Reading

A Supermarket in California
Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in
an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Berkeley, 1955


A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
by Bob Dylan

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Sestina Sample #1

"Six Kinds of Noodles"
by Stephen Burt

You would have to have been reading John Ashbery
to have seen anything like this in a book,
and yet here it is in real life:
an almost already intelligible tangle
of verities, and an intimidating menu,
disfigured, almost, by all the things you can have

at once, though all are noodles. Have
you, too, been trying to keep up with John Ashbery?
Every time I check there's another new book,
another entry—entrée—on the menu
from which I seem to have ordered my whole life,
and been served somebody else's. Don't tangle

with waiters here is my advice; the rectangle
of mirrorlike soy sauce, the soba you have to have
and the udon you lack should suffice: the secret of life—
as you might have sought, or discovered, in Ashbery—
is what you get while you are waiting. Men, you
see, are mortal, and live to end up in a book,

though once you compiled and published such a book,
who would be left to read it? The latest angle
claims that it would be more like a menu,
an ashen, Borgesian checklist of all you could have
or have had to pay for, or suffer, or notice. Ashbery
could write that (I think it's in Flow Chart). And yet the life

we long for in all its disorder is not a life
of so many tastes, nor of fame; more like one good book,
and ginger with which to enjoy it. Jeffrey Skinner's poem entitled "John Ashbery"
and David Kellogg's "Being John Ashbery" both take the angle
that eminence is what matters. No. We have
had enough of fighting over the menu,

as if it were the main course; the omen you
seek, the bitter-lime tang of a happy life
to come, curls up amid the semolina or buckwheat you have
not chosen yet. Will it be prepared by the book?
Will it do for Kitchen Stadium? Its newfangle-
ness may be a virtue, Iron Chef Chen Kenichi, Auden, and Ashbery

all suggest, though hard to find here without help from Ashbery:
it's a problem with which I have tangled all my life,
and I'm so hungry I could eat a book, though none are listed on this menu.

Kickball rules

The rules for kickball are closely related to those of baseball. The main difference is that kickball involves a large bouncing ball. The ball is about the size of a soccer ball.

Kickball is played on a field with 4 bases arranged on the corners of a diamond-shaped "infield". Player positions are also similar to those of baseball. There is an "infield" (with defensive players near the bases) and an "outfield" (with defensive players beyond the bases to catch the ball if it is kicked far).

Game play goes as follows: the ball is rolled towards home plate, and the player who is up ( i.e., kicking ), tries to kick the ball. If the ball is caught in the air, the kicker is out, and he or she sits down. A player is also out if the ball is thrown at them, and hits them while they are not touching a base. If a thrown ball misses them, they may only run to the next base, which is known on the kickball field as the "one base on an overthrow" rule. Also similar to baseball, if the ball is thrown to the first baseman, and it is caught by the first baseman while he or she is touching first base, the player running to first base is out. This is known as a "forced out" in that the runner was forced to run to that base. A "forced out" can occur on any base that a runner is forced to run to.

Once a team gets 3 outs, the teams switch sides. A team gets one point for having a runner make it all the way around the bases and back to home base. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Idioms from A to Z

You will be responsible for understanding the idioms listed below. To study them, look up their definitions at the following website: http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/ (you can cut and paste this URL into another window).

These are the idioms you must remember for next week:

a little bird told me
Achilles' heel
all hat, no cattle
all the tea in China
ants in your pants
apple of your eye
asleep at the wheel
ballpark figure
barfly
beat around the bush
between a rock and a hard place
Big Apple
birthday suit
blow a gasket
burn the midnight oil
cat nap
cold feet
drive [someone] up the wall
eager beaver
eat humble pie
elephant in the room
eye for an eye
face the music
fairweather friend
flash in the pan
food for thought
grab the bull by its horns
graveyard shift
heads will roll
in one ear out the other
in the doghouse
keep your eyes on the ball
kid gloves
light at the end of the tunnel
miss the boat
my hands are tied
not my cup of tea
on the tip of your tongue
once bitten, twice shy
paint the town red
put your foot in your mouth
quiet as a mouse
rack your brain
rank and file
ring a bell
sacred cow
throw in the towel
true blue
upper hand
vicious circle
wake-up call
writing on the wall
X factor
yellow press
you scratch my back and I scratch yours
zero tolerance (note: this can relate to zero tolerance for anything; not only crime)

Debate Information

Over the next few weeks, we will hold in-class debates. Students will be divided into two teams on each side. The speaking order will be as follows:

Opening Arguments
1st Proposition Speaker... 4 minutes
1st Opposition Speaker... 4 minutes
2nd Proposition... 4 minutes
2nd Opposition... 4 minutes

Summary (Rebuttal-no new arguments)
3rd Opposition... 3 minutes
3rd Proposition... 3 minutes

The proposition team will present a topic for debate. They can choose from the following list of issues, or they can choose another topic of their choice (but run it by me first...). Here are some sample topics:

-Good things come to those who wait.
-It is better to save time than money.
-Love is foolish.
-Conventionality is not morality
-Technology is killing our work ethic.
-"History" is not "her story."
-Dogs are better pets for humankind than cats.
-The students should run the school.
-Privacy is more important than security.
-There is, in this age, a dearth of heroes.
-Society today has an unhealthy obsession with sports.
-What costs little is of little worth.
-"Ex's" should not remain friends.
-Freedom of the individual is a myth.
-Art is in the eye of the beholder.

If you would like more background on academic debate, see the following article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate.

"Fly" by Nick Drake

Please give me a second grace
Please give me a second face
I've fallen far down
The first time around
Now I just sit on the ground in your way
Now if it's time for recompense for what's done
Come, come sit down on the fence in the sun
And the clouds will roll by
And we'll never deny
It's really too hard for to fly.
Please tell me your second name
Please play me your second game
I've fallen so far
For the people you are
I just need your star for a day
So come, come ride in my street-car by the bay
For now I must know how fine you are in your way
And the sea sure as I
But she won't need to cry
For its really too hard for to fly.

Group Project: Fix That Song (due Oct. 25)

The words that follow are the words to an actual song. Unfortunately, the words have become a bit mixed up. Your assignment is to take these words and make a new song. It does not matter if the new song lines are similar to the old song--all that matters is that the song should be put together using correct English. Try your best to use each words once and to use only the words contained below (but you can add extra words if you absolutely have to). Work together in a group of 2 to 4 people (but no more). Bring your song lines to our next class.

game
come
know
for now
Please
down
done
your
if
a day
clouds
recompense
grace
way
on the
deny
the
I've
Please
me
roll
down
ride
play
me
your
really
fallen
sure
And
a second
around
star
your
need
bay
come
Please
second
on the
in
too
will
name
ground
me
my
people
face
give
the sea
how
sit
time
give
a
first time
sun
hard
cry
I've
Now
far
just
way
So
for
must
the
now I
come
fence
what's
it's
to
never
streetcar
we'll
for
fine
your
fly
far
for
and
fly
second
sit
in the
too
to
won't
I
by
so
are
I
And
for
fallen
tell
she
as
just
hard
it's
Please
the
are
it's
come
to
your
the
need
but
me
second
for
you
really
I
in
by
for
you
in
to

Poems

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes

----------

The people upstairs all practice ballet
Their living room is a bowling alley
Their bedroom is full of conducted tours.
Their radio is louder than yours,
They celebrate week-ends all the week.
When they take a shower, your ceilings leak
They try to get their parties to mix
By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks,
And when their fun at last abates,
They go to the bathroom on roller skates.
I might love the people upstairs more
If only they lived on another floor.

-Ogden Nash

----------

Spring is like a perhaps hand

(which comes carefully

out of Nowhere)arranging

a window,into which people look(while

people stare

arranging and changing placing

carefully there a strange

thing and a known thing here)and


changing everything carefully


spring is like a perhaps

Hand in a window

(carefully to

and fro moving New and

Old things,while

people stare carefully

moving a perhaps

fraction of flower here placing

an inch of air there)and


without breaking anything.

-e.e. cummings

----------

Like a fading piece of cloth

I am a failure


No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter

My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able

To hold the hot and cold


I wish for those first days

When just woven I could keep water

From seeping through

Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave

Dazzled the sunlight with my

Reflection


I grow old though pleased with my memories

The tasks I can no longer complete

Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past


I offer no apology only

this plea:


When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end

Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt

That I might keep some child warm


And some old person with no one else to talk to

Will hear my whispers


And cuddle

near

-Nikki Giovanni

---------
 
"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,

"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,

None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."


"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,

"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.

But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."


All along the watchtower, princes kept the view

While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.


Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,

Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

-Bob Dylan