Ray Bradbury on Writing, Fall in Love at the Library
TOPICS FOR WRITING
TERMS FOR REVIEW
10. LATIN AMERICAN FICTION
“EL BOOM”
MAGIC REALISM
AFTER THE BOOM
Jorge Luis Borges, The Gospel According to Mark
Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
Juan Rulfo, Tell Them Not to Kill Me!
Inés Arredondo, The Shunammite
Writing effectively
Jorge Luis Borges on Writing, On Storytelling
TOPICS FOR WRITING
TERMS FOR REVIEW
11 CRITICAL CASEBOOK Flannery O’Connor
FLANNERY O’CONNOR
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Revelation
Parker’s Back
FLANNERY O’CONNOR ON WRITING
Insights into “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
On Her Catholic Faith
CRITICS ON FLANNERY O’CONNOR
J. O. Tate, A Good Source Is Not So Hard to Find: The Real Life Misfit
Louise S. Cowan, The Character of Mrs. Turpin in “Revelation”
Damian J. Ference, from “No Vague Believer”
Dean Flower, Listening to Flannery O’Connor
Lucinda Williams, Meeting Flannery O’Connor
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
TOPICS FOR WRITING
12 CRITICAL CASEBOOK Three Stories in Depth
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Young Goodman Brown
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE ON WRITING
Reflections on Truth and Clarity in Literature
The Obscurest Man in American Letters
CRITICS ON HAWTHORNE
Herman Melville , Excerpt from a Review of Mosses from an Old Manse
Edgar Allan Poe , The Genius of Hawthorne’s Short Stories
CRITICS ON “YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN” 000
Richard H. Fogle, Ambiguity in “Young Goodman Brown”
Paul J. Hurley , Evil Wherever He Looks
Nancy Bunge , Complacency and Community
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Yellow Wallpaper
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN ON WRITING
Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Whatever Is
The Nervous Breakdown of Women
CRITICS ON “THE YELLOW WALLPAPER”
Juliann Fleenor, Gender and Pathology in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Imprisonment and Escape: The Psychology of Confinement
ALICE WALKER
Everyday Use
ALICE WALKER ON WRITING
Reflections on Writing and Women’s Lives
CRITICS ON “EVERYDAY USE”
Barbara T. Christian, “Everyday Use” and the Black Power Movement
Mary Helen Washington, “Everyday Use” as a Portrait of the Artist
Houston A. Baker and Charlotte Pierce-Baker, Stylish vs. Sacred in “Everyday Use”
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
TOPICS FOR WRITING
13 STORIES FOR FURTHER READING
Chinua Achebe, Dead Men’s Path
Sherman Alexie, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona
Isabel Allende, The Judge’s Wife
Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings
Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
T. Coraghessan Boyle, Greasy Lake
Willa Cather, Paul’s Case
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal
Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat
Ha Jin, Saboteur
James Joyce, Araby
Jamaica Kincaid, Girl
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner
Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill
Guy de Maupassant, The Necklace
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Daniel Orozco, Orientation
David Foster Wallace, Everything Is Green
Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House
Poetry
Talking with Kay Ryan
14 READING A POEM
POETRY OR VERSE
HOW TO READ A POEM
Paraphrase
William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree
Lyric Poetry
Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers
Narrative Poetry
Anonymous, Sir Patrick Spence
Robert Frost, “Out, Out–”
DRAMATIC POETRY
Robert Browning, My Last Duchess
DIDACTIC POETRY
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Adrienne Rich on Writing, Recalling “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”
THINKING ABOUT PARAPHRASING
William Stafford, Ask Me
William Stafford, A Paraphrase of “Ask Me”
CHECKLIST: Writing a Paraphrase
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON PARAPHRASING
TERMS FOR REVIEW
15 LISTENING TO A VOICE
TONE
Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz
Stephen Crane, The Wayfarer
Anne Bradstreet, The Author to Her Book
Walt Whitman, To a Locomotive in Winter
Emily Dickinson, I like to see it lap the Miles
Gwendolyn Brooks, Speech to the Young. Speech to the Progress-Toward
Weldon Kees, For My Daughter
THE SPEAKER IN THE POEM
Natasha Trethewey, White Lies
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Luke Havergal
Anonymous, Dog Haiku
William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Dorothy Wordsworth, Journal Entry
Charlotte Mew, The Farmer’s Bride
William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow
IRONY
Robert Creeley, Oh No
W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen
Sharon Olds, Rite of Passage
Sarah N. Cleghorn, The Golf Links
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Second Fig
Thomas Hardy, The Workbox
FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY
William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper
Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta
Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Wilfred Owen on Writing, War Poetry
THINKING ABOUT TONE
CHECKLIST: Writing About Tone
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON TONE
Sample Student Paper, Word Choice, Tone, and Point of View in Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”
TERMS FOR REVIEW
16 WORDS
LITERAL MEANING: WHAT A POEM SAYS FIRST
William Carlos Williams, This Is Just to Say
DICTION
John Masefield, Cargoes
Robert Graves, Down, Wanton, Down!
John Donne, Batter my heart, three-personed God, for You
THE VALUE OF A DICTIONARY
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Aftermath
J. V. Cunningham, Friend, on this scaffold Thomas More lies dead
Samuel Menashe, Bread
Carl Sandburg, Grass
WORD CHOICE AND WORD ORDER
Robert Herrick, Upon Julia’s Clothes
Kay Ryan, Blandeur
Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid
Richard Eberhart, The Fury of Aerial Bombardment
Wendy Cope, Lonely Hearts
FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY
E. E. Cummings, anyone lived in a pretty how town
Billy Collins, The Names
Anonymous, Carnation Milk
Gina Valdés, English con Salsa
William Wordsworth, My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold
William Wordsworth, Mutability
Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Lewis Carroll, Humpty Dumpty Explicates “Jabberwocky”
THINKING ABOUT DICTION
CHECKLIST: Writing About Diction
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON WORD CHOICE
TERMS FOR REVIEW
17 SAYING AND SUGGESTING
DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION
William Blake, London
Wallace Stevens, Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock
E. E. Cummings, next to of course god america i
Maria Hummel, The Tree
Timothy Steele, Epitaph
Diane Thiel, The Minefield
H. D. , Sea Rose
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Tears, Idle Tears
Anne-Marie Thompson, Audiation
Richard Wilbur, Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Richard Wilbur on Writing, Concerning “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”
THINKING ABOUT DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION
CHECKLIST: Writing About What a Poem Says and Suggests
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION
TERMS FOR REVIEW
18 IMAGERY
Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro
Taniguchi Buson, The piercing chill I feel
IMAGERY
T. S. Eliot, The winter evening settles down
Theodore Roethke, Root Cellar
Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish
Emily Dickinson, A Route of Evanescence
Jean Toomer, Reapers
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty
ABOUT HAIKU
Arakida Moritake, The falling flower
Matsuo Basho, Heat-lightning streak
Matsuo Basho, In the old stone pool
Taniguchi Buson, On the one-ton temple bell
Taniguchi Buson, Moonrise on mudflats
Kobayashi Issa, only one guy
Kobayashi Issa, Cricket
HAIKU FROM JAPANESE INTERNMENT CAMPS
Suiko Matsushita, Rain shower from mountain
Suiko Matsushita, Cosmos in bloom
Hakuro Wada, Even the croaking of frogs
Neiji Ozawa, The war–this year
CONTEMPORARY HAIKU
Nick Virgilio, The Old Neighborhood
Lee Gurga, Visitor’s Room
Penny Harter, broken bowl
Jennifer Brutschy, Born Again
Adelle Foley, Learning to Shave
Garry Gay, Hole in the ozone
FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY
John Keats, Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art
Walt Whitman, The Runner
H. D., Heat
William Carlos Williams, El Hombre
Billy Collins, Embrace
Robert Bly, Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter
Chana Bloch, Tired Sex
Gary Snyder, Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout
Kevin Prufer, Pause, Pause
Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Ezra Pound on Writing, The Image
THINKING ABOUT IMAGERY
CHECKLIST: Writing About Imagery
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON IMAGERY
Sample Student Paper, Faded Beauty: Elizabeth Bishop’s Use of Imagery in “The Fish”
TERMS FOR REVIEW
19 FIGURES OF SPEECH
WHY SPEAK FIGURATIVELY?
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Eagle
William Shakespeare, Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Howard Moss, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
METAPHOR AND SIMILE
Emily Dickinson, My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Flower in the Crannied Wall
William Blake, To see a world in a grain of sand
Sylvia Plath, Metaphors
N. Scott Momaday, Simile
Emily Dickinson, It dropped so low — in my Regard
Jill Alexander Essbaum, The Heart
Craig Raine, A Martian Sends a Postcard Home
OTHER FIGURES OF SPEECH
James Stephens, The Wind
Robinson Jeffers, Hands
Margaret Atwood, You fit into me
George Herbert, The Pulley
Dana Gioia, Money
Carl Sandburg, Fog
FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY
Jane Kenyon, The Suitor
Robert Frost, The Secret Sits
Kay Ryan, Turtle
Emily Brontë, Love and Friendship
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Robert Frost on Writing, The Importance of Poetic Metaphor
THINKING ABOUT METAPHORS
CHECKLIST: Writing About Metaphors
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON FIGURES OF SPEECH
TERMS FOR REVIEW
20 SONG
SINGING AND SAYING
Ben Jonson, To Celia
James Weldon Johnson, Sence You Went Away
William Shakespeare, Fear no more the heat o’ the sun
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory
Paul Simon, Richard Cory
BALLADS
Anonymous, Bonny Barbara Allan
Dudley Randall, Ballad of Birmingham
BLUES
Bessie Smith with Clarence Williams, Jailhouse Blues
W. H. Auden, Funeral Blues
RAP
FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY
Neko Case , This Tornado Loves You
Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a-Changin’
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Bob Dylan on Writing, Rhythm, Rime, and Songwriting from the Outside
THINKING ABOUT POETRY AND SONG
CHECKLIST: Writing About Song Lyrics
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SONG LYRICS
TERMS FOR REVIEW
21 SOUND
SOUND AS MEANING
Alexander Pope, True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance
William Butler Yeats, Who Goes with Fergus?
Edgar Allan Poe, from Ulalume
William Wordsworth, A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
Aphra Behn, When maidens are young
ALLITERATION AND ASSONANCE
Frances Cornford, The Watch
James Joyce, All day I hear
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The splendor falls on castle walls
RIME
William Cole, On my boat on Lake Cayuga
Hilaire Belloc, The Hippopotamus
Bob Kaufman, No More Jazz at Alcatraz
William Butler Yeats, Leda and the Swan
Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur
How to read a POEM ALOUD
Michael Stillman, In Memoriam John Coltrane
William Shakespeare, When Daisies Pied and Violets Blue
T. S. Eliot, Virginia
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
T. S. Eliot on Writing, The Music of Poetry
THINKING ABOUT A POEM’S SOUND
CHECKLIST: Writing About a Poem’s Sound
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SOUND
TERMS FOR REVIEW
22 RHYTHM
STRESSES AND PAUSES
STRESS AND MEANING
LINE ENDINGS
Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Break, Break, Break
George Gordon, Lord Byron, So We’ll Go No More a-Roving
Dorothy Parker, Résumé
METER
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Counting-out Rhyme
Edith Sitwell, Mariner Man
A. E. Housman, When I was one-and-twenty
William Carlos Williams, Smell!
Walt Whitman, Beat! Beat! Drums!
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Gwendolyn Brooks on Writing, Hearing “We Real Cool”
THINKING ABOUT RHYTHM
CHECKLIST: Scanning a Poem
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON RHYTHM
TERMS FOR REVIEW
23 CLOSED FORM
THE VALUE OF FORM
FORMAL PATTERNS
Ernest Dowson, “Days of Wine and Roses”
John Donne, Song (“Go and catch a falling star”)
Thomas M. Disch, Zewhyexary
THE SONNET
William Shakespeare, Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Michael Drayton, Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part
Edna St. Vincent Millay, What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why
Kim Addonizio, First Poem for You
Mark Jarman, Unholy Sonnet: Hands Folded
A. E. Stallings, Aftershocks
Amit Majmudar, Rites to Allay the Dead
R. S. Gwynn, Shakespearean Sonnet
Sherman Alexie, The Facebook Sonnet
Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth
THE EPIGRAM
Sir John Harrington, Of Treason
William Blake, To H–
Langston Hughes, Two Somewhat Different Epigrams
Dorothy Parker, The Actress
John Frederick Nims, Contemplation
Hilaire Belloc, Fatigue
Wendy Cope, Variation on Belloc’s “Fatigue”
Anonymous, Epitaph On A Dentist
OTHER FORMS
Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night
Robert Bridges, Triolet
Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask
Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
A. E. Stallings on Writing, On Form and Artifice
THINKING ABOUT A SONNET
CHECKLIST: Writing About a Sonnet
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON closed form
TERMS FOR REVIEW
24 OPEN FORM
Denise Levertov, Ancient Stairway
FREE VERSE
E. E. Cummings, Buffalo Bill ’s
W. S. Merwin, For the Anniversary of My Death
William Carlos Williams, The Dance
Stephen Crane, The Heart
Walt Whitman, Cavalry Crossing a Ford
Ezra Pound, Salutation
Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
PROSE POETRY
Charles Simic, The Magic Study of Happiness
Gertrude Stein, from Tender Buttons
VISUAL POETRY
George Herbert, Easter Wings
John Hollander, Swan and Shadow
CONCRETE POETRY
Dorthi Charles, Concrete Cat
FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY
E. E. Cummings, in Just-
Francisco X. Alarcón, Frontera / Border
Carole Satyamurti, I Shall Paint My Nails Red
Naomi Shihab Nye, The Traveling Onion
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Walt Whitman on Writing, The Poetry of the Future
THINKING ABOUT FREE VERSE
CHECKLIST: Writing About Line Breaks
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON OPEN FORM
TERMS FOR REVIEW
25 SYMBOL
THE MEANINGS OF A SYMBOL
T. S. Eliot, The Boston Evening Transcript
Emily Dickinson, The Lightning is a yellow Fork
THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT
IDENTIFYING SYMBOLS
Thomas Hardy, Neutral Tones
ALLEGORY
Matthew, The Parable of the Good Seed
George Herbert, Redemption
Edwin Markham, Outwitted
Suji Kwock Kim, Occupation
Antonio Machado, Proverbios y Cantares (XXIX)
Translated by Dana Gioia, Traveler
Christina Rossetti, Up-Hill
FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY
William Carlos Williams, The Young Housewife
Ted Kooser, Carrie
Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Tami Haaland, Lipstick
Lorine Niedecker, Popcorn-can cover
Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man
Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar
William Blake, The Tyger
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
William Butler Yeats on Writing, Poetic Symbols
THINKING ABOUT SYMBOLS
CHECKLIST: Writing About Symbols
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SYMBOLISM
TERMS FOR REVIEW
26 MYTH AND NARRATIVE
THE SUBJECTS AND USES OF MYTH
ORIGINS OF MYTH
Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay
William Wordsworth, The world is too much with us
H. D., Helen
Edgar Allan Poe, To Helen
ARCHETYPE
Louise Bogan, Medusa
John Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci
PERSONAL MYTH
William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
Diane Thiel, Memento Mori in Middle School
MYTH AND POPULAR CULTURE
Charles Martin, Taken Up
FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY
A. E. Stallings, First Love: A Quiz
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
Anne Sexton, Cinderella
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Diane Thiel on Writing, Map of Myth
THINKING ABOUT MYTH
CHECKLIST: Writing About Myth
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON MYTH
Sample Student Paper, The Bonds Between Love and Hatred in H. D.’s “Helen”
TERMS FOR REVIEW
27 POETRY AND PERSONAL IDENTITY
CONFESSIONAL POETRY
Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus
IDENTITY POETICS
Rhina Espaillat, Bilingual/Bilingüe
CULTURE, RACE, AND ETHNICITY
Claude McKay, America
Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Riding into California
Francisco X. Alarcón, The X in My Name
Judith Ortiz Cofer, Quinceañera
Sherman Alexie, The Powwow at the End of the World
Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It
GENDER
Anne Stevenson, The Victory
Rafael Campo, For J. W.
James Wright, Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
Adrienne Rich, Women
FOR REVIEW AND FURTHER STUDY
Brian Turner, The Hurt Locker
Philip Larkin, Aubade
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Rhina Espaillat on Writing, Being a Bilingual Writer
THINKING ABOUT POETIC VOICE AND IDENTITY
CHECKLIST: Writing About Voice and Personal Identity
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON PERSONAL IDENTITY
TERMS FOR REVIEW
28 TRANSLATION
IS POETIC TRANSLATION POSSIBLE?
WORLD POETRY
Li Po, Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon (Chinese text)
Li Po, Yue Xia Du Zhuo (phonetic Chinese transcription)
Li Po, Moon-beneath Alone Drink (literal translation)
Translated by Arthur Waley, Drinking Alone by Moonlight
COMPARING TRANSLATIONS
Horace, “Carpe Diem” Ode (Latin text)
Horace, “Carpe Diem” Ode (literal translation)
Translated by Edwin Arlington Robinson, Horace to Leuconoë
Translated by A. E. Stallings, A New Year’s Toast
TRANSLATING FORM
Omar Khayyam, Rubai XII (Persian text)
Omar Khayyam, Rubai XII (literal translation)
Translated by Edward FitzGerald, A Book of Verses underneath the Bough
Translated by Dick Davis, I Need a Bare Sufficiency
Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat
Translated by Edward FitzGerald, Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Translated by Edward FitzGerald, Some for the Glories of this World
Translated by Edward FitzGerald, I sometimes think that never blows so red
Translated by Edward FitzGerald, The Moving Finger writes
Translated by Edward FitzGerald, Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire xxx
PARODY
Anonymous, We four lads from Liverpool are
Andrea Patterson, Because I Could Not Dump
Francis Heaney, We Long Bony Dorks
Aaron Abeyta, thirteen ways of looking at a tortilla
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Arthur Waley on Writing, The Method of Translation
THINKING ABOUT PARODY
CHECKLIST: Writing a Parody
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON PARODY
TERMS FOR REVIEW
29 POETRY IN SPANISH: LITERATURE OF LATIN AMERICA
Sor Juana, Presente en que el Cariño Hace Regalo la Llaneza
Translated by Diane Thiel, A Simple Gift Made Rich by Affection
Pablo Neruda, Muchos Somos
Translated by Alastair Reid, We Are Many
Jorge Luis Borges, On his blindness
Translated by Robert Mezey, On His Blindness
Octavio Paz, Con los ojos cerrados
Translated by Eliot Weinberger, With eyes closed
SURREALISM IN LATIN AMERICAN POETRY
Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas
César Vallejo, La cólera que quiebra al hombre en niños
Translated by Thomas Merton, Anger
CONTEMPORARY MEXICAN POETRY
José Emilio Pacheco, Alta Traición
Translated by Alastair Reid, High Treason
Elva Macías, Comí los frutos elegidos
Translated by Kimberly Gooden, I Ate the Fruits Chosen by the Wind
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Alastair Reid on Writing, Translating Neruda
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON SPANISH POETRY
30 RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE
Anonymous, O Moon, when I gaze on thy beautiful face
Emily Dickinson, A Dying Tiger — moaned for Drink
SENTIMENTALITY
Rod McKuen, Thoughts on Capital Punishment
William Stafford, Traveling Through the Dark
RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE
William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium
Arthur Guiterman, On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
Robert Hayden, The Whipping
Elizabeth Bishop, One Art
Langston Hughes, I, Too
John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale
Dylan Thomas, In My Craft or Sullen Art
Walt Whitman, O Captain! My Captain!
Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus
Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
Edgar Allan Poe on Writing, A Long Poem Does Not Exist
THINKING ABOUT EVALUATING A POEM
CHECKLIST: Writing an Evaluation
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON EVALUATING A POEM
TERMS FOR REVIEW
31 WHAT IS POETRY?
SOME DEFINITIONS OF POETRY
Dante, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Mina Loy, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, José Garcia Villa, Christopher Fry, Elizabeth Bishop, Joy Harjo, Octavio Paz, Denise Levertov, Lucille Clifton, Charles Simic
32 THREE CRITICAL CASEBOOKS Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost
EMILY DICKINSON
Success is counted sweetest
I taste a liquor never brewed
Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
The Soul selects her own Society
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church
Much Madness is divinest Sense
This is my letter to the World
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died
I started Early – Took my Dog
Because I could not stop for Death
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant
EMILY DICKINSON ON WRITING
Recognizing Poetry
Self-Description
CRITICS ON EMILY DICKINSON
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Meeting Emily Dickinson
Thomas H. Johnson, The Discovery of Emily Dickinson’s Manuscripts
Richard Wilbur, The Three Privations of Emily Dickinson
Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Dickinson and Death (A Reading of “Because I could not stop for Death”)
Judith Farr, A Reading of “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun”
LANGSTON HUGHES
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
The Negro
My People
Song for a Banjo Dance
Mother to Son
Song for a Dark Girl
Prayer
Luck
Theme for English B
Nightmare Boogie
Harlem [Dream Deferred]
Ballad of Booker T.
Homecoming
LANGSTON HUGHES ON WRITING
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
The Harlem Renaissance
CRITICS ON LANGSTON HUGHES
Arnold Rampersad, Hughes as an Experimentalist
Rita Dove and Marilyn Nelson, The Voices in Langston Hughes
Darryl Pinckney, Black Identity in Langston Hughes
Peter Townsend, Langston Hughes and Jazz
Onwuchekwa Jemie, A Reading of “Dream Deferred”
ROBERT FROST
Mowing
Mending Wall
After Apple-picking
The Road Not Taken
Birches
Design
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Fire and Ice