TGIPF - August 30, 2013

We are preparing to read Animal Farm, an allegory. To prepare for this kind of literature, we spent the day looking at poems and stories that have a literal meaning, but also a symbolic or metaphoric meaning under the surface for those who know to dig for it. We first read this poem without knowing the title and discussed the literal, visual image. Then I revealed the title, and the fact that "Michiko" refers to the poet's wife, who passed away at age 36. We re-read the poem together, and I was astounded at the depth of meaning students gleaned from the metaphor of the box, representing Gilbert's grief.

Michiko Dead
Jack Gilbert

He manages like somebody carrying a box
that is too heavy, first with his arms
underneath. When their strength gives out,
he moves the hands forward, hooking them
on the corners, pulling the weight against
his chest. He moves his thumbs slightly
when the fingers begin to tire, and it makes
different muscles take over. Afterward,
he carries it on his shoulder, until the blood
drains out of the arm which is stretched up
to steady the box and the arm goes numb. But now
the man can hold underneath again, so that
he can go on without ever putting the box down.

TGIPF - August 25, 2013

This week, we have been working intensively on the Ideal School project through Humanities. Students are coming up with new ideas, and changing the way they think about their schooling experiences thus far. Over and over again, they are also discussing with one another what really matters in education--the opportunities to discover, to question, to learn--and what doesn't. This poem is a tribute to the power of wonder and paradigm shift.

Photons

By Nicole Guenther

From Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25

I said wouldn’t it be amazing

to be the last bit of light

from a collapsed star?

he said what?

I said wouldn’t it be

amazing? mused

light has to stop

coming at one point

a stream cut off.  tilted

back beside him

almost blind walking this dark

road I asked the shadowed sky

wouldn’t it be lonely

to be that last light?

he said tentatively I guess.  still

to the stars I said I wonder which ones

have already died.  I thought

which stars’ last light

like a last breath rushes

towards us now like a final

sigh of air

a final word

unheard and unrecorded

I said we might be pulling that light into our eyes

this instant.  isn’t that just

amazing?  he looked

at me while I looked

up probing the stars with dreamy

eyes he said

I had never thought

of it that way.

silently I recognized

that as the most

stunning sentence—the most

beautiful words ever uttered

TGIPF - August 16, 2013

I presented this poem as an introduction to the school year (because we are still transitioning to summer, and there is a reminder here not to lose sight of the natural beauty around us) and also as a reminder to our students, who, as sophomores, are starting to build the picture of what they will do with their "wild, precious" lives.

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?