P.O.S.B. Poem of Spring Break

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
BY RICHARD WILBUR

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks

From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessèd day,
And cries,
“Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”

Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,
“Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance.”

Richard Wilbur, “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” from Collected Poems 1943-2004. Copyright © 2004 by Richard Wilbur.


Note: since most of us no longer hang our laundry out to dry, you may need help with the first image. The pulleys in the first line are likely used to hang laundry between windows or fire escapes in an urban apartment building. You've probably seen this in movies. The "cry" is likely the squeak made by the pulleys as someone pulls on the line to retrieve dry laundry.

Also note: Blog posting doesn't seem to allow for line layout of the original. Please refer to the paper copy you were given before spring break.

another Richard Wilbur poem

For AP students thinking about Richard Wilbur's poem, here's another one you might think about:

The Beautiful Changes

BY RICHARD WILBUR

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.


Richard Wilbur, “The Beautiful Changes” from Collected Poems 1943-2004. Copyright © 2004 by Richard Wilbur

taxonomy challenge

First, a definition/explanation lifted from wikipedia:

Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. The word finds its roots in the Greek τάξις, taxis (meaning 'order' or 'arrangement') and νόμος, nomos (meaning 'law' or 'science'). Taxonomy uses taxonomic units, known as taxa (singular taxon).
In addition, the word is also used as a count noun: a taxonomy, or taxonomic scheme, is a particular classification ("the taxonomy of ..."), arranged in a hierarchical structure. Typically this is organized by supertype-subtype relationships, also called generalization-specialization relationships, or less formally, parent-child relationships. In such an inheritance relationship, the subtype by definition has the same properties, behaviors, and constraints as the supertype plus one or more additional properties, behaviors, or constraints. For example: car is a subtype of vehicle, so any car is also a vehicle, but not every vehicle is a car. Therefore a type needs to satisfy more constraints to be a car than to be a vehicle. Another example: any shirt is also a piece of clothing, but not every piece of clothing is a shirt. Hence, a type must satisfy more parameters to be a shirt than to be a piece of clothing.

Representing a simpler "most general to most specific" hierarchy is relatively simple. items can be ordered vertically:

transportation (means of)
vehicles
cars
sports cars
german sports cars
porsches
911

But what if you have a confusing set of items that are somehow related, but not easily ordered. How does one diagram such relationships?

The challenge:

In the list below, items appear in random order. (Well, not exactly random, maybe purposefully disorderly?) Your task is to bring order to this list—organize these terms—use some kind of graphic or chart to put them in some sensible order and then write a rationale that explains the relationships between the terms and your reasons for ordering them as you did. You may need to use geometric shapes, venn diagrams, different colors, different kinds of lines. But your chart or diagram should be logical and consistent.

fox
canine
walter (the old man's border collie mix)
poodle
mutt
scooby doo
mongrel
animal
jack (the old man's nova scotia duck tolling retriever--also called a little river duck dog)
clifford the big red dog
vertebrate
mammal
pet
stray
lassie
dog
bitch
collie
courage the cowardly dog
coyote
puppy
cerberus
argos
fluffy
wolf
wile e. coyote
snoopy
swiper
catdog
snoop dogg

the old man's students are resourceful. a phonebook?

Spring review list #3

AP English language and composition.


In the list below, items appear in random order. (Well, not exactly random, maybe purposefully disorderly?) Your task is to bring order to this list—organize these terms—use some kind of graphic or chart to put them in some sensible order and then write a rationale that explains the relationships between the terms and your reasons for ordering them as you did.

Synecdoche
Analogy
Figurative language
Comparison
Metaphor
Metonymy
Personification
Simile
Language
Communication

Spring review list #2

AP English language and composition.


In the list below, items appear in random order. (well not exactly random, maybe purposefully disorderly?) Your task is to use graphics to put them in some sensible order and then write a rationale that explains the relationships between the terms and your reasons for ordering them as you did.

• illustrating ideas by use of example
• rhetoric
• persuasion
• inductive reasoning
• deductive reasoning
• using anecdote
• ethos
• pathos
• logos
• rhetorical strategies
• using analogy as an expository device
• rhetorical modes
• explaining by means of process analysis
• analyzing cause and effect relationships
• using definition to help explain
• analyzing a subject by classification
• ad hominem
• argument