Unit 3: Vocabulary from Readings

White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas
fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame
oil and garlic. And my own loneliness.
What more could I, a young man, want.

The woman wore a floral apron around her neck,
that woman from my mother’s village
with a sharp cleaver in her hand.

Suddenly, the aroma of ginger and scallion
fogged our senses,
and we absolved her for that moment’s barbarism.

Then, she, an elder of the tribe,
without formal headdress, without elegance,
deigned to teach the younger
about the Asian plight.

Then, she, an elder of the tribe,
without formal headdress, without elegance,
deigned to teach the younger
about the Asian plight.

And although we have traveled far
we would never forget that primal lesson—
on patience, courage, forbearance,
on how to love squid despite squid,
how to honor the village, the tribe,
that floral apron.

And although we have traveled far
we would never forget that primal lesson—
on patience, courage, forbearance,
on how to love squid despite squid,
how to honor the village, the tribe,
that floral apron.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate

Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.

Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.

Like many of their classmates, they found the 14-line poetry structure and the prescribed meter to be archaic and rigid.

Like many of their classmates, they found the 14-line poetry structure and the prescribed meter to be archaic and rigid.

Despite their misgivings, they each entered a sonnet-writing contest last month.

While free verse has become the standard for most modern poetry, the sonnet’s proponents believe its structured rhyme schemes and sing-song rhythm (iambic pentameter) still have a role to play; they have tried to teach today’s students that sonnets aren’t always about hearts and flowers.

Shriner’s offbeat, first-place poem explores the sound of the word “Utah” and the feelings the word evokes.

forgetting our lovers or children
who are sleeping
ignoring the weary wariness
of our own logic
to compose a poem

it never says “accept me” for poems seek not
acceptance but controversy
it only says “i am” and therefore
i concede that you are too

a poem is pure energy
horizontally contained
between the mind
of the poet and the ear of the reader
if it does not sing discard the ear
for poetry is song

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out