20th Century American Poetry

1
20th Century American Poetry

• Mrs. DAmour
• Mrs. Allison

2
Jimmy Santiago Baca(1952- )

• Who Understands Me but Me
• They turn the water off, so I live without water,
• they build walls higher, so I live without
  treetops,
• they paint the windows black, so I live without
  sunshine,
• they lock my cage, so I live without going
  anywhere,
• they take each last tear I have, I live without
  tears,
• they take my heart and rip it open, I live
  without heart,
• they tike my life and crush it, so I live without
  a future,
• they say I am beastly and fiendish, so I have no
  friends,
• they stop up each hope, so I have no passage out
  of hell,
• they give me pain, so I live with pain,
• they give me hate, so I live with my hate,
• they have changed me, and I am not the same man,
• they give me no shower, so I live with my smell,
• they separate me from my brothers, so I live
  without brother,
• who understands me when I say this is beautiful?
• who understands me when I say I have found other
  freedoms?

3
Who Understands Me but Me, cont.

• I cannot fly or make something appear in my hand,
• I cannot make the heavens open or the earth
  tremble,
• I can live with myself, and I am amazed at
  myself, my love, my beauty,
• I am taken by my failures, astounded by my fears,
• I am stubborn and childish,
• In the midst of this wreckage of life they
  incurred,
• I practice being myself,
• and I have found parts of myself never dreamed of
  by me,
• they were goaded out from under rocks in my heart
• when the walls were built higher,
• when the water was turned off and the windows
  painted black.
• I followed the signs
• like and old tracker and followed the tracks deep
  into myself, followed the blood-spotted path,
• deeper into dangerous regions, and found so many
  parts of myself,
• who taught me water is not everything,
• and gave me new eyes to see through walls,
• and when they spoke, sunlight came out of their
  mouths,
• and I was laughing at me with them,
• we laughed like children and made pacts to always
  be loyal,

4
Arna Bontemps(1902-1973)

• God Give to Men
• God give the yellow manan easy breeze at blossom
  time.Grant his eager, slanting eyes to
  coverevery land and dreamof afterwhile. Give
  blue-eyed men their swivel chairsto whirl in
  tall buildings.Allow them many ships at sea,and
  on land, soldiersand policemen.For black man,
  God,no need to bother morebut only fill afresh
  his meedof laughter,his cup of tears.God
  suffer little menthe taste of soul's desire.

5
Gwendolyn Brooks(1917-2000)

• We Real Cool
• THE POOL PLAYERS. SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL
• We real cool. WeLeft school. WeLurk late.
  WeStrike straight. WeSing sin. WeThin gin.
  WeJazz June. WeDie soon.

6
Sandra Cisneros(1954- )

• Old Maids
• My cousins and I,    we don't marry.   We're
  too old   by Mexican standards.   And the
  relatives    have long suspected   we can't
  anymore   in white.  
• My cousins and I,   we're all old   maids at
  thirty.  
• Who won't dress children,   and never saints--  
  though we undress them.  

• The aunts,   they've given up on us.   No
  longer nudge--You're next.  
• Instead--   What happened in your childhood?    
  What left you all mean teens?     Who hurt you,
  honey?  
• But we've studied   marriages too long--  
• Aunt Ariadne,   Tia Vashti,   Comadre
  Penelope,   querida Malintzin,   Senora Pumpkin
  Shell--  
• lessons that served us well.  

7
Countee Cullen(1903-1946)

• Incident
• Once riding in old Baltimore,    Heart-filled,
  head-filled with glee,I saw a Baltimorean   
  Keep looking straight at me.
• Now I was eight and very small,    And he was
  no whit bigger,And so I smiled, but he poked
  out    His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
• I saw the whole of Baltimore    From May until
  DecemberOf all the things that happened there
• That's all that I remember.

8
e.e. cummings(1894-1962)
maggie and millie and molly and maymaggie and
millie and molly and maywent down to the beach
(to play one day)and maggie discovered a shell
that sangso sweetly she couldn't remember her
troubles, andmillie befriended a stranded
starwho's rays five languid fingers wereand
molly was chased by a horrible thingwhich raced
sideways while blowing bubbles andmay came
home with a smooth round stoneas small as a
world and as large as alone.For whatever we
lose (like a you or a me)it's always ourselves
we find in the sea.
9
Rita Dove(1952- )

• Vacation
• I love the hour before takeoff,
• that stretch of no time, no home
• but the gray vinyl seats linked like
• unfolding paper dolls. Soon we shall
• be summoned to the gate, soon enough
• therell be the clumsy procedure of row number
• sand perforated stubsbut for now
• I can look at these ragtag nuclear families
• with their cooing and bickeringor the heeled
  bachelorette trying
• to ignore a babys wail and the babys
• exhausted mother waiting to be called up early
• while the athlete, one monstrous hand
• asleep on his duffel bag, listens,
• perched like a seal trained for the plunge.
• Even the lone executive
• who has wandered this far into summer
• with his lasered itinerary, briefcase
• knocking his kneeseven he

10
Paul Laurence Dunbar(1872-1906)

• We Wear the Mask
•   We wear the mask that grins and lies,     It
  hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,     This
  debt we pay to human guile     With torn and
  bleeding hearts we smile,     And mouth with
  myriad subtleties.
•   Why should the world be over-wise,     In
  counting all our tears and sighs?     Nay, let
  them only see us, while             We wear the
  mask.
• We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries     To
  thee from tortured souls arise.     We sing, but
  oh the clay is vile     Beneath our feet, and
  long the mile     But let the world dream
  otherwise,             We wear the mask!

11
Allen Ginsberg(1926-1997)

• A Supermarket in California
• What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt
  Whitman, for
• I walked down the sidestreets under the trees
  with a headache
• self-conscious looking at the full moon.
• In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I
  went
• into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your
  enumerations!
• What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
• shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives
  in the
• avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you,
  Garcia Lorca, what
• were you doing down by the watermelons?
• I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old
  grubber,
• poking among the meats in the refrigerator and
  eyeing the grocery
• boys.
• I heard you asking questions of each Who killed
  the
• pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
  
• I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of
  cans
• following you, and followed in my imagination by
  the store detective.

12
Supermarket, cont.

• We strode down the open corridors together in
  our
• solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing
  every frozen
• delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
• Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors
  close in
• an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
  
• (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in
  the
• supermarket and feel absurd.)
• Will we walk all night through solitary streets?
  The
• trees add shade to shade, lights out in the
  houses, we'll both be
• lonely.
• Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of
  love
• past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our
  silent cottage?
• Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old
  courage-teacher,
• what America did you have when Charon quit poling
  his ferry and
• you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching
  the boat
• disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

13
Langston Hughes(1901-1967)

• The Weary Blues
• Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
• Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
• I heard a Negro play.
• Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
• By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
• He did a lazy sway
• He did a lazy sway
• To the tune o those Weary Blues.
• With his ebony hands on each ivory key
• He made that poor piano moan with melody.
• O Blues!
• Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
• He played that sad raggy tune like a musical
  fool.
• Sweet Blues!

14
Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

• Losing Track
• Long after you have swung backaway from meI
  think you are still with meyou come in close
  to the shoreon the tideand nudge me awake the
  waya boat adrift nudges the pieram I a
  pierhalf-in half-out of the water?and in the
  pleasure of that communionI lose track,the moon
  I watch goes down, thetide swings you away
  beforeI know I'malone again long since,mud
  sucking at gray and blacktimbers of me,a light
  growth of green dreams drying.

15
Claude McKay(1889-1948)

• The Tropics of New York
• Bananas ripe and green, and ginger root Cocoa in
  pods and alligator pears, And tangerines and
  mangoes and grape fruit, Fit for the highest
  prize at parish fairs, Sat in the window,
  bringing memories of fruit-trees laden by
  low-singing rills, And dewy dawns, and mystical
  skies In benediction over nun-like hills. My
  eyes grow dim, and I could no more gaze A wave
  of longing through my body swept, And, hungry
  for the old, familiar ways I turned aside and
  bowed my head and wept

16
Edna St. Vincent Millay(1892-1950)

• Recuerdo
• We were very tired, we were very merry-
• We had gone back and forth all night on the
  ferry.
• It was bare and bright, and smelled like a
  stable-
• But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a
  table,
• We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon
• And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came
  soon.
• We were very tired, we were very merry-
• We had gone back and forth all night on the
  ferry
• And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
• From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere
• And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
• And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
• We were very tired, we were very merry,
• We had gone back and forth all night on the
  ferry.
• We hailed, Good morrow, mother! to a
  shawl-covered head,
• And bought a morning paper, which neither of us
  read

17
Sylvia Plath(1932-1963)

• Mirror
• I am silver and exact. I have no
  preconceptions.Whatever I see, I swallow
  immediately.Just as it is, unmisted by love or
  dislikeI am not cruel, only truthful The eye
  of a little god, four-cornered.Most of the time
  I meditate on the opposite wall.It is pink, with
  speckles. I have looked at it so longI think it
  is a part of my heart. But it flickers.Faces and
  darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a
  lake. A woman bends over me.Searching my reaches
  for what she really is.Then she turns to those
  liars, the candles or the moon.I see her back,
  and reflect it faithfullyShe rewards me with
  tears and an agitation of hands.I am important
  to her. She comes and goes.Each morning it is
  her face that replaces the darkness.In me she
  has drowned a young girl, and in me an old
  womanRises toward her day after day, like a
  terrible fish.

18
Ezra Pound (18841972)

• In a Station of the Metro
• The apparition of these faces in the
  crowdPetals on a wet, black bough.

19
John Crowe Ransom(1888-1974)

• Bells for John Whitesides Daughter
• There was such speed in her little body,
• And such lightness in her footfall,
• It is no wonder that her brown study
• Astonishes us all.
• Her wars were bruited in our high window.
• We looked among orchard trees and beyond.
• Where she took arms against her shadow
• Or harried unto the pond
• The lazy geese, like a snow cloud
• Dripping their snow on the green grass,
• Tricking and stopping, sleepy and proud,
• Who cried in goose, Alas,

For the tireless heart within the little Lady
with rod that made them rise From their noon
apple-dreams, and scuttle Goose-fashion under
the skies! But now go the bells, and we are
ready In one house we are sternly stopped To say
we are vexed at her brown study, Lying so primly
propped.
20
Wallace Stevens(1879-1955)
Anecdote of the Jar I placed a jar in
Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made
the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The
wilderness rose up to it, and sprawled around, no
longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion
everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not
give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in
Tennessee.
21
Jean Toomer(1894-1967)

• Her Lips Are Copper Wire
• whisper of yellow globes
• gleaming on lamp-posts that sway
• like bootleg licker drinkers in the fog
• and let your breath be moist against me
• like bright beads on yellow globes
• telephone the power-house
• that the main wires are insulate
• (her words play softly up and down
• dewy corridors of billboards)
• then with your tongue remove the tape
• and press your lips to mine
• till they are incandescent

22
William Carlos Williams(1883-1963)

• The Red Wheelbarrow
• so much depends
• upon
• a red wheel
• barrow
• glazed with rain
• water
• beside the white
• chickens.