A few more favorites....

This poem I first discovered in AP Lit, and thought it was pretty clever. I really like Plath's style, although she can be pretty dark, especially in her poem "Daddy". I read the Bell Jar and wanted to get her book "Ariel", I think, it's a collection of poems. This one is reminiscent of the Holocaust, but it also makes me think of insane celebrities---I think the song "The Fear" by Lily Allen might even go well with this one.

The Thin People
BY
Sylvia Plath

They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people

On a movie-screen. They
Are unreal, we say:

It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when we

Were small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not round

Out their stalky limbs again though peace
Plumped the bellies of the mice

Under the meanest table.
It was during the long hunger-battle

They found their talent to persevere
In thinness, to come, later,

Into our bad dreams, their menace
Not guns, not abuses,

But a thin silence.
Wrapped in flea-ridded donkey skins,

Empty of complaint, forever
Drinking vinegar from tin cups: they wore

The insufferable nimbus of the lot-drawn
Scapegoat. But so thin,

So weedy a race could not remain in dreams,
Could not remain outlandish victims

In the contracted country of the head
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could

Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it

Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared

The moon to a rind of little light.
Now the thin people do not obliterate

Themselves as the dawn
Grayness blues, reddens, and the outline

Of the world comes clear and fills with color.
They persist in the sunlit room: the wallpaper

Frieze of cabbage-roses and cornflowers pales
Under their thin-lipped smiles,

Their withering kingship.
How they prop each other up!

We own no wilderness rich and deep enough
For stronghold against their stiff

Battalions. See, how the tree boles flatten
And lose their good browns

If the thin people simply stand in the forest,
Making the world go thin as a wasp's nest

And grayer; not even moving their bones.
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I LOVE Maya Angelou, although the first book of hers that I read was "The Bluest Eye" and it involved abuse, but she is so great with words and is so descriptive. She's one of Oprah's favorites. Whenever I see Maya on TV she seems so refined.

Woman Work
BY
Maya Angelou

I've got the children to tend
The clothes to mend
The floor to mop
The food to shop
Then the chicken to fry
The baby to dry
I got company to feed
The garden to weed
I've got shirts to press
The tots to dress
The can to be cut
I gotta clean up this hut
Then see about the sick
And the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Let me float across the sky
'Til I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes
Cover me with white
Cold icy kisses and
Let me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone
Star shine, moon glow
You're all that I can call my own.

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This one I sang in a choir when I was in 5th grade, I used to make fun of it all the time, but now I kind of like it. This is about the beautiful life of lowly grass, personified as the life of a humble, beautiful woman.

THE GRASS. (By Emily Dickenson)

The grass so little has to do, --
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,

And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;

And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine, --
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.

And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine,
As lowly spices gone to sleep,
Or amulets of pine.

And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
And dream the days away, --
The grass so little has to do,
I wish I were the hay!

I miss poetry....

This weekend my entomology class went on a field trip to Lytle Ranch in southern Utah, and on the way down I was sitting next to a sweet girl named Emily. She said she likes to write poetry, and is learning the guitar so she can put her words to song. I was really charmed. I used to love poetry so much more, and I was telling her how I used to write poems whenever I was feeling angsty or dark. I never really enjoyed writing happy poems, I mainly liked the weird ones....my favorite ones were by Sylvia Plath or e. e. cummings. I remember when Eric O. dumped me in highschool, I wrote him a poem....he thought I was weird. But I laugh now.

I found this cute poem by Tennyson, though, and thought I'd share it.

The Flower
BY
Lord Alfred Tennyson

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went
Thro' my garden bower,
And muttering discontent
Cursed me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall
It wore a crown of light,
But thieves from o'er the wall
Stole the seed by night.

Sow'd it far and wide
By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
"Splendid is the flower!"

Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people
Call it but a weed.

How do people write stuff like this? It's such a gift. I don't think I could conjure up a poem anymore---at least not right now. I either don't have enough wit, courage, or emotion to do it....the emotions I feel the most now include simple joy and satisfaction, being married to Richard thus far has been pretty easy and carefree. I have no major worries, I am pretty bland in a sense. It's something to be grateful for. I guess I could write a happy poem? A poem about my dreams for the future? A poem for my future kiddies? I don't know! But I think I might step up to the challenge. Maybe you'll see a poem by me on here, someday soon.....