GWW Online Portfolio

Assignment 1 Beginning Poetry

Assignment
Due By: Tuesday, February 28
2/21/2006

EXERCISE FOR CLASS

Play around with line breaks. Here are some poems that I’ve removed the line breaks from. Cut and Paste them into your word processing program and try giving them new line breaks. See what happens when the lines get longer or shorter. Try varying the line lengths within a poem. I’ll post the line breaks that the poets used next week. Also, try this exercise with some of your own poems. Move the words around and experiment with different lines. Only post two of your results to your notebook. Explain how you decided on the lineation you posted.

MARRIED
Jack Gilbert

I came back from the funeral
And crawled around the apartment,
Crying hard,
Searching for my wife’s hair.

For two months got them from the drain,
From the vacuum cleaner,
Under the refrigerator,
And off the clothes in the closet.

But after other Japanese women came,
There was no way to be sure
Which were hers,
And I stopped.

A year later,
Repotting Michiko’s avocado,
I find a long black hair
Tangled in the dirt.


This poem has sadness at the core, so it seems to make sense to put emphasis on each part of what is being said. This is why I chose to make short, choppy lines. It also goes with the concept that this is more of an internal monologue, so the short amount of syllables in each line lends to that concept. Just in case the lines don’t cut where I cut them on my word processor, I capitalized the beginning of each line and broke each sentence into its own stanza.
WILD NIGHTS!
Emily Dickinson

Wild Nights! Wild Nights! Were I with thee, Wild Nights should be Our luxury! Futile the winds To a heart in port, -- Done with the compass, Done with the chart! Rowing in Eden! Ah! the sea! Might I but moor To-night in Thee!

Easter Wings
by George Herbert

Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store, Though foolishly he lost the same, Decaying more and more, Till he became Most poore: With Thee O let me rise, As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day Thy victories: Then shall the fall further the flight in me. My tender age in sorrow did beginne; And still with sicknesses and shame Thou didst so punish sinne, That I became Most thinne. With Thee Let me combine, And feel this day Thy victorie; For, if I imp my wing on Thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

GRASS
Carl Sandburg

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this? Where are we now?
I am the grass. Let me work.

This feels like the grass is talking to the rest of the people in the world. It feels like the lines need to be longer. The “I cover all” and “Let me work” feel like they should be at the end of the stanzas. Just in case my line breaks don’t show when I copy and paste this, I broke at the end of Waterloo, work --, all, Gettysburg, Verdun, work, conductor, and now.

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