Stout 1 Jaime Stout Dr.

Walton AP English 12/ Period 4 4 February 2013

JABBERWOCKY By Lewis Carroll Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch! He took his vorpal sword in hand; Long time the manxome foe he sought So rested he by the Tumtum tree And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy. Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Stout 2 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

To me the Jabberwocky represents any major obstacle in life that we must overcome or defeat, whether its a path to our dreams or the loss of a loved one. "Jabberwocky" is considered one of the greatest nonsense poems written in English.[2][3] Its playful, whimsical language has given us nonsense words and neologisms such as "galumphing" and "chortle". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky) A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM By Edgar Allan Poe Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?

Stout 3 This poem is about how finite life can be, and yet it is not something solid we can grasp on to. That life no matter how hard we try to prolong it, is as fleeting as a wave on the sand. The poem dramatizes a confusion in watching the important things in life slip away.[1] Realizing he cannot hold onto even one grain of sand leads to his final question that all things are a dream. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dream_Within_a_Dream)

DREAM-LAND By Edgar Allan Poe By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACEOut of TIME. Bottomless vales and boundless floods, And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods, With forms that no man can discover For the tears that drip all over; Mountains toppling evermore Into seas without a shore; Seas that restlessly aspire, Surging, unto skies of fire; Lakes that endlessly outspread Their lone waterslone and dead, Their still watersstill and chilly With the snows of the lolling lily. By the lakes that thus outspread Their lone waters, lone and dead, Their sad waters, sad and chilly With the snows of the lolling lily, By the mountainsnear the river Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever, By the grey woods,by the swamp Where the toad and the newt encamp, By the dismal tarns and pools Where dwell the Ghouls, By each spot the most unholy

Stout 4 In each nook most melancholy, There the traveller meets, aghast, Sheeted Memories of the Past Shrouded forms that start and sigh As they pass the wanderer by White-robed forms of friends long given, In agony, to the Earthand Heaven. For the heart whose woes are legion T is a peaceful, soothing region For the spirit that walks in shadow T isoh, t is an Eldorado! But the traveller, travelling through it, May notdare not openly view it; Never its mysteries are exposed To the weak human eye unclosed; So wills its King, who hath forbid The uplifting of the fring'd lid; And thus the sad Soul that here passes Beholds it but through darkened glasses. By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have wandered home but newly From this ultimate dim Thule. This poem pretty much describes the perfection you can attain while dreaming, and the places available to your mind, compared to the agony of Earth-reality. This lyric poem consists of five stanzas, with the first and last being nearly identical. The dream-voyager arrives in a place beyond time and space and decides to stay there. This place is odd yet majestic, with "mountains toppling evermore into seas without a shore." Even so, it is a "peaceful, soothing region" and is a hidden treasure like El Dorado. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poems_by_Edgar_Allan_Poe)

ENOUGH By Suzanne Buffam I am wearing dark glasses inside the house To match my dark mood. I have left all the sugar out of the pie. My rage is a kind of domestic rage.

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I learned it from my mother Who learned it from her mother before her And so on. Surely the Greeks had a word for this. Now surely the Germans do. The more words a person knows To describe her private sufferings The more distantly she can perceive them. I repeat the names of all the cities Ive known And watch an ant drag its crooked shadow home. What does it mean to love the life weve been given? To act well the part thats been cast for us? Wind. Light. Fire. Time. A train whistles through the far hills. One day I plan to be riding it. This poem really hits me as one of longing to experience life and the unknown and release all feelings o f discontentment gathered in mundane ordinary life. SUBJECT Living, Midlife, Relationships, Home Life, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Social Commentaries, Life Choices (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/239578#about)

FAIRY-LAND By Edgar Allan Poe Dim valesand shadowy floods And cloudy-looking woods, Whose forms we cant discover For the tears that drip all over: Huge moons there wax and wane Againagainagain Every moment of the night Forever changing places And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces.

Stout 6 About twelve by the moon-dial, One more filmy than the rest (A kind which, upon trial, They have found to be the best) Comes downstill downand down With its centre on the crown Of a mountains eminence, While its wide circumference In easy drapery falls Over hamlets, over halls, Wherever they may be Oer the strange woodsoer the sea Over spirits on the wing Over every drowsy thing And buries them up quite In a labyrinth of light And then, how, deep! O, deep, Is the passion of their sleep. In the morning they arise, And their moony covering Is soaring in the skies, With the tempests as they toss, Likealmost any thing Or a yellow Albatross. They use that moon no more For the same end as before, Videlicet, a tent Which I think extravagant: Its atomies, however, Into a shower dissever, Of which those butterflies Of Earth, who seek the skies, And so come down again (Never-contented things!) Have brought a specimen Upon their quivering wings. I think this poem is about the mystery that is dreaming. This is poes explanations of how and why we dream: via fairies So the movement of the poem goes from the grotesque "Mooreism" of the magical Moon and its absurd breakup at dawn to Poe's closing lesson in simplicity and appropriate symbolism. the little things, the stars, the butterflies, one can enjoy all of it. The absurd wonder of the comedy of satire to Poe's gentle closing can be enjoyed for the laugh, the wonder and the beauty- a lesson in its entirety as it is cleverly critical in its intent. (http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00ByQD)

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THE LETTER By Dana Gioia And in the end, all that is really left Is a feelingstrong and unavoidable That somehow we deserved something better. That somewhere along the line things Got fouled up. And that letter from whoevers In charge, which certainly would have set Everything straight between us and the world, Never reached us. Got lost somewhere. Possibly mislaid in some provincial station. Or sent by mistake to an old address Whose new tenant put it on her dresser With the curlers and the hairspray forgetting To give it to the landlord to forward. And we still wait like children who have sent Two weeks allowance far away To answer an enticing advertisement From a crumbling, yellow magazine, Watching through years as long as a childhood summer, Checking the postbox with impatient faith Even on days when mail is never brought. This poem to me, is about all the factors in life, big and miniscule that can affect how our lives turn out, who we fall in love with, where we live, and what we do. It seems almost a requirement for a poet to have an unconventional rsum, but Dana Gioias is perhaps notable for being so conventionally unpoetic (www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175694#about)

A LIFE By Edith Sdergran That the stars are adamant everyone understands but I wont give up seeking joy on each blue wave or peace below every gray stone. If happiness never comes, what is a life? A lily withers in the sand and if its nature has failed? The tide

Stout 8 washes the beach at night. What is the fly looking for on the spiders web? What does a dayfly make of its hours? (Two wings creased over a hollow body.) Black will never turn to white yet the perfume of our struggle lingers as each morning fresh flowers spring up from hell. The day will come when the earth is emptied, the skies collapse and all goes still when nothing remains but the dayfly folded in a leaf. But no one knows it. This poem essentially searches to define the meaning of life, and what good it would be to know it if there is one/ using associative free verse and describing selected details instead of entire landscapes. Expression of a young, modern, female consciousness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_S%C3%B6dergran#Work_and_aesthetic_position)

MY LITTLE DREAMS By Georgia Douglas Johnson Im folding up my little dreams Within my heart tonight, And praying I may soon forget The torture of their sight. For times deft fingers scroll my brow With fell relentless art Im folding up my little dreams Tonight, within my heart. This poem describes how narrator is now bottling up all of her hopes and dreams and feelings and keeping them trapped inside her so she no longer can be disappointed with them. Poem Categorization, SUBJECT Disappointment & Failure (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/236618#about)

Stout 9 THE RAVEN By Edgar Allan Poe Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. Tis some visiter, I muttered, tapping at my chamber door Only this and nothing more. Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrowsorrow for the lost Lenore For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore Nameless here for evermore. And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled mefilled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; This it is and nothing more. Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, Sir, said I, or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard youhere I opened wide the door; Darkness there and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, Lenore? This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, Lenore! Merely this and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. Surely, said I, surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; Tis the wind and nothing more!

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Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou, I said, art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Nights Plutonian shore! Quoth the Raven Nevermore. Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaninglittle relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as Nevermore. But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing farther then he utterednot a feather then he fluttered Till I scarcely more than muttered Other friends have flown before On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before. Then the bird said Nevermore. Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, Doubtless, said I, what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of Nevernevermore. But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking Nevermore. This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosoms core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

Stout 11 On the cushions velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated oer, But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating oer, She shall press, ah, nevermore! Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. Wretch, I cried, thy God hath lent theeby these angels he hath sent thee Respiterespite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore; Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore! Quoth the Raven Nevermore. Prophet! said I, thing of evil!prophet still, if bird or devil! Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted On this home by Horror hauntedtell me truly, I implore Is thereis there balm in Gilead?tell metell me, I implore! Quoth the Raven Nevermore. Prophet! said I, thing of evil!prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above usby that God we both adore Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore. Quoth the Raven Nevermore. Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend! I shrieked, upstarting Get thee back into the tempest and the Nights Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door! Quoth the Raven Nevermore. And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demons that is dreaming, And the lamp-light oer him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be liftednevermore! I think the Raven in the poem represents the narrators guilty conscious that he is unable to escape no matter how hard he tries. The main theme of the poem is one of undying devotion.[9] The narrator experiences a perverse conflict between desire to forget and desire to remember. He seems to get some pleasure from focusing on loss (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raven#Analysis)

ROMANCE

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By Edgar Allan Poe Romance, who loves to nod and sing, With drowsy head and folded wing, Among the green leaves as they shake Far down within some shadowy lake, To me a painted paroquet Hath beena most familiar bird Taught me my alphabet to say To lisp my very earliest word While in the wild wood I did lie, A childwith a most knowing eye. Of late, eternal Condor years So shake the very Heaven on high With tumult as they thunder by, I have no time for idle cares Through gazing on the unquiet sky. And when an hour with calmer wings Its down upon my spirit flings That little time with lyre and rhyme To while awayforbidden things! My heart would feel to be a crime Unless it trembled with the strings. This poem is about the narrators struggle with wanting to believe in love, and be loved, yet also not wanting idly waste his life in tenacious tumult only to end up unhappy. "I could not love except where Death / Was mingling his with Beauty's breath," a line often termed autobiographical as many of the women in Poe's love life were ill (an early love Jane Stanard died of tuberculosis, as did his wife Virginia; also, his later love Sarah Helen Whitman had a weak heart, etc.). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poems_by_Edgar_Allan_Poe#Romance_.281829.29)

ONSTAGE By Jaime Stout You hear the gentle rumble of conversations, then all falls silent. The overture begins and the curtain rises. The dark stage is suddenly filled with light. The songs surface from inside you. You dance like your limbs can fly.

Stout 13 You feel you are on top of the world. You can do anything, be anyone. All eyes are on you. When it's over the sense of accomplishment is unreal. You feel of importance, of worth. You are congratulated and embraced, it's like being on a cloud. And soon it's over. People forget. They move on, and so do you. Until it starts all over again.