ACL 305: American Poetry I. Material for 14.10.2019

@jotWeigelt The African Chief

By Sarah Wentworth Morton (1759–1846)

SEE 1 how the black ship cleaves the main,   High bounding o’er the dark blue wave, Remurmuring with the groans of pain,   Deep freighted with the princely slave! Did all the gods of Afric sleep,         5   Forgetful of their guardian love, When the white tyrants of the deep,   Betrayed him in the palmy grove. A chief of Gambia’s golden shore,   Whose arm the band of warriors led,         10 Or more—the lord of generous power,   By whom the foodless poor were fed. Does not the voice of reason cry,   “Claim the first right that nature gave, From the red scourge of bondage fly,         15   Nor deign to live a burden’d slave.” Has not his suffering offspring clung,   Desponding round his fetter’d knee; On his worn shoulder, weeping hung,   And urged one effort to be free?         20 His wife by nameless wrongs subdued,   His bosom’s friend to death resign’d; The flinty path-way drench’d in blood;   He saw with cold and frenzied mind. Strong in despair, then sought the plain,         25   To heaven was raised his steadfast eye, Resolved to burst the crushing chain,   Or ’mid the battle’s blast to die. First of his race, he led the band,   Guardless of danger, hurling round,         30 Till by his red avenging hand,   Full many a despot stain’d the ground. When erst Messenia’s sons oppress’d,   Flew desperate to the sanguine field, With iron clothed each injured breast,         35   And saw the cruel Spartan yield, Did not the soul to heaven allied,   With the proud heart as greatly swell, As when the Roman Decius died,   Or when the Grecian victim fell?         40 Do later deeds quick rapture raise,   The boon Batavia’s William won, Paoli’s time-enduring praise,   Or the yet greater Washington! If these exalt thy sacred zeal,         45   To hate oppression’s mad control, For bleeding Afric learn to feel,   Whose chieftain claim’d a kindred soul. Ah, mourn the last disastrous hour,   Lift the full eye of bootless grief,         50 While victory treads the sultry shore,   And tears from hope the captive chief; While the hard race of pallid hue,   Unpractised in the power to feel, Resign him to the murderous crew,         55   The horrors of the quivering wheel. Let sorrow bathe each blushing cheek,   Bend piteous o’er the tortured slave, Whose wrongs compassion cannot speak,   Whose only refuge was the grave.         60 Note 1. Morton, wife of the Hon. Perez Morton, Attorney General of Massachusetts, is a native of Boston, and occupied the first rank among the female writers of America in the early part of her life. Her verses published under the name of Philenia, enjoyed about thirty years since a wide popularity. Of late years she has not devoted herself much to poetry; but in 1823 she published a volume of prose and verse, entitled “My Mind and its Thoughts.” [back]                                              Life Aboard a Slave Ship | History Memento: For My Infant, Who Lived but Eighteen Hours by Sarah Wentworth Morton As the pure snow-drop, child of April tears, Shook by the rough wind's desolating breath — Scarce o'er the chilly sod its low head rears, And trembling dies upon the parent heath. So my lost boy, arrayed in fancy's charms, Just born to mourn — with premature decay T O THE COLD TYRANT stretched his feeble arms, And struggling sighed his little life away. As not in vain the early snow-drop rose, Though short its date, and hard the withering gale; Since its pale bloom ethereal balm bestows, And cheers with vernal hope the wasted vale . My perished child, dear pledge of many a pain! Torn from this ruffian world, in yon bright sphere, Joins with awakened voice the cherub train, And pours his sweet breath on a mother's ear. Kind dreams of morn his fairy phantom bring, And floating tones of extasy impart, Soft as when Seraphs strike the heavenly string To charm the settled sorrow of the heart.

ACL 359: Material for Postmodern Lit: 15.10.2019

Noèlia Andrés

from Hinge Picture

BY SUSAN HOWE

“Crawl in,” said the witch, “and see if it’s hot enough to put the bread in.”
—Hansel and Gretel

All roads lead to rooms.
—Irish Proverb

a stark

                  Quake

               a numb

                  Calm

                      *

               clutching my Crumbl

               ejumble

                  among

               Tombs and

               in Caves

                  my

                Dream

                Vision

               Oarsman, oarsman,

                  Where have you been?

               I’ve been to Leafy,

               I’ve dismembered the Queen.

               Oarsman, oarsman

                  What did you there?

               I hid in a cleft,

               I braided the air.

hearing our oars where their freed goatsteps sped   

and are silent

by an extinct river

O Babylon when I lay down

alert for sliding cataracts

where in corridors the print of dancing feet   

beyond poise I am prey

posing in snow-light

being of human form

clothed in the scales of a fish

Count him a magician

he controls the storm

walked on the sea shouting   

that he is the Logos of God

that he is the Word original and first begotten

attended by power

upheld by his mother

(a very active gesturing baby)   

what if Simon Peter Jesus himself   

walked among the cold stone faces

shouting NIKA

emptyeyed blanksmiling

                            Swiftness divination these false gods

                            their commerce is the cloud

                            so they can learn what is preparing in the sky   

                            Artificer of the universe

                            Magician who controls the storm

                            to see you in one spot

                            I count the clouds others count the seasons   

                            Dreaming of archipelagos and the desert   

                            I have lived through weeks of years

                            I have raked up fallen leaves for winter   

                            after winter across an empire of icy light

Light of our dark is the fruit of my womb

or night falling through the reign of splashes   

Liquid light that bathes the landscape in my figure   

Clairvoyant Ireland

eras and eras encircled by sea

the barrows of my ancestors have spilled their bones   

across the singing ear in hear or shell   

as wreck or wrack may be in daring   

There were giants on the earth in those days   

feasts then on hill and fort

All night the borders of my bed

carve paths across my face

and I always forget to leave my address   

frightened by the way that midnight

grips my palm and tells me that my lines   

are slipping out of question

Divorce I manumission round

with a gentle blow the casting branch

my right hand My covenant

was garment concealed or mask or matron

Proceed with measured step   

the field and action of the law   

Like day the tables twelve   

whip torch and radiate halo   

Sky brewing coming storm   

Faraway over the hill

when Hell was harrowed

and earth was brought to heel   

how the hills spread away   

how the walls crumbled   

deathcolored frozen in time

Where was the senate   zone and horizon

Where are the people   mountain of light to the east   

Tell them I sail for the deep sea rest

a painless extraction a joyful day   

bird of passage over all I love   

Goodbye to all the little fir trees   

of the future

               far   off    in    the    dread

               blindness    I   heard   light

               eagerly   I   struck   my foot

               against    a      stone      and

               raised    a    din    at    the

               sound    the   blessed    Paul

               shut   the   door   which   had

               been   open   and   bolted   it

London Crossfigured

BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

London

                  crossfigured   

                  creeping with trams

         and the artists on sundays

                                        in the summer   

   all ‘tracking Nature’

                               in the suburbs

             It

                could have been anyplace   

                         but it wasn’t

                              It was

                                       London

                                                and when someone shouted over

that they had got a model

                                  I ran out across the court

                     but then

                                 when the model started taking off

                her clothes

                                 there was nothing underneath

                                                                           I mean to say   

    she took off her shoes

                                     and found no feet   

                  took off her top

                                          and found no tit

                                                under it

                  and I must say she did look

                                                          a bit

                                                                ASTOUNDED

                         just standing there

                              looking down

                        at where her legs were

                                                         not

         But so very carefully then

                                                she put her clothes back on   

and as soon as she was dressed again

                                                      completely

                      she was completely

                                                 all right

                Do it again! cried someone

                                                       rushing for his easel

                But she was afraid to

                                       

                                           and gave up modelling   

            and forever after

                                                

                         slept in her clothes

The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster

BY RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

When you take your pill

it’s like a mine disaster.

I think of all the people

   lost inside of you.

Mating Saliva

BY RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

A girl in a green mini-

skirt, not very pretty, walks

   down the street.

A businessman stops, turns

to stare at her ass

that looks like a moldy

   refrigerator.

There are now 200,000,000 people

   in America.

I see, writing observation, ACL poetry @halicuni

ACL 109: Homeric Hymn to Dionysus

Homeric Hymn to Dionysus

Translated by Gregory Nagy

1 About Dionysus son of most glorious Semele 2 my mind will connect, how it was that he made an appearance [phainesthai] by the shore of the barren sea 3 on a prominent headland, looking like a young man 4 at the beginning of adolescence. Beautiful were the locks of hair as they waved in the breeze surrounding him. [5] They were the color of deep blue. And a cloak he wore over his strong shoulders, 6 color of purple.

Then, all of a sudden, men seen from a ship with fine benches 7 —men who were pirates—came into view, as they were sailing over the wine-colored [oinops] sea [pontos]. 8 They were Etruscans. And they were being driven along by a destiny that was bad for them. The moment they saw him [= Dionysus], 9 they gave each other a knowing nod, and the very next thing, they were ashore, jumping out of the ship. Quickly they seized him and [10] sat him down inside their ship, happy in their hearts 11 because they thought that he was the son of a line of kings nurtured by the sky god. 12 That is what they thought he was. And they wanted to tie him up in harsh bondage, 13 but the ties of the bonds could not hold him, and the cords made of willow fell off him, all over the place, 14 falling right off his hands and feet. And he just sat there, smiling, [15] looking on with his deep blue eyes.

Meanwhile the steersman [kubernētēs] took note [noeîn], 16 right away, and he called out to his comrades [hetairoi] and said to them: 17 “What kind of superhuman force [daimōn] has possessed you all! What kind of god [theos] is this that you have seized and tried to tie up, 18 powerful as he is? Why, he is too much for the well-built ship to make room for. 19 You see, he must be either Zeus or Apollo, the one with the silver quiver, [20] or Poseidon. I tell you, he is not like mortal humans, 21 he is not like [eikelos] them at all. Rather, he is like the gods who have their dwellings in Olympus. 22 So come on, we should let him go, leaving him on the dark earth of the mainland. 23 Let us do it right away. Do not manhandle him. What if he gets angry 24 and stirs up winds that will make hardship, and a huge whirlwind?” [25] That is how he [= the steersman] spoke.

But the leader of the men reviled him [= the steersman], speaking with hateful words [mūthos]: 26 “No, [not we but] you are the one who is possessed by some kind of superhuman force [daimōn]. Just [do your work and] watch for the wind [to start blowing from behind, and, once it starts blowing], you start hoisting the sail of the ship 27 and hold on to all the ropes. As for this one [= the unrecognized Dionysus], he will be the concern [melein] of my men. 28 I expect he will arrive [with us] in Egypt or maybe in Cyprus 29 or maybe even in the land of the Hyperboreans or beyond. Wherever. In the end, [30] he will tell all: he will come around to saying who are his near and dear ones [philoi] and what are all the possessions he has 31 and he will tell about his siblings. And that is because a superhuman force [daimōn] has put him in our pathway.”

32 Having said this, he [= the leader himself] started hoisting the sail of the ship. 33 Now a wind came and blew right into the middle of the sail, and the ropes that held it at both ends 34 got all stretched to the limit. Then, right away, there appeared [phainesthai] to them things that would make anyone marvel.

[35] Wine. That is what happened first of all. It was all alongside the swift black ship. 36 Sweet to drink, it was splashing around [the ship as if it were inside a cup], smelling good, and the fragrance that rose up 37 was something immortalizing [ambrosiā]. The sailors were seized with amazement, all of them, at the sight. 38 And then, all of a sudden, next to the top of the sail on both sides, there reached out 39 a vine—here, and here too—and hanging from it were many [40] clusters of grapes. Around the mast, dark ivy was winding around, 41 teeming with blossoms. And—a thing of beauty and pleasure [kharieis]—the berry sprang forth [from the ivy]. 42 The benches for rowing now had garlands [stephanoi] all over them.

Once they [= the sailors] saw all this, 43 they started shouting at the steersman [kubernētēs], urging him 44 to sail the ship back to land.

Meanwhile, he [= Dionysus] turned into a lion for them, right there in the ship, [45] looking horrific [deinos], at the prow. It roared a mighty roar. Then, in the middle of the ship, 46 he [= Dionysus] made a bear, with a shaggy neck. Thus he [= Dionysus] made his signals [sēmata] appear [phainein]. 47 It [= the bear] reared up, raging, while the lion, at the top of the deck, 48 glared at them with its horrific looks. The men, terrified, were fleeing toward the stern of the ship, 49 crowding around the steersman [kubernētēs], the one who had a heart [thūmos] that is moderate [sōphrōn]. [50] They just stood there, astounded [ek-plag-entes].

Then it [= the lion] all of a sudden leapt up 51 and took hold of the leader of the men, while they were trying to get out, rushing away from the bad destiny that was theirs. 52 They all together at the same time leapt out, once they saw what they saw, into the gleaming salt sea. 53 They became dolphins.

As for the steersman [kubernētēs] —he [= Dionysus] took pity on him, 54 holding him back [from leaping overboard]. He [= Dionysus] caused it to happen that he [= the steersman] became the most blessed [olbios] of all men, and he [= Dionysus] spoke for the record this set of words [mūthos]: [55] “Have courage, you radiant man, reached by a force that works from far away. You have achieved beauty and pleasure [kharizesthai] for my heart [thūmos]. 56 I am Dionysus, the one with the great thundering sound. The mother who bore me 57 was Semele, daughter of Cadmus, and Zeus made love to her.”

58 Hail and take pleasure [khaire], [O Dionysus,] child of Semele with the beautiful looks. There is no way 59 I could have my mind disconnect from you as I put together the beautiful cosmic order [kosmeîn] of my song.