Here is a work in progress for us to play with in the poetry group. It is nothing elegant, but more or less rhymes. You are welcome to copy it and rework with better wording.It was too long to post in my status and I didn't want to put it in the wrong place in the poetry group.Please do chop this up and rewrite it for practice. It is just for fun and really needs some work.Here it is, a stupid little poem called:English ClubbingIf words express our thoughts of lifeand feelings through both calm and strife.Then, why wait in the house reflecting,while our friends we are neglecting?Instead our silence must be brokenwith blog or chat or other token,of our willingness to share,our language efforts since we care.To help each other is our dutyrevealing dreams, thoughts, feelings, beauty.We can’t be timid with our grammar,though we could err and we might stammer.We correct our missteps and keep goingso glad our language skills are growing.We’ll help our friends and they’ll help us.So write we will, and blog we must!bob ;)
Hello teacher Bob, I'm not a great expert on English words, so I can't give an opinion about the structure of your poem, but about the content yes I can. Well, I must say that the theme is beautiful ... gave me a lot, so it's not a stupid poem. Your verses give positive charges to all those like me who just want to improve ...
Thanks for sharing.
Until next time.
_vindos_
Yes Nadira, and it has some words not used too often. Also many of the things he mentions were long ago, but I think suitable for advanced students. It is a good lead in to some history topics if students are interested.
one of the longest poems I know and I heard it so often freshman year I used to be able to recite it...not now. I am no Poet,but Sandburg was a master. He died in 1967 I think.
THE PEOPLE SPEAK
by Carl Sandburg
The people, yes, the people,
Until the people are taken care of one way or another,
Until the people are solved somehow for the day and hour,
Until then one hears "Yes but the people what about the people?"
Sometimes as though the people is a child to be pleased or fed
Or again a hoodlum you have to be tough with
And seldom as though the people is a caldron and a reservoir
Of the human reserves that shape history. . . .
Fire, chaos, shadows,
Events trickling from a thin line of flame
On into cries and combustions never expected.
The people have the element of surprise. . . .
"The czar has eight million men with guns and bayonets
Nothing can happen to the czar.
The czar is the voice of God and shall live forever.
Turn and look at the forest of steel and cannon
Where the czar is guarded by eight million soldiers.
Nothing can happen to the czar."
They said that for years and in the summer of 1914,
As a portent and an assurance they said with owl faces:
"Nothing can happen to the czar,"
Yet the czar and his bodyguard of eight million vanished
And the czar stood in a cellar before a little firing squad
And the command of fire was given
And the czar stepped into regions of mist and ice
The czar traveled into an ethereal uncharted Siberia
While two kaisers also vanished from thrones
Ancient and established in blood and iron
Two kaisers backed by ten million bayonets
Had their crowns in a gutter, their palaces mobbed.
In fire, chaos, shadows,
In hurricanes beyond foretelling of probabilities
In the shove and whirl of unforeseen combustions
The people, yes, the people,
Move eternally in the elements of surprise,
Changing from hammer to bayonet and back to hammer,
The hallelujah chorus forever shifting its star soloists.
The people learn, unlearn, learn,
a builder, a wrecker, a builder again,
a juggler of shifting puppets.
In so few eyeblinks
In transition lightning streaks,
the people project midgets into giants,
the people shrink titans into dwarfs
Faiths blow on the winds
and become shibboleths
and deep growths
with men ready to die
for a living word on the tongue,
for a light alive in the bones,
for dreams fluttering in the wrists . . .
Sleep is a suspension midway
and a conundrum of shadows
lost in meadows of the moon.
The people sleep.
Ai! ai! the people sleep.
Yet the sleepers toss in sleep
and an end comes of sleep
and the sleepers wake.
Ai! ai! the sleepers wake! . . .
The storm of propaganda blows always.
In every air of today the germs float and hover.
The people have the say-so.
Let the argument go on.
Let the people listen.
Tomorrow the people say Yes or No by one question:
"What else can be done?"
In the drive of faiths on the wind today the people know:
"We have come this far and we are going farther yet" . . .
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can't laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas . . .
The people is a tragic and comic two-face:
hero and hoodlum: phantom and gorilla twist-
ing to moan with a gargoyle mouth: " They
buy me and sell me. ..it's a game. ..
sometime I'll break loose ..."
Now the steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother the earth over may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil -- the people, yes
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can't be bought.
There are women beyond purchase.
The fire born are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise.
You can't hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for
keeps, the people march:
"Where to? what next?
Where to? what next?"
Thankyou dear Teacher Bob,
To the wise and gentle reminder,
To us the flocks of EC.
To bring out the best in us through blogs or verse
and better still discussion for reflections.
Your guidance we do need.
Blessings to us indeed
Comments
Thanks for sharing.
Until next time.
_vindos_
First time I have seen such long form of poetry.
its interesting to read , thankyou Bob
THE PEOPLE SPEAK
by Carl Sandburg
The people, yes, the people,
Until the people are taken care of one way or another,
Until the people are solved somehow for the day and hour,
Until then one hears "Yes but the people what about the people?"
Sometimes as though the people is a child to be pleased or fed
Or again a hoodlum you have to be tough with
And seldom as though the people is a caldron and a reservoir
Of the human reserves that shape history. . . .
Fire, chaos, shadows,
Events trickling from a thin line of flame
On into cries and combustions never expected.
The people have the element of surprise. . . .
"The czar has eight million men with guns and bayonets
Nothing can happen to the czar.
The czar is the voice of God and shall live forever.
Turn and look at the forest of steel and cannon
Where the czar is guarded by eight million soldiers.
Nothing can happen to the czar."
They said that for years and in the summer of 1914,
As a portent and an assurance they said with owl faces:
"Nothing can happen to the czar,"
Yet the czar and his bodyguard of eight million vanished
And the czar stood in a cellar before a little firing squad
And the command of fire was given
And the czar stepped into regions of mist and ice
The czar traveled into an ethereal uncharted Siberia
While two kaisers also vanished from thrones
Ancient and established in blood and iron
Two kaisers backed by ten million bayonets
Had their crowns in a gutter, their palaces mobbed.
In fire, chaos, shadows,
In hurricanes beyond foretelling of probabilities
In the shove and whirl of unforeseen combustions
The people, yes, the people,
Move eternally in the elements of surprise,
Changing from hammer to bayonet and back to hammer,
The hallelujah chorus forever shifting its star soloists.
The people learn, unlearn, learn,
a builder, a wrecker, a builder again,
a juggler of shifting puppets.
In so few eyeblinks
In transition lightning streaks,
the people project midgets into giants,
the people shrink titans into dwarfs
Faiths blow on the winds
and become shibboleths
and deep growths
with men ready to die
for a living word on the tongue,
for a light alive in the bones,
for dreams fluttering in the wrists . . .
Sleep is a suspension midway
and a conundrum of shadows
lost in meadows of the moon.
The people sleep.
Ai! ai! the people sleep.
Yet the sleepers toss in sleep
and an end comes of sleep
and the sleepers wake.
Ai! ai! the sleepers wake! . . .
The storm of propaganda blows always.
In every air of today the germs float and hover.
The people have the say-so.
Let the argument go on.
Let the people listen.
Tomorrow the people say Yes or No by one question:
"What else can be done?"
In the drive of faiths on the wind today the people know:
"We have come this far and we are going farther yet" . . .
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can't laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas . . .
The people is a tragic and comic two-face:
hero and hoodlum: phantom and gorilla twist-
ing to moan with a gargoyle mouth: " They
buy me and sell me. ..it's a game. ..
sometime I'll break loose ..."
Now the steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother the earth over may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil -- the people, yes
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can't be bought.
There are women beyond purchase.
The fire born are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise.
You can't hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for
keeps, the people march:
"Where to? what next?
Where to? what next?"
-Lynne-
To the wise and gentle reminder,
To us the flocks of EC.
To bring out the best in us through blogs or verse
and better still discussion for reflections.
Your guidance we do need.
Blessings to us indeed
Nadira