For the first AK11 poem assignment, each student should prepare and deliver this first stanza from Vachel Lindsay's poem The Congo. The emphasis will be on the regular 'drum-like' beat/rhythm, volume dynamics, and articulation of the different sounds at volume. For the first class presentation students may use a text as support, but by the second presentation (and exam) the passage should be memorized.

The Congo [extract from the beginning], by Vachel Lindsay

Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM!

(Click here for a 1931 recording of Vachel Lindsay reciting this first stanza of The Congo [shortly before he committed suicide on December 5, 1931 by drinking a bottle of Lysol]; other works and recordings by Lindsay can be found in the University of Pennsylvania Writing Center web directories. See also Vachel Lindsay, 1879-1931.)

For the second poem presentation, students should choose a short poem in modern, standard English which is suitable for oral presentation to our class audience. The poem should be different for each student, and preferably one no other student has seen.

Following are examples of appropriate poems in both length and type of language. As a last resort students may use one of the following, provided no other student in the group uses the same poem. Both during the practice sessions and for the exam, students are to read the poem from a marked-up text (it need not be memorized).

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"I, Too" (Langston Hughes)

I, too, sing America
I am the darker brother
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
but I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare say to me
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed . . .
I, too, am America

Keeping Things Whole (Mark Strand)

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Appendectomy (Gwendolyn MacEwen)

It's interesting how you can brag about a scar;
I'm fascinated with mine, it is diagonal and straight,
it suggests great skill, great speed,
it is no longer or shorter than it needs to be.

It is good how it follows my natural symmetry
parallel to the hip, a perfect geometry;
it is not a wound; it is a diagram
drawn correctly; it has no connection with pain.

It's interesting how you can brag about a scar;
nothing in nature is a straight line
except this delightful blasphemy on my belly;
the surgeon was an Indian, and beautiful, and holy.

50-50 (Langston Hughes)

I'm all alone in this world, she said,
Ain't got nobody to share my bed,
Ain't got nobody to hold my hand —
The truth of the matter is...
I aint' got no man.

Big Boy opened his mouth and said,
Trouble with you is
You ain't got no head!
If you had a head and used your mind
You could have me with you
All the time.

She answered, Babe, what must I do?
He said, Share your bed —
And your money, too.

Face of a Political Candidate on a Street Billboard (Charles Bukowski)

there he is:
not too many hangovers
not too many fights with women
not too many flat tires
never a thought of suicide

not more than three toothaches
never missed a meal
never in jail
never in love

7 pairs of shoes
a son in college
a car one year old
insurance policies
a very green lawn
garbage cans with tight lids
he'll be elected.

The Bus (Leonard Cohen)

I was the last passenger of the day,
I was alone on the bus,
I was glad they were spending all that money
just getting me up Eighth Avenue.
Driver! I shouted, it's you and me tonight,
let's run away from this big city
to a smaller city more suitable to the heart,
let's drive past the swimming pools of Miami Beach,
you in the driver's seat, me several seats back,
but in the racial cities we'll change places
so as to show how well you've done up North,
and let us find ourselves some tiny American fishing village
in unknown Florida
and park right at the edge of the sand,
a huge bus pointing out,
metallic, painted, solitary,
with New York plates.

The Coming of Light (Unknown)

Even this late it happens,
The coming of love,
The coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit
As if by themselves.
Stars gather.
Dreams pour into your pillows
Sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late
The bones of the body shine
And tomorrow's dust
Flares into breath.

The Last Word (Philip Goulding)

This is the poem
I feel I owe you.

It patiently awaits
your return

There is nothing specific
it ought to reveal

and no relevant secret
it attempts to conceal.

It is merely
the last word
you'd say I always need to have.

Wind and sun (Unknown)

If you're wind then I'm sun.
If you're an icy field with sleeping seeds
then I'm spring that wakes them with a kiss
and frees the captive powers of earth.
If you're only promise, then I'm gift.
If you are thoughts then I am words.
If you're the sullen wind that slakes the flame
then I'm the spark that kindles it again.
If you're the lock, in rigid ornate mould,
then I hold the key here in my hands.
If you're hesitation, I am decision.

"The More Loving One" — W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

"Curriculum Vitae" — Michael Hamburger

People want to live a pleasant life,
watch television and drive a car,
own a house in the green belt.
People want to be helpful,
help the blind man to cross the street, when it happens
that a blind man wants to cross the street.
People want others
to speak well of them,
they want to live without pain, for a long time,
and before they die
to be just a little immortal.

"Drifting" — Andrew Salkey

For whom do I speak, now,
so far away from home?
For whom do I write, now,
so far away from myself?
I speak for the experience
of the flux I've become;
I write for the concrete
to fill in the distances
from the house on the road
I lived on, from the warm
home on the sea I crossed,
from old voices to the new.
And I suppose that's true,
to some extent, of shipping
oneself far away from port,
finding oneself while drifting.

'In Mind' — Denise Levertov

There's in my mind
A woman of innocence
Unadorned
But fair-featured
And smelling of apples
Or grass.
She wears a utopian smock
Or shift.
Her hair is light brown
And smooth,
And she is very kind
And clean,
Without ostentation.
But she has no imagination.

And there's a turbulent
Moon-ridden girl,
Or old woman
Or both.
Dressed in opals
And rags.
Feathers
And torn taffeta,
Who knows strange songs.
But she is not kind.

Spider on the Porch — (Unknown)

I saw her build it.
like a pea in a pod,
a child in a sandbox.
She waited,
turning her glistening body
this way, that way,
enticing beyond all reason.
And when they came,
she let herself down easy.
Devoured the poor chumps.
For weeks they flew her way,
attracted by the yellow light
on which she built her house.
Some figured it out,
but too late.
Chains from her body wrapped their
attention around each one.

Her lawn was littered with dead
carcasses, half-eaten hulks.
It was business as usual for her.
One day, with an old New Yorker,
I relieved her from dull duty
and inborn ingratitude.
But don't think I didn't sympathize.
I spend a lot of time, myself,
waiting for the right one
to come along.

"The Journey" — Mary Oliver

(Poems must absolutely not be any longer than the following)

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.

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Selected Doggerel (where oral interpretation is essential for meaning)

Anonymous . . .

This is a story about four people:
Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done
and Everybody was asked to do it.
Everybody was sure Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it,
but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry bout that
because it was Everybody's job.
Everybody thought Anybody could do it,
but Nobody realized
that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody
when actually, Nobody asked Anybody.

Arabian Proverb

He who knows, and knows he knows; He is wise: follow him.
He who knows, and knows not he knows; He is asleep: wake him.
He who knows not, and knows not he knows not; He is a fool: shun him.
He who knows not, and knows he knows not; He is a child: teach him.

See also, for other examples of poems, or to listen to them being read:

• The Poetry Archive
• 'Poetry Out Loud' National Recitation Contest