"His heart was shattered to the brim"

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" is that rare poem that was wildly popular when it was first published and continues to make an impact on its culture. More than a century after it first appeared to critical acclaim, it is still discussed by scholars, taught in eighth grade classrooms, and enjoyed by all who read it. What makes it so good? Why does this literary heart continue to beat so long after it was exposed to air?

The answer clearly has to do with poetry's close proximity to death. Between the word that the bird keeps squawking (Nevermore!) and the death of the woman whose name so conveniently rhymes with raven-talk (Lenore) lies the imagination. Poe's poem locates it for us as a story and locates it musically--as the space between rhymes. The poem is a portal into the imagination because it measures our distance between the mysterious, confusing present and the ultimately unimaginable death of the future.

Here are several poems by 8th graders at DeWitt Clinton, Room 124, who learn the fundamentals evoked by Poe's poem:

Jose

Destroyed

They came in the dead of night
They were fast and swift
We had no chance to put up a fight
This was not a fun gift
Families—destroyed

Now we are forced to flee
Some of us climbed up a tree
Out we are heading, towards the sea—
Why couldn’t they let us be?
Friendships—destroyed

On the boat many have died
In the sun many have fried.
Doesn’t look like we’re making it home.
And I think I’m beginning to see gnomes.
Hope—destroyed.

Kashif O.

Nosferatu

In a village where no one would pillage
there lived a man who would never tan
his pale white face would withstand any mace
be even he, tempter of tempters
could not resist the taste of blood.

His name was Nosferatu—
a vampire of the French sort.
He yearned for his love, to find his love
but none were suitors from above.

He walked and walked, to the ends of the earth
looking for his love, his love from above.
He found his love during a tranquil meeting:
a winged seraph from heaven landed like a dove.

But his love did not want him.
His heart was shattered to the brim.
He lived his last days, calling for her in vain
and yet she did not come.

Hector P.

The Vase

My mama told me to take care of her vase.
I told her I wouldn’t lose it.
I told her that it would be OK with me
For at least some many days.
The next day I couldn’t hear, breath, or see.
I found out that I’d lost the vase.
I went to my sister and annoyed her with this—
She told me to get out of her face
And to save the whole drama
By going straight to tell mama.
And so I went to go and tell her.
I thought to myself that it would be better
If I just told her
But I worried that if it was lost forever
There would be storms in my weather.
I wondered what she’d do if I were a bird—
If she’d pluck out all my feathers.

James W.

What’s Done is Done

You try to find another truth—
It’s like trying to find a free booth—
You will find nothing but torment
Since there’s only one truth.
What’s done is done. Nothing can change that.

You try to bring back loved ones
But it’s like an eternal run—
It’s never going to ever work
& your anger will make you a jerk.
What’s done is done. Nothing can change that.

When two towers become really weak
Nothing will hold it—not even the peak.
When they fall, we say “What’s done is done.”
When they say this, they’ll also say
“Nothing can change that.”

The torment you will only find
Will make a demon that put’s you in a bind.
What happens to you is done.
What’s done is done
and nothing can change that.

Fahad A.

Shadow Man

The shadow man stood alone in his tunnel of hope
He was lonely in the world and sad
And not having a companion made him mad.
In his dark tunnel he did nothing but mope.
This is what he did in his tunnel of hope.

The man’s only friend was his shadow,
Which never left him except at night.
The shadow was created by the reflecting light.
The man’s only belongings were a knife and rope.
This is what happened in his tunnel of hope.

The days were the same and night went alright.
The shadow man enjoyed being in the sun.
The heat being down made everything more fun.
His life was nothing close to an opera of soap.
This is what happened in his tunnel of hope.

The world meant nothing to the shadow man—
His reason to live was to stand there and smoke.
That’s all he could do because he was broke.
His grocery shopping was to buy a six-pack of dope.
That’s what happened in his tunnel of hope.

One day the shadow never joined the man in the tunnel.
Never in twenty-seven years had this been!
This was outrageous and like a sin!
The shadow man went mad and hung himself with his rope.
This is how he died in his tunnel of hope.

Amelia S.

Flow

Pound, pound, swim, work.
Dirt harvesting fields are all I come to.
Cross the river for the American dream—
Now I can’t even afford shoes.

Pound, pound, away my fate.
Deportation agent is bordering close.
Faking my blindness, hoping for mercy.
Here comes my paper harvesting host.

Pound, pound, the paper is gone.
And so follows the agent, right behind.
Chasing his paper across the boarder—
Sirens ignite after him, eager to find.

Pound, pound—the paper harvester requests my help.
The metal’s too heavy
For her frail figure—
And so I help her to her Chevy.

Pound, pound, my heart goes wild
And love spirals from the heavens upon us.
Marriage is next, and as time passes
Legality is bestowed upon us.

Lidia G.

Chop

An old man in an ancient house
Son and daughter visit
In the entrance there they stop
When they knock they see a mouse
The daughter asks, “what time is it?”
They hear, chop, chop, chop

They walk in and the girl’s mouth pouts
It was time for dinner
The go up the stairs to the top
They hear someone’s shouts—
“Get away from me! I’m not a sinner!”
They hear, chop, chop, chop

They walk in the room
They see the old man
He swings a broom and a mop—
“There’s going to be a big boom!”
He stands by a can
They hear chop, chop, chop

The girl helps him cut the meat
He puts his hand there
Then she chops and there’s a pop—
The cut is very neat—
But it’s the pain he cannot bear
From the chop, chop, chop

“No!” the son yells
The old man’s dead
Then their hearts stop
They hear bells
& noises from the bed
No longer hear chop, chop, chop

Devastated, crying
Daughter begs forgiveness
Her come the cops
She feels like flying
Hoping they have kindness
To forgive her chop, chop chop

Ela K.

The Men on Stilts

Few kids go round in circles
Little women trade
Funny little boy looks like Steve Urkel
Boy climbing the tree never afraid
The one on stilts—
Just like a flower, he wilts

People pulling on one another
Men over each other climbing
By the river they’re in the clover
People look like they’re fighting
The other one on stilts—
He also wilts

Long white ribbons wave
Bickering doesn’t look like fun
Do any of these men ever shave?
Men on stilts appear shunned—
Maybe that’s why they’re on stilts?
Maybe that’s why they wilt?

Now I end my story—
I was in the middle of it all
There was nothing gory
Except for all the fighting I saw
It was a she, not a he, on stilts—
‘twas me, who wilts

Wasif O.

The House

Alone at night in the dark ebony
Three soldiers there were.
Lost from their army in the jungle
They had no food or a bundle.
They had nothing.

Suspicions were aroused as two came closer.
Soldier number one became the outcast however.
It seemed that out of nowhere they found
A mansion there and nothing more.
He was running out of time.

Entered the house the soldiers all three—
Amazing things were found, giving all glee.
However number one stayed separate from the other two.
At night a horrible event occurred—
He ran out of time.

He heard horrific things so he ran.
His friends he saw in horror.
Dead the two were all over the floor.
Frightened, he ran—but found the doors were locked.
He had run out of time.

Evil beings sprang out of the floor.
Bloodthirsty they were wanting him.
He gave up his life to carnivorous beasts—
Ghosts and such took over him and his life.
He ran out of time.

The soldier’s clock was nevermore—
He had been eaten alive without hope.
Soldier number one was nevermore.
He was never seen ever again.
He ran out of time.

The "It" that is an "I"

What good can poetry do? In other words, what might poetry accomplish more successfully than other exercises?

On answer: poetry brings us into contact with the unknown. It asks us to step outside of ourselves. It asks us to use our imaginations to become other than we are.

In Sylvia Plath's "The Mirror," the mirror tells us its story. It is not the normal person, the "I," that speaks, but the mirror speaking to the person who looks into it each day. The mirror is what frames the "I," gives it a place. The mirror is an "it."

In the following poems, the students adopt the perspective of inhuman entities. They write as kites, as mouse traps, as TVs--even as time itself.

In the best poems, the students really do step outside of themselves. They leave the "I" world behind, and inhabit the world of "it." Notice how the speaker of "The Shoe" cries "my laces out" and dreams of becoming a basketball sneaker, because the work is less. Notice how the chalk in "A Day in the Life of a Piece of Chalk" observes the teacher in the classroom after the children have left. Notice the intimacy of the mouse trap's report in "Old Fashioned." It sees what we choose not to see. It does a job we ourselves do not want to do. Notice the sarcasm in the last line: the mouse trap is commenting on its own work ironically. Similarly, in "Flying Prisoner," the kite is captive twice-over. First, it is prevented from flying away by its string. But later, its also put in storage. A captivity that it hates and one that, by comparison, is less bad. This is what it means to adopt the perspective of a kite, to make your "I" an "it."

Dorothy
Room 112 – 7^th Grade

Old Fashioned

I sit in the corner, ready.
My plan? Watch and wait.
A mouse wanders by.

I sit docilely.
I mean no harm.
Have some food.

Creeping closer, always carefully.
The mouse edges toward my bait.
Slower, than attacking.
Snap! Aha!

My sharp snap goes tight on
The mouse’s tail. Cutting tightly.
I hold on with my life.

The mouse, scared and hurt, whines.
Scrambles. It wants to live.
I grip it. Doing my job.

The men come and reset and rebait
me, throwing away my catch.
Such a proud day’s work.

Jia
Room 112 – 7^th Grade

Flying Prisoner

I can soar above the skies
Dancing with the birds
Carried by the whistling winds around me
I dash along the white feather clouds
Joyous but never free

Entangled in my tail is a sinewy thin line
A lock that will forever trap me
In the glorious days of summer I will fly
But I will be stored away when the days shrink back
And in this dark prison I will lay until the cold subsides again

Marisol
Room 109 (7^th Grade)

Jacket

Am I interesting to look at? GOSH!
Am I that cute or ugly?
Do you want to buy me?
NO! NO! NO! Wait, wait
comeback please!
Com’on don’t
be a mama’s boy.
Buy me! BUY me!
I can be quiet or loud.
Oh! You buy my opponent.
No wonder those guys are selling
like popsicles on the Fourth of July!
People always go for Mr. Boring or Mr. Ignorant.
No wonder your country’s run
by a wanna-be dictator!
O well, I guess I’ll sit
here until tomorrow when
they put me in boxes & garbage me!
Ahhhhhh! Life’s so not fair.
People use me, then abuse me.
People wear me, then declare me old.
People say they love me thn
give me a ruba-dub-dub.
I can keep you warm
when it’s cold outside.

People’s upper bodies are held in me.
Parents tell you to not sell your style out to me.
I can be blue, yellow, orange and black.
I can be green, pink, or even mis-matched!
But can I keep you warm all the time?
Please ask yourself before you yell “that’s mine!”

Daniela
Room 109 (7^th Grade)

The Light Bulb

I am white and bright.
If I am not around, everything is dark.
Switch me on and I’ll shine you up.
The sun is my friend.
We both are bright.
I help people see in the night.
The darkness fears me.
When I come out suddenly, people block their faces.
I am needed all over the planet.
I shine bright.

Fahad
Room 124 (8^th Grade)

The Trash

I am the keeper of waste. Ruler of the wasteland.
I collect what mere humans call garbage.
One man’s trash is my treasure.
I see everything people try to get rid of.
Evidence, garbage, and even rare valuables.
Everyday I am filled, and weekly emptied.
I am the best friend of hungry scavengers
and feed them generously.
I rule the garbage truck, and am the greatest collector.

From the ruler of the waste, I am seen
as a bucket of crap.
They fill me with stuff no one can imagine.
I feel ashamed and disgusted
and wish I was used for something else.
My brothers and sisters belong to neighbors all
around the world. We all feel the same.

Every week when we are emptied from the car
we are collected in a truck and go to where
I meet my entire family.
Birds try to peck at us, and machines
try to crush us.
And some of my family members are ripped
apart and recycled.
We start as a human’s delight, and end here
at the resting place of all the trash.

Ela
Room 124 (8^th Grade)

A Day in the Life of A Piece of Chalk

I lie in a tray, my friends all around me.
Some of them are brand new.
Some are broken, wasted away to dust, gone.
There are new friends every day. I barely recognize any of them.
Every few minutes a new hand picks me up.
The foolish people drop me. I break in two.
They pick me up, put half of me back in the tray, bring me up to the black wasteland
and my body is rubbed away.
I leave a mark. Is that not what everyone
wishes to do, to leave a mark on the world?
My mark is erased.

A very loud object sounds. The people
scream, as if happily.
Within a few minutes the world is empty
all except for one person.
Another fifteen minutes pass, and the last
person leaves. The room is dark.
I begin to collect dust once again.

Mirza
Room 124 (8^th Grade)

The Ocean

I control the world underneath me
all the creatures swim beneath me
boats swim on my head and the planes
shake me as they pass by.
Creatures with arms and legs come
with equipment to swim in my body.
Predators chase their prey while the
rest hide.

Everything here is so great—
whales to octopus and shrimps to seaweed
is what makes it beautiful.
No one really comes all the way down.
My feet hurt and all the things of the world
on top of me are dumped right into me—
their waste falls and breaks the home of the citizens.
Nothing is explored beneath me
no one comes because of fears.
I want everything explored
and then I’ll be happy and have even more power.

Bibiana
Room 124 (8^th Grade)

Book of Life

Emotions bind on my pages.
Different reactions
for every person.
Taking tears and rage
and happiness
with the story I show.
A person feeling
what I feel
they turn my pages
and tears fall
I feel the cold
dripping of emotions.
I am old and battered.
Not many come by, but
the people I see are young and bright
looking to see
the story of life. But people
think differently of me now.
I am what I am—
the book of life.

Numan
Room 124 (8^th Grade)

The Shoe

I set there all tied up
My laces knotted
My soles all worn out
I sit there eating up space
I cry my laces out
Waiting for a foot in me
The stench of old socks
Attached to me.
I wait for a foot to fill me up.

It’s 8:30 and I see
A giant approaching
I lay my air holes out
And my thin cushions.
I lay my laces out on
The sight of those smelly socks
It is another day my body
Inhabited by a foot.

My brother shoes watching as I leave
The big and tall basketball shoes
Were thrown in the backpack.
I dreamt I was him; he was
Only worn once a day
While I sit attached to a foot
All day rotting my soles away.
I await the time I come back
Home to my family of sneakers.
The day will come when my soles will die
And I will never be tied again.

Angela
Room 124 (8^th Grade)

The Time

How long have I existed no one knows.
When I will end no man can tell.
I pass slow for some.
I pass fast for others.
But in truth, who can accurately say that I pass an even length?
So many ways men measure me to their fitting.
Why, I am always there with you, always going without favor.
How flexible I am is up to man to find out.
I will pass & move without favor or hate.
One of my many forms common worldwide—a clock.
In so many ways man depends upon my hands.
I shout & I whisper;
I tick & I tock.
How many hands I have
How many sounds I make
How many of my numerals can be shown.
Accuracy is what man see for, but

Who can actually read me
Measure me
Count me
Correctly?

Of Sad Girls & Clumsy Boys

Poetry happens in the imagination. But what is the imagination? What does the word mean?

William Carlos Williams thought a lot about the imagination, and wrote many wise words on the topic. He said, "There is a constant barrier between the reader and his consciousness of immediate contact with the world. If there is an ocean it is here. Or rather, the whole world is between...." For Williams, this unexplored region, this ocean to be navigated, is the imagination. Poems sail upon it, charting courses, showing us what it is.

The imagination is the space between what is & how we put mere reality into words. It is the space between the symbol and what the symbol represents.

As you will see in these poems, the words come first. They determine the situation. Everything else--the world--follows.

Jennifer, Room 112 (7^th Grade)

Crying Girl

The rain, a sad girl
A broken heart that has lost
All is gone

She lies, crying
No one shall make her stop
No one could

Her tears flow down from the sky
Covering up the shines of light
Glooming us,

The ones awake dance in glory
Others lick the lake has been filled
She warms our hearts, gratitude

Yet, she stops—she has forgotten
As she rises the sun creeps, drying
She drifts away. She will come back, crying.

Jennifer, Room 109 (7^th Grade)

The Clumsy Boy

The boy is like the wind.
He’s always moving.
He sometimes falls.

The wind goes into trees,
The boy bumps into them.
Then he falls.

The wind goes everywhere.
The boy goes everywhere.
He’s so clumsy.

The wind pushes people.
The little boy crashes into them.
He’s so clumsy.

The wind is not afraid to fly.
The boy got hurt the last time he tried.
The clumsy boy.

Nard, Room 112 (7^th Grade)

That Sad Girl

The rain, that sad girl,
Falls gently, showering the green grass
That sad girl

Blue skies fade away,
Smokey, gray clouds form above
Sadness fills the air

The soothing sound of raindrops,
overpowered by thunder
Sadness fills the air

Gently raindrops touch your skin,
Lightning flashes up the sky
Sadness fills the air

The rain starts pouring down,
The girl goes mad and screams with fury
That sad girl

Desiree, Room 109 (7^th Grade)

That Clumsy Boy

The wind, that clumsy boy
always running through houses,
that clumsy boy.

Cool and fresh breath
trying to get in through open windows
but falling down off that ladder.

The leaves blowing
the weak clumsy boy almost falling
off the swings in the park.

Fears of no more of the
clumsy boy who could
never stay still.

That clumsy boy always
out when its snowing and raining
that clumsy boy.

The ABCs of Powerful Poetry

Poetry, like all arts, is directly related to power. When certain lines, or images, or ideas move us, they are powerful. Better yet, they are an exercise in power--they allow us to witness its effects without moving from our desks.

So what makes a poem powerful? The poet Ezra Pound thought great poetry came from a combination of three elements: sound, image & the "dance of the intellect among words." (Unfortunately, as the story so often goes, Pound sold his soul in pursuit of the "dance of intellect," which increasingly escaped him. Poetry can be dangerous.)

Pound's three general parts of the poem--sound, image, and thought--are very powerfully rendered in the following six poems. All of these poems are by 7th graders.

The first two take their energy primarily from sound. The authors made combinations of sound a priority. When they chose the words they use, they chose them because of their sounds. In "Let Me Be Free," subtle alliteration and delicate rhythms lead the poem's thoughts along the edge of reality, allowing the poem to test the limits of the freedom it demands. In "Give Me" the alliteration is right up in your face. The poem is all about what you can get away with and what you are supposed to say.

Blerina, Room 112

Let Me Be Free

Let me forever smile at the gaze of the sun.
Let me slowly shut my eyes, to feel the warmth of his rays.
Let me run free until my own two legs fall on the soft, fertile soil.
Let me sleep in a field of grass, where the baby-tigers frolic.
Let me have the right to believe whatever I feel.
Let me cross a bridge to the other side, where reality can’t follow me.
Let me have hope, and don’t snatch it away from me.
Let me sit on the fluffy clouds, with a pile of books, so I can venture through every story.
Let me tie together a web of wise words, to form the answers I’ve always wanted.
Let me run free until I fall off the edge of the earth; and fall endlessly into blackness, into a new
dream.

Caroline, Room 109

Give Me

give me some soup so I can eat
give me more pumpkin pie please
give me friendly friends forever
give me cookies, candy, chocolate, cake, chips & caramel
give me French fries on Friday
give me fresh flowers for a sweet smell
give me red ripe raspberries for me to eat
give me more pleasant peanuts please
give me day dreams daily
give me family friends forever

The next poems do not simply evoke images. They dramatize the imagination. They use words and word groups to point out new areas of potential experience, to show us where we might go. For the author of "Show Me a Miracle," it was a quest for new words, then a quest for new combinations that drove his writing. He began by adding interesting words, like "velvet" and "sandspit" and "cataract," but then moved on to unusual word combinations, using language to demand the impossible. "Away" does the same thing: it combines familiar words to generate eerie, seemingly fictive realms of meaning.

Ahmad, Room 112

Show Me a Miracle

Show me phoenixes throughout the sky.
Show me sayings written in gold.
Show me stars through the horizon.
Show me a bird that sings velvet songs.
Show me cloth made of deep silk.
Show me a cataract that never ends.
Show me a sandspit to sleep on.
Show me a rainbow beyond the blue sky.
Show me a desert where I can’t get thirsty.
Show me a life where I’m reborn.
Show me a mountain easy to climb.
Show me a glacier where it’s not cold
Show me a light without any dark.
Show me clouds that don’t rain.
Show me glass that can’t break.
Show me fragrant flowers without thorns.
Show me a delightful dandy dream.
Show me a breeze that flows through my clothes.

Jason, Room 109

Away

Sell me away to a planet far away
Sell me to the city in a day
Sell me to the forest
Sell me away to the great blue sea
Sell me to the great sun
Sell me to the great full moon
Sell me to the school and books
Sell me to a Hollywood with its crooks
Sell me away to the great animals from the forest
Sell me away to the great kingdom up above

The best poems are those which are structured by sound and live in the imagination, but are also democratic because they reside in the idiom. These poems do everything the other poems do, but they also sing in the voice of the people. Something Pound never learned how to do.

Mackfield, Room 112

Show Me the World

Show me the world everyone wants to see.
Show me the world everyone wants to make.
Show me the wonderful world I see in the TV
Show me the world everyone is working so hard to accomplish.
Show me the difference between the lines of Good & Bad.
Show me the real world we survive through everyday.
Show me the world I want to make, and what I dream.
Show me the world we all need to make, with peace.
Show me the truth of the world, and open my eyes.
Show me how to bend this world to make it mine.

Lois, Room 109

Lead Me the Life Unknown

Lead me the life unknown
Lead me a splendid summer’s sweet
Lead me a place like no other
Lead me an unviolent, unknown, uncruel world, which I should cherish
Lead me the plans blessed from above
Lead me a fall pumpkin which I should be scared of
Lead me a daydreaming job I should always work
Lead me leadership with solitude
Lead me sound which oceans and birds should show
Lead me a soul which hasn’t yet been crushed
Lead me poetry that should be loved
Lead me spontaneous money
Lead me a star filled with energy

SHOW ME, TELL ME, GIVE ME POEMS!

Today we read the first part of "Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun," a poem from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. The poem is a pastoral: a vision of "the ideal life," as one seventh-grader put it. It begins:

Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,
Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,
Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows . . .

I asked the students to write a poem on the same topic, to follow Whitman's use of anaphora (the same words begin each line), and to show off their vocabulary whenever they could (Whitman's poem contains many difficult & beautiful words). Here are three poems by seventh-graders from Room 112:

I Want to Sunder the Secrets of the Shallow World
by Zamar I.

I want to sunder the secrets of the shallow world
I want to find and construe the unknown
I want to let my dreams roam free and make the world a better place
I want to show the world what I can do
I want to shoot for the moon; even if I miss I will land among stars
I want to throw fear into the deepest threshold
I want to let my name be known
I want to let peace reign the world
I want to help people time after time
I want to die looking at the scarlet setting sun salute me to heaven

Show Me a Miracle
by Ahmad A.

Show me phoenixes throughout the sky
Show me sayings written in gold
Show me stars through the horizon
Show me a bird that sings velvet songs
Show me a cloth made of deep silk
Show me a cataract that never ends
Show me a sandspit to sleep upon
Shoe me a rainbow beyond the blue sky
Show me a desert where I can't get thirsty
Show me a life where I'm reborn
Show me a mountain easy to climb
Show me a glacier where it's not cold
Show me a light without any dark
Show me clouds that don't rain
Show me glass that can't break
Show me fragrent flowers without thorns
Show me a delightful dandy dream
Show me a breeze the flows through my clothes

Let Me Be Free
by Blerina

Let me forever smile at the gaze of the sun
Let me slowly shut my eyes, to feel the warmth of his rays
Let me run free until my own two legs fall on the soft, fertile soil
Let me sleep in a field of grass, where the baby tigers frolic
Let me have the right to believe whatever I feel
Let me cross a bridge to the other side, where reality can't follow me
Let me have hope and don't snatch it away from me
Let me sit on the fluffy clouds with a pile of books so I can venture through every story
Let me tie together a web of wise words, to form the answers I've always wanted
Let me run free until I fall off the edge of the earth; and fall endlessly into blackness, into a new dream