Poetry Friday: Stephen Crane
Mamacita says: Many people do not know that Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage and The Open Boat – among many other works – was also a poet.
Crane referred to his poems as “lines,” but I call them poems, and I like ’em! Most of them are short, but hardly sweet.
In The Desert
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter – bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”
Once There Came a Man
Once there came a man
Who said,
“Range me all men of the world in rows.”
And instantly
There was terrific clamour among the people
Against being ranged in rows.
There was a loud quarrel, world-wide.
It endured for ages;
And blood was shed
By those who would not stand in rows,
And by those who pined to stand in rows.
Eventually, the man went to death, weeping.
And those who staid in bloody scuffle
Knew not the great simplicity.
God Fashioned The Ship of the World Carefully
God fashioned the ship of the world carefully.
With the infinite skill of an All-Master
Made He the hull and the sails,
Held He the rudder
Ready for adjustment.
Erect stood He, scanning His work proudly.
Then — at fateful time — a wrong called,
And God turned, heeding.
Lo, the ship, at this opportunity, slipped slyly,
Making cunning noiseless travel down the ways.
So that, forever rudderless, it went upon the seas
Going ridiculous voyages,
Making quaint progress,
Turning as with serious purpose
Before stupid winds.
And there were many in the sky
Who laughed at this thing.
I Stood Upon A High Place
I stood upon a high place,
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping,
and carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,
And said, “Comrade! Brother!”
Should the Wide World Roll Away
Should the wide world roll away,
Leaving black terror,
Limitless night,
Nor God, nor man, nor place to stand
Would be to me essential,
If thou and thy white arms were there,
And the fall to doom a long way.
War Is Kind
Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because the lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the Battle-God, great, and his Kingdom –
A field wher a thousand corpses lie.
Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
And finally, the two Stephen Crane “lines” which are my favorites:
A Man Said to the Universe
A man said to the universe:
“Sir I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
I Saw A Man Pursuing the Horizon
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said,
“You can never -”
“You lie,” he cried,
And ran on.
"Slow Down" My Aunt Fanny
Mamacita says: I hated elementary school, and by “hated” what I really mean is, well, HATED.
I learned to read when I was really little, but I have never read as most other people do. When I read, I look at a page and immediately, that page is affixed inside my head. I can later “bring it back,” inside my head, glance at it and know what it says again. If I had to, I could read it back word for word, but that is not how I read. I look at the whole page and just “know.” From the time I was very young, I could do this. It’s really handy on planes, for I can re-read entire books by just closing my eyes, concentrating on a particular book, and seeing it page after page in my head.
Now, try to imagine explaining that to an elementary school teacher. I do not mean to disparage my former teachers, but only one of them ever even TRIED to understand what I was telling her about how I read. The others just kept telling me to slow down, because I was making the other kids feel bad. All through grade school, to “reward” me for being fast, I was sent out into the hall to tutor slow kids.
I still have nightmares about sitting out in the hall trying desperately to get some slow little boy who was exactly my age to understand words like “lamb” and “cereal.” I can still hear my teachers telling me, in that slow, patient voice they used when they were actually really pissed but couldn’t show it, to “slow DOWN” and making me write list after list of little baby words when they KNEW I already knew them. WHY? When I was reading “Gone with the Wind” in fourth grade, my teacher made me check out a little baby book from the library and do a report on it “so the other students will be able to read it, too.” Sometimes, the school librarian would forbid me to check out a book because the “age disclaimer” on it didn’t have my current age listed.
In first grade, I used to keep a stack of library books on the floor under my desk – they wouldn’t fit inside the desk – so I would have SOMETHING to do when the silly little word lists and baby readings and insulting little history paragraphs, etc, were finished, so my teacher, when she glanced my way, would see that I was still reading and wouldn’t make me go out in the hall and do her job for her. One day, she bent over, picked up my stack of books, made a comment to the class about how Janie must think she needed a foot rest, and took them away from me. She told me she was taking recess away from me because of my disrespectful attitude. I was a little kid and didn’t know enough to keep a straight face, and when she saw that I was positively ECSTATIC – I hated recess! – she changed her mind and made me go outside. Sigh.
I’ve been obsessed with astronomy since I was very young, but I soon learned not to do any reports about it. I was also very interested in phosphorescence in nature; after a few accusations of copying, I gave up being myself and started doing stupid projects and paragraphs about stuff like “Which will rust: pebbles or nails?” like everybody else in the class was doing.
Listen, I was no genius child. I was just a reading child. Kids who read know tons more than kids who don’t read. We know ideas and themes and learn early on how to connect all of that to the real world. Readers are unfazed by political incorrectness or correctness – we UNDERSTAND, because we know about context, even if we’re young. As for vocabulary. . . I can’t even discuss it rationally, even still. Being forced to write list after list of one-syllable beginning reading words when I was already reading “Gone with the Wind” was so insulting that I used to wipe tears of indignation off my face as I wrote. I can remember thinking, “Why do they make me come here? Do they wish I was slow? Do they WANT me to go backwards instead of forwards? Why do my teachers help everybody but me?”
I still wonder, because from where I sit, most of our public schools could not possibly care less about the fast kids, or the gifted kids, or the reading kids, because everything – curriculum, money, attention – everything seems to be aimed at the lowest possible common denominator.
This is very, very wrong.
Cream rises to the top, it is true, but if nothing is done with it, the cream goes bad. Worse still, if the cream is forced back down and mixed into the rest of the milk, pretty soon it disappears altogether. Oh, the milk is better off, but the cream isn’t. Doesn’t anybody care about the cream any more?
Education in this country seems to be intent on making everybody equal at the expense of those who are already advanced. Beating the smart kids back down into the rest of the crowd isn’t merely a bad idea, it is an evil idea. It’s EVIL to force the brightest kids back down into the masses of average and below average kids. The whole idea of education is to allow people to ADVANCE, not to deliberately hold them back. Self-esteem be damned; if a kid can do it, let him/her do it! If a kid can’t do it, keep him/her back until he/she can. DO NOT hold back a bright kid if he/she’s proven over and over again that the curriculum is far too simple. And holy scheisse on a popsickle stick, do NOT send a bright kid out into the hall with the slow kids day after day and rationalize it away by calling it “compassion curriculum” or any other made-up name that really means “we don’t have any place for kids this fast and bright and since we have to do SOMETHING with them, it’s a lot easier for everyone concerned to just turn them into unpaid teachers and send them out with Billy and Johnny, who still can’t get it. It’ll teach them all to get along. After all, they’re going to be associating closely with each other out in the real world, and. . . .” Oh, are they? Of COURSE they are. Sigh.
Please don’t yell at me in the comments and tell me how cruel and impatient and uncaring I must be to advocate for the bright kids. I honestly believe that there should be a place for every category of kid. Unfortunately, since every child is a unique individual, it’s not possible to do EXACTLY that, but most schools do their best, unless the child is extra bright, and then the assumption is made that smart kids should count their lucky starts that they’re smart, and that a bright kid can adapt to anything so we don’t have to accommodate them.
Parents, perhaps you don’t know that in many states, G/T falls under the jurisdiction of Special Education. If your child is bright and isn’t being challenged at school, or is being taken advantage of, call your state dept. of education and find out if you need to get an IEP for your child.
Once armed with that, you can force the school to accommodate your child. Get all the parents of extra-bright kids together, and maybe you can bring justice for them to your local school.
Don’t expect it to be easy, because it won’t be. Schools are strapped for cash, and a program for kids who don’t seem to need any help with the state standards won’t seem like any kind of priority to many administrators.
Don’t take “no” for an answer. Your children are worth a battle or two. Or three. Four. Eighty-seven. Do not give up. Keep on. Threaten a lawsuit. DO it.
I never considered myself “gifted” or “talented,” but I was certainly not challenged in grade school, and I was certainly taken advantage of. Don’t let this keep on happening!
Our brightest kids are being neglected and forced BACK. What the bloody hell is wrong with us as a culture? ALL kids deserve encouragement, but the brightest kids are the ones who could do the MOST with even just a little bit!
And now I’m rambling, and probably sounding like a misanthropist when I don’t mean to be. I think ALL of our children deserve the very, very best, and it’s just not fair that most schools aren’t even trying to give it to them.
As for those little age disclaimers inside the book jackets. . . . only the worst, stupidest librarians and teachers pay any attention to those. If a child wants to read a book, the good librarians and teachers allow it. The best ones ENCOURAGE it.
And if your child or student tries to explain to you that he/she reads in an unusual way, LISTEN.
My seven-year-old self thanks you.
Them Ol' Midterm Blues. . . .
Mamacita says:
Midterms are next week. Bummer.
You see, I really like most of my students, and it makes me sad to see so many of them stressing over their midterm tests. Some of my students have several different midterm exams in the same week, which really puts the crunch on their time and nerves.
I recently discovered that several of my students have found me online, and are reading this blog. I shall therefore use this fact to their advantage, and give them this message:
Dear Savvy Students:
First of all, thank you for being “techie” enough to find your professor on the internet. Please remember that I know a lot about YOU, too.
Secondly, I want to give you all a warm, elderly hug and remind you that a test is nothing but a piece of paper. It doesn’t represent YOU at all; it only represents what you can conjure up, at a given time on a given day, assuming you don’t have a migraine or are “taking” the flu, that the State hasn’t screwed up your unemployment, that you don’t have any problems at home or on the job, that your children are well, happy, and doing fine in school or at the sitter’s, and that your personal lives are also perfect in every way. A midterm exam is not an omen; your midterm grade doesn’t necessarily reflect your final grade; it’s just an indicator of how well you are understanding the material right now, or, rather, next week. If you ace the midterm, don’t celebrate quite yet; the semester is only half over and a lot can happen between now and then. If you mess up on the midterm, don’t let it ruin your life; the semester is only half over and a lot can happen between now and then. Is there an echo in here?
Thirdly, even if you DO screw up on the midterm and on the final, the world will not stop spinning. You can always take the course again. Often – and I’m not exaggerating – OFTEN, adult students simply need a little more review before they dive right into college. It’s no disgrace; it’s a fact. That English teacher you had back in your junior year who told you that you’d be using your knowledge of sentence fragments and infinitives every. single. day. of. your. adult. life was a big, fat, poo-poo headed lying liar. It IS true, however, that whatever she/he taught you that year is still filed away in your head, somewhere, and one of my goals THIS semester is to help you open those old brain-files, find all that stuff you put in there, never to be seen again, and apply it to your college life.
Remember what I keep saying in class – whichever class you might be in this semester – and that is that every aspect of your life is connected in some way to every other aspect of your life, and to the universe. NOTHING stands alone. “No man is an island” is much more than the first line of a famous poem. It’s famous because it’s TRUE.
Anything that exists only within the four walls of a classroom is useless.
That old party game called “Six Degrees of Separation?” It’s not just a party game. It’s life.
Activate your schema. Midterms are next week. Don’t let them scare you. Walk into that classroom, open up your test, and strut your stuff. Wield your #2 pencil, make your marks heavy and dark, and show that piece of paper who’s boss.
Hint: it’s you.
Sincerely,
Your Online Professor
P.S. I’m not promising anything, but it’s possible that there might be some extra credit somewhere on this post, if you print it out and bring it with you next week. The professor is more than just a little bit on the quirky side, as you have no doubt realized by now, and heaven only knows what might happen that could be of some benefit to you. Shhhh, you did not hear that from me. I have no idea what you’re talking about.
