Unit

#8: Narrative Poem

Quiz Due Tuesday, March 24th
Poem Due Thursday, March 26th
Typed, 30-50 lines

Charles Bukowski, My Old Man
Edwin Arlington Robinson Richard Cory

Eduardo Galeano, From The Book of Embraces

Dudley Randall, Ballad of Birmingham
Robert Hass, A Story About the Body
Pete Seeger, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

Write a poem that tells a story. Incorporate the elements that are common to prose into your poetic story: plot,
character, setting, conflict, dialogue. The poem does not have to rhyme.
Use the poetic line and proper stanza formation when telling this story. Draft the poem first. Then take time to go back
and form the line breaks in a way that allows the story to unfold at a compelling pace. Do not break the lines on the
words like, and, or, the. Instead break the lines on powerful nouns and verbs.

Option #1: Psychological Conflict
Write a story that expresses an internal conflict within a character. Consider revealing the conflict in a surprising way,
modeling your poem after Edgar Arlington Robinsons work Richard Cory.

Option #2 Internal/External Dialogue
Using may i feel said he as an example, tell a story in which you create two levels of dialogue, the actual words spoken
between two or more characters and the thoughts that are kept secret. Do not follow the he said/she said pattern;
instead create your own story (do not rhyme) but use parenthesis or some other device to demarcate the the internal
thoughts of the characters.

Option #3: Ballad
Write a story following the ballad structure. Use four line stanzas as you create your story. Do not force rhyme in the
ballad. It is better to leave words unrhymed than to force it. Look at The Ballad of Birmiingham as example. Your
ballad must include a conflict that pushes the narrative forward and compels the reader to continue reading.

Option #4: Epistolary Poem
Use the form of a letter to tell a story to the reader. The letter can be addressed to anyonethe story can be about
anything. Just be sure to include a conflict, whether internal or external. See Sonnys Lettah.

Option #5: Character Portrait
Focus your story on a character and follows this character as he or she goes through a drastic change in his or her life.
Look at Richard Cory as an example.

Option #5: Shifting Perspectives
Write a poem in which you shift perspectives during the poem, telling the same story from at least two different angles.
For instance, you could provide both the male and female characters perspectives from A Story About the Body or
create your own narrative.

Option #6 Refrain
Tell as story about anything, but use a refrain (this is similar to a chorus in a song) to build tension over the course of a
narrative. See Pete Seegers Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.

My Old Man

16 years old
during the depression
Id come home drunk
and all my clothing
shorts, shirts, stockings
suitcase, and pages of
short stories
would be thrown out on the
front lawn and about the
street.
my mother would be
waiting behind a tree:
Henry, Henry, dont
go in . . .hell
kill you, hes read
your stories . . .
I can whip his
ass . . .
Henry, please take
this . . .and
find yourself a room.
but it worried him
that I might not
finish high school
so Id be back
again.
one evening he walked in
with the pages of
one of my short stories
(which I had never submitted
to him)
and he said, this is
a great short story.
I said, o.k.,
and he handed it to me
and I read it.
it was a story about
a rich man
who had a fight with
his wife and had
gone out into the night
for a cup of coffee
and had observed
the waitress and the spoons
and forks and the

Charles Bukowski

salt and pepper shakers

and the neon sign
in the window
and then had gone back
to his stable
to see and touch his
favorite horse
who then
kicked him in the head
and killed him.
somehow
the story held
meaning for him
though
when I had written it
I had no idea
of what I was
writing about.
so I told him,
o.k., old man, you can
have it.
and he took it
and walked out
and closed the door.
I guess thats
as close
as we ever got.


Richard Cory

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Ballad of Birmingham

Dudley Randall 19142000

(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)

Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?

No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Arent good for a little child.

But, mother, I wont be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free.

No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the childrens choir.

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
O, heres the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?

Eduardo Galeano

From The Book of Embraces

There was an old and solitary man who spent most of his time in bed. There were rumors that he had a treasure hidden
in his house. One day some thieves broke in, they searched everywhere and found a chest in the cellar. They went off
with it and when they opened it they found that it was filled with letters. They were the love letters the old man had
received all over the course of his long life. The thieves were going to burn the letters, but they talked it over and finally
decided to return them. One by one. One a week. Since then, every Monday at noon, the old man would be waiting for
the postman to appear. As soon as he saw him, he would start running and the postman, who knew all about it, held the
letter ready in his hand. And even St. Peter could hear the beating of that heart, crazed with joy at receiving a message
from a woman

Robert Hass

A Story About the Body


The young composer, working that summer at an artists colony, had watched her for a week. She was Japanese, a
painter, almost sixty, and he thought he was in love with her. He loved her work, and her work was like the way she
moved her body, used her hands, looked at him directly when she mused and considered answers to his questions. One
night, walking back from a concert, they came to her door and she turned to him and said, I think you would like to
have me. I would like that too, but I must tell you that I have had a double mastectomy, and when he didnt
understand, Ive lost both my breasts. The radiance that he had carried around in his belly and chest cavity-like music-
withered quickly, and he made himself look at her when he said, Im sorry I dont think I could. He walked back to his
own cabin through the pines, and in the morning he found a small blue bowl on the porch outside his door. It looked to
be full of rose petals, but he found when he picked it up that the rose petals were on top; the rest of the bowl-she must
have swept the corners of her studio-was full of dead bees.

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

Pete Seeger

It was back in nineteen forty-two,

I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.
The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.
The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.
All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.
We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;

I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!

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