Class of 1968 QOD – What is your favorite poem? Lee Gordon, C’68:

I thought it might be interesting and worthwhile to hear from an expert in the literary field. Thus, Penn Professor Phyllis Rackin came to my immediate attention. Below are Phyllis’ “Elite Eight” : “Here are some of my favorites, in no particular order. Hopkins "God's Grandeur" Yeats "Father and Child" "Among School Children" "Vacillation" Shakespeare Macleish "Not marble nor the gilded monuments" Marvell "The Definition of Love" Frost "Nature's first green is gold"

Lee Gordon, C'68

This one I had memorized back in Junior High School. This poem made me realize that you must never be envious of someone’s wealth, fame or looks. You just never know what is going on in other people’s lives. In short, be grateful for all the good things life has brought you. Even a cynical 60’s guy like me can be humbled by this poem.

Richard Cory, by 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—yes, 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.

Diane McClure Holsenbeck, CW’68

Most people do not read or do not understand , so it is great to receive so many poems that follow my story:

19 years ago a sub-sized post card arrived in the mail inviting me to an event at Lincoln Center called “Poetry and the Creative Mind“ by the Academy of American Poets. I wondered why the invitation was so easy to overlook and circular file. Then I looked more closely. The moderator was to be Meryl Streep and one of the readers was to be Caroline Kennedy (only months after her brother’s fatal accident). I rsvp’d and was given two front row seats. When I asked my husband if he could take off work a tad early he said he didn’t understand poetry. (A Yale education somehow did not cure that.) So he appeared just before start time and remained standing in the back of the theatre. One of the first readers was Natalie Portman who was abysmal. Meryl Streep was on the edge of her seat cringing for her. It was obvious that the problem lay in the fact that Natalie had only been in movies where she relied on retakes instead of being in live stage performances. The other readers were captivating. They read some poems that hitherto my husband would have either passed over or simply not understood. Fast forward to the next year when my husband asked me when the poetry thing was going to be. He didn’t want to miss it. He became the eagle eye on the mail and started inviting guests. It is true that poets are notorious for not being able to read their own poems. Recall Robert Frost’s reading at Kennedy’s inauguration? And knew an exceptional poet for the 2021 inauguration, Amanda Gorman. And we have a poet in the Class of 1968 who is also a rare exception, Mary McGinnis.

Poem choice: I must edit this request for a favorite poem in terms of what I have chosen just now. It is not “my favorite poem.“ It is “A favorite poem at the moment tonight.“ After all, why does the Academy of American Poets invite people to subscribe to “Poem-A-Day?“

This one is by the very accessible poet, Ted Kooser, a two term US and Pulitzer prize winner. “Garrison, Indiana” was published in his 13th full length collection of poems entitled “Spitting an Order,“ when he turned 75. `

The north-south streets are named for poets – Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Lowell – so it is no surprise that this tiny village is fading to gray, mildewed and dusty, shelved at the back of the busy library of American progress. On this winter day all that’s left of Whittier’s “Snow-Bound “ whispers in under the nailed-shut door of a house at the edge of the cornfield, and slides across a red vinyl car seat wedged in a broken tree. All but a few stubborn families have packed up and left, seeking a better life, following Evangeline, leaving this island with it cars up on blocks, its gardens of broken washing machines, its empty rabbit hutches nailed to sheds, cold and alone on the sea of the prairie, to be pounded and pounded forever by time and then whitecaps of snow. ***

If that poem is just too dreary a reminder then maybe this one, also by Ted Kooser, that starts from something downbeat BUT…

“The Woman Whose Husband Was Dying”

She turned her eyes from mine, for within mine she knew there wasn’t room for all her sorrow. She needed a plain that she could flood with grief, and as she stood there by the door I saw the distance before her slowly filling, as if from hidden springs, and she stepped outside, and placed one foot and then the other on the future, and it held her up.

Betsy Scott Kleeblatt, CW'68

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Linda Kates, CW’68, GED’69, WG’75 This has always been one of my favorite poems. I love the tranquility that it offers, especially welcome in our turbulent world. Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Sue Croll, CW’68, G’94

Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” is among my favorite poems. It’s message “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall…” is timely, as well: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall.

Elsie Sterling Howard, CW’68

“Ozymandias” By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away;"

Jack Goldenberg, C'68 “A Poison Tree” by

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told him not, my wrath did grow

Karen Whitestone Carr, CW'68

“Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

My favorite poem since I grew up in Concord, Mass and we had to recite it every year on April 19th. Paul Revere rode into Concord from Boston after midnight on the 19th of April 1775 shouting “The British are coming!”. The start of the revolutionary war and the shot heard round the world. https://poets.org/poem/paul-reveres-ride Karen: This is one my daughter just reminded me of after a bad day at school:

Lonnie Schooler, C'68

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” & “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Phyllis Ettinger Rodbell, CW'68 I used the lyrics from the song Eleanor Rigby when I taught poetry to 8th graders right after I graduated from Penn. They said “blah" to poetry until they realized poetry was all around them. So it has remained one of my favorites.

Eleanor Rigby Lyricist: JOHN LENNON, JOHN WINSTON LENNON, PAUL MCCARTNEY, PAUL JAMES MCCARTNEY Composer: JOHN LENNON, JOHN WINSTON LENNON, PAUL MCCARTNEY, PAUL JAMES MCCARTNEY

Ah, look at all the lonely people Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been Lives in a dream Waits at , wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door Who is it for?

All the lonely people Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear No one comes near Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there What does he care?

All the lonely people Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name Nobody came Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave No one was saved

Carol Shlifer Clapp Coonley, CW'68 These are poems that made an impression, recently and not so recently. These are not the poems I memorized. These do not include childhood poems — otherwise I would have to include the entire books of A Child’s Garden of Verses, When We Were Very Young, Now We Are Six and Poems Every Child Should Know. These are not poems I read for any class before 1969. And yes, I love Ozymandias and Invictus and When I Was One and Twenty and Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and so on. I am not including Emily and Walt because then I would have to include the Bible.

This was the hardest question yet.

1. An old one: When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43283/when-you-are-old

2. A modern one: [somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond] by E. E. Cummings 3. A wry one: Married is better by Judith Viorst (in When Did I Stop Being 20 and Other Injustices; also in It’s Hard to Be Hip Over 30) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tezdUAqk9Lc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLgf4WTRE3I

4. A contemporary one Old Jim Crow Got to Go by Amanda Gorman https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/us/a-coda-to-black-history-month.html Here is a favorite of my kids — and another favorite of mine — that I first read in ModPo. It makes me smile.

This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast

Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

Barbara Russo Bravo, CW'68, GED'69 One of my favorite poems has always been Robert Frost’s, “The Road Not Taken.” “To be of use” - Is a poem by Marge Piercy in a book called “Circles on the Water. I first heard this poem when it was read at a tribute event by the husband of a wonderful teacher at my school after she died in a car accident.

Myles Krieger, C’68 – four favorite poems and his favorite quote

Carol Greco, CW'68, G'70 Favorite poem by Amanda Gorman

“”

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry. A sea we must wade. We braved the belly of the beast. We've learned that quiet isn't always peace And the norms and notions of what just is Isn't always just-ice And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it Somehow we do it Somehow we've weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken but simply unfinished We the successors of a country and a time Where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one And yes we are far from polished far from pristine but that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect We are striving to forge a union with purpose To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another We seek harm to none and harmony for all Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: That even as we grieved, we grew That even as we hurt, we hoped That even as we tired, we tried That we'll forever be tied together, victorious Not because we will never again know defeat but because we will never again sow division Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree And no one shall make them afraid If we're to live up to our own time Then victory won't lie in the blade But in all the bridges we've made That is the promise to glade The hill we climb If only we dare It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it's the past we step into and how we repair it We've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy And this effort very nearly succeeded But while democracy can be periodically delayed it can never be permanently defeated In this truth in this faith we trust For while we have our eyes on the future history has its eyes on us This is the era of just redemption We feared at its inception We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour but within it we found the power to author a new chapter To offer hope and laughter to ourselves So while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us? We will not march back to what was but move to what shall be A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation Our blunders become their burdens But one thing is certain: If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left with Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west, we will rise from the windswept northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states, we will rise from the sunbaked south We will rebuild, reconcile and recover and every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful will emerge, battered and beautiful When day comes we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid The new dawn blooms as we free it For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it If only we're brave enough to be it