Mary Jo Shows a Dark Side

by Chloe Heymans

As I stumbled into Mary Jo’s office in the groggy hours of the early morning, I did not know what to expect when interrogating her about poetry. I sat down across from her and began to ask the most personal, somewhat intimidating question that is often asked of the faculty in April, National Poetry Month. Before the words escaped my mouth, she began to recite an endearing string of words with infallible accuracy which I recognized as German, and as she later told me, were the first parts to Der Erlkönig, by the world famous poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His name may be a mouthful, but to even consider memorizing the mammoth poem itself seems impossible. The most amazing part is, Mary Jo memorized this poem in her level four German class in high school, and it is apparently the among the most well-recognized and popularly memorized pieces of writing in Germany.

“It is dark and a little depressing, but so is the majority of German literature,” says Mary Jo Leighton, while pulling up the gloomy words on Wikipedia to remind herself of the story. The poem is about a young boy who is delusional and dying and seeing an elf king in the fog. Mary Jo says that this most likely symbolizes death itself coming to get the terrified child. Comfort and love is found in this poem and is briefly revealed when the father tries to console his son, but eventually, the son dies anyway. Leighton studied German in college and spent a year studying there while pursuing a nanny job. She greatly enjoyed it and has a great fondness for the language.

Der Erlkönig

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.

"My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?"
"Look, father, the Elf King is close by our side!
Dost see not the Elf King, with crown and with train?"
"My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain."

"Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!
For many a game I will play there with thee;
On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,
My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
The words that the Elf King now breathes in mine ear?"
"Be calm, dearest child, thy fancy deceives;
the wind is sighing through withering leaves."

"Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?
My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care
My daughters by night on the dance floor you lead,
They'll cradle and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not see,
How the Elf King is showing his daughters to me?"
"My darling, my darling, I see it aright,
'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight."

"I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy!
And if thou aren't willing, then force I'll employ."
"My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
For sorely the Elf King has hurt me at last."

The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He holds in his arms the shuddering child;
He reaches his farmstead with toil and with dread,--
The child in his arms he finds motionless, dead.

Converging Poetry and Math

by Rachel Zumwalde

Mrs. Ehr, an algebra I and II teacher here at St. John’s Preparatory School found a way to incorporate poetry into her love for math. Although she doesn’t consider herself a poetry enthusiast, a particular poem stuck out in her mind when I asked about her favorite poem: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. When I asked for her reasoning she replied laughing, “Honestly, because he uses the word diverge and that’s a math term. While teaching diverging and converging graphs I always think of this poem.”

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
Had worn them really about the same,

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.

Mr. Schlueter talks of Blessings

by Rose Gaida

Mr. Schlueter is a man of character who really enjoys poetry. He says, “I think poetry is as necessary as anything else for leading a full life, whether you find poetry in school or on the streets, at home or in the church, or if it finds you.”

Mr. Schlueter’s favorite poem is “A Blessing from My Sixteen Years’ Son.” It was written by Mary Karr and published in New Yorker Magazine. The poem is about a young boy who has a fender bender and this blesses his mother because the boy stood up for his actions.

This poem speaks to Mr. Schlueter because of his position as Dean of Students, a job he has held over the past few years. He has really come to appreciate the poem because he likes how it takes something common and ordinary and turns it into an extraordinary and uncommon experience.

Mr. Schlueter believes that everyone makes mistakes and we all still have our moments of vulnerability. Even when we become mothers and fathers, we are still daughters and sons who need comforting. He believes that wisdom comes from being wounded. “You learn from your mistakes and grow from them,” he says.

A BLESSING FROM MY SIXTEEN YEARS’ SON

By Mary Karr

I have this son who assembled inside me
during Hurricane Gloria. In a flash, he appeared,
in a heartbeat. Outside, pines toppled.

Phone lines snapped and hissed like cobras.
Inside, he was a raw pearl: microscopic, luminous.
Look at the muscled obelisk of him now

Pawing through the icebox for more grapes.
Sixteen years and not a bone broken,
not a single stitch. By his age,

I was marked more ways, and small.
He’s a slouching six foot three,
with implausible blue eyes, which settle

on the pages of Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”
with profound belligerence.
A girl with a naval ring

could make his cell phone go brr
or an Afro-d boy leaning on a mop at Taco Bell –
creatures strange as dragons or eels.
Balanced on a kitchen stool, each gives counsel
arcane as any oracle’s. Bruce claims school
is harshing my mellow. Case longs to date

a tattooed girl, because he wants a woman
willing to do stuff she’ll regret.
They’ve come to lead my son.

into his broadening spiral.
Someday soon, the tether
will snap. I birthed my own mom

into oblivion. The night my son smashed
the car fender, then rode home
in the rain-streaked cop car, he asked, Did you

and Dad screw up much?
He’d let me tuck him in,
my grandmother’s wedding quilt

from 1912 drawn to his goateed chin. Don’t
blame us, I said. You’re your own
idiot now. At which he grinned.

The cop said the girl in the crimped Chevy
took it hard. He’d found my son
awkwardly holding her in the canted headlights,

where he’d draped his own coat
over her shaking shoulders. My fault,
he’d confessed right off.

Nice kid, said the cop.

Kidnapping is No Mel Gibson Movie

by Pokuan Ho

The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore by Joan Lowery Nixon is a story about a 16- year-old girl, Christina Lattimore, who gets into a fight with her family and is taken away by a stranger. After a long time struggling in a basement, she is finally set free. She thinks everything is over until she finds out everyone thinks she orchestrated the whole kidnapping. Christina is desperate and frustrated because what she lacks is evidence; no one trusts her, not even her best friend Lorna or her own family. The only help she gets is from Kelly, a person who works in the media and hears her story. They try their best to find the real bad guy before he gets away.

To be honest, after reading the book I was a bit disappointed. I had read the blurb on the back cover and I thought it would be a more intense and puzzling story, but the case was solved so easily, it was just too unreal. Of course, like the police in the novel say, “Life is not a movie; not everything in real life goes well.” However, the direction where the story goes is too predictable. In the beginning, they give us too many clues. I figured out exactly who it was and when the author reveals the criminal in the end, I was hardly surprised. What I have to say about the kidnappers is if I were the one doing the kidnapping I would be more careful not to expose myself that easily, and I would not to be scared by random whispers in a phone call.

The kidnapper tells Christina, “You watch too many movies” because how the kidnapping happens is nothing like the ones she or the readers have in their minds from TV or the movies. For example, whenever I hear the word kidnapping, I come up with an image of that one movie starring Mel Gibson. Even though towards the end the novel began to lose its mysterious characteristics, I have to admit I had a good time reading it.

If you would like to read The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore,

you can find it at your Prep library…

Mr. Erickson wonders, "How many monsters must I slay?"

by Tahira Naroth


North Dakotan born literary enthusiast Mr. Erickson has an evident view of poetry; he teaches it in his classroom, reads and enjoys it in his spare time, and also encourages his students to take part. He says “I love not only the beauty of poetry, but also the density. Each word can carry enormous weight and ambiguity, often allowing for constant interpretation”.

Erickson’s favorite poem is Beowulf. My obvious response was “really?” He laughed and said he also has it memorized by heart, but quickly said he was only kidding after witnessing my facial expression. Beowulf is a narrative epic poem that every British Literature student is exposed to. It is a very important piece to Anglo-Saxon literature. Read about Beowulf here.

In his classroom Mr. Erickson uses many poems to help students gain an understanding of poetic language. He considers Holy Sonnet 10 by John Donne a very potent work that he says is a good example of metaphysical poetry, uses good figurative language, and also uses clever and witty comparison.


Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10)

by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

The Power of Pablo Neruda

by Chloe Heymans

“Memories will always create pain and longing,” explains Senor Dwyer, leaning forward across the desk, hands folded contemplatively as he tells me about his favorite poem. “Poem 20” by Pablo Neruda is a piece that Dwyer encountered at the age of nineteen when he was at Indiana University, and he fell in love with Neruda’s vivid imagery and crisp language. As time went on, the vents of his life made the poem more significant and clear to him. Through the thickets of life, he came to be extremely fond of this poem and has used it in the classroom to teach students interpretation multiple times. He once knew an exchange student in his class who passed away, and it was a very gloomy time in his life. Dwyer had a classroom of students memorize “Poem 20” for extra credit, as a tribute to this woman. He was amazed by the enormous feelings of sadness that Neruda was able to conjure into his work, mesmerizing and touching the reader. “It is human nature to miss the past, and to wish you could experience old feelings and relive memories.” The poem is about lost love, and feelings of nostalgia. The reason it is beautiful and powerful is because of the sadness it is able to evoke, and this was the main reason why he is so attached to it. “Poem 20’s” dismal lines are known to be overwhelmingly depressing and possibly painful for a reader, but this makes it an even more powerful and beautiful piece. The effect left in one’s mind after reading Neruda’s poem may not be a cheerful one, but its words are real. As we were wrapping up the interview Senor enlightened me with some thoughts on poetry. “‘Poem 20’ defines the essence of poetry, in that it explores the human condition both broadly and deeply.”

Poem # 20

by Pablo Neruda---Translated by Sr. Dwyer

Tonight I can write the saddest verses.

Write, for example: "It’s a starry night,
and the stars shiver, blue, in the distance."

The night wind swirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
I wanted her, and sometimes she wanted me as well.

On nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times beneath the infinite sky.

She wanted me, at times I also loved her.
How could I not have loved her great steady eyes.

I can write the saddest verses on this night.
Thinking that I don’t have her. Lamenting that I have lost her.

Hearing the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse settles on my soul as dew on the grass.

What does it matter that my love could not hold her?
The night is starry, and she is not with me.

That is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul will not accept having lost her.

As if to pull her close my gaze seeks her.
My heart seeks her, and she is not with me.

The same night that bleaches the same trees.
We, those of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, it’s true, but oh, how I loved her.
My voice sought the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else. She must belong to someone else. As before my kisses.
Her voice, her pale body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, it’s true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so brief, and forgetting is so long.

Because on nights like this one I held her in my arms,
my soul will not accept having lost her.

Though this may be the last pain she causes me,
and these may be the last verses I write to her.

To read about Pablo Neruda, click here.

Mr. Nydeen and the Futility of War

It has been a great month of poetry here at the prep school! Thank you to everybody who shared their favorite poems with us, and thanks to the LOGOS program for bringing visiting poet W.S. Merwin to SJP last week for a wonderful day of readings and workshops.
I would like to close National Poetry Month with Mr. Nydeen’s favorite poem. Lord Alfred Tennyson, the author of the poem, was the most well-loved poet of the Victorian era. His best known poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," according to Mr. Nydeen, highlights the contradictory nature and futility of war. As for poetry Mr. Nydeen, who has been know to read his original science fiction stories to Logos students and run around on desks in his history classes, says enthusiastically, “I love the use of words and their relation to sound and emotion!”


The Charge of the Light Brigade

by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Mrs. Doom Shares Homespun Poetry

Mrs. Doom, former middle school English teacher and previous academic dean, has decided to throw her hat into the poetry ring this month and share her favorite poem with us: "PA," by Leo Dangel. The poet lives in rural Minnesota and his down-home poems reflect the perfect image of southwestern Minnesota and eastern South Dakota. Mrs. Doom likes the poem because it has powerful imagery. As for Leo Dangel, she's seen him at poetry readings and says, "He's a hoot to watch!" She also says kids should read a little but write a lot of poetry. She would like to dedicate this poem to her former middle school English students.

PA

by Leo Dangel
taken from his book, Old Man Brunner Country
Spoon River Poetry Press, 1987

When we got home, there was our old man
hanging by his hands from the windmill vane,
forty feet off the ground, his pants down
inside out, caught on his shoes - he never wore
underwear in summer - shirt tail flapping,
hair flying

My brother grabbed a board.
We lugged it up the windmill and ran it out
like a diving board under the old man's feet
and wedged our end below a crossbar. The old man
kept explaining, 'I just climbed up to oil a squeak,
reached out to push the vane around, slipped, damn
puff of wind. I swung right out."

We felt strange helping him down.
In our whole lives, we never really held him before,
and now with his pants tangled around his feet
and him talking faster, getting hoarser all the way
down, explaining, explaining.

On solid ground, he quivered, pulling up his pants.
I said, "Good thing we came when we did."
His eyes burned from way back. His hands
were like little black claws. He spit Copenhagen
and words almost together. "Could have hung on
a long time yet. Anyway, you should have been home
half an hour ago."

Happy Birthday, Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-on-Avon. Although famous for writing over 30 plays, he also composed 154 sonnets. And let’s not forget the impact he had on the English language! Shakespeare invented thousands of words and common everyday phrases. His impressive expansion of the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, includes such words as arch-villain, birthplace, bloodsucking, courtship, dewdrop, downstairs, fanged, heartsore, hunchbacked, leapfrog, misquote, pageantry, radiance, schoolboy, stillborn, watchdog, and zany. In 1616, William Shakespeare died on the same day he was born, April 23rd. Here is one of his more famous sonnets, number 18:

Shall I Compare thee to a Summer’s Day?

by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Mr. E talks Poetry

What do Robert Frost and Mr. Ellenbecker have in common besides their first names? A love of teaching, football, and the great outdoors, of course! Mr. Ellenbecker’s favorite poem also happens to be Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” because of the peaceful feeling it evokes. “The poem encourages us to take time to stop and smell the roses,” he says.

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.

Sacred Poetry

It was hard for school counselor, Ms. Sondra Lawrence, to choose just one favorite poem, but after some thought she decided to share a poem that is very special to her: "Looking for Each Other." This Buddhist poem "speaks to me, to my own journey, and my ultimate sourcing of God within myself and within my connectedness to all," she says. This poem is from the book, Call me by my True Names by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Looking for Each Other

I have been looking for you, World Honored One,
since I was a little child.
With my first breath, I heard your call,
and began to look for you, Blessed One.
I've walked so many perilous paths,
confronted so many dangers,
endured despair, fear, hopes, and memories.
I've trekked to the farthest regions, immense and wild,
sailed the vast oceans,
traversed the highest summits, lost among the clouds.
I've lain dead, utterly alone,
on the sands of ancient deserts.
I've held in my heart so many tears of stone.

Blessed One, I've dreamed of drinking dewdrops
that sparkle with the light of far-off galaxies.
I've left footprints on celestial mountains
and screamed from the depths of Avici Hell, exhausted, crazed with despair
because I was so hungry, so thirsty.
For millions of lifetimes,
I've longed to see you,
but didn't know where to look.
Yet, I've always felt your presence with a mysterious certainty.

I know that for thousands of lifetimes,
you and I have been one,
and the distance between us is only a flash of thought.
Just yesterday while walking alone,
I saw the old path strewn with Autumn leaves,
and the brilliant moon, hanging over the gate,
suddenly appeared like the image of an old friend.
And all the stars confirmed that you were there!
All night, the rain of compassion continued to fall,
while lightning flashed through my window
and a great storm arose,
as if Earth and Sky were in battle.
Finally in me the rain stopped, the clouds parted.
The moon returned,
shining peacefully, calming Earth and Sky.
Looking into the mirror of the moon, suddenlyI saw myself,
and I saw you smiling, Blessed One.
How strange!

The moon of freedom has returned to me,
everything I thought I had lost.
From that moment on,
and in each moment that followed,
I saw that nothing had gone.
There is nothing that should be restored.
Every flower, every stone, and every leaf recognize me.
Wherever I turn, I see you smiling
the smile of no-birth and no-death.
The smile I received while looking at the mirror of the moon.
I see you sitting there, solid as Mount Meru,
calm as my own breath,
sitting as though no raging fire storm ever occurred,
sitting in complete peace and freedom.
At last I have found you, Blessed One,
and I have found myself.
There I sit.

The deep blue sky,
the snow-capped mountains painted against the horizon,
and the shining red sun sing with joy.
You, Blessed One, are my first love.
The love that is always present, always pure, and freshly new.
And I shall never need a love that will be called “last.”
You are the source of well-being flowing through numberless troubled lives,
the water from your spiritual stream always pure, as it was in the beginning.
You are the source of peace,
solidity, and inner freedom.
You are the Buddha, the Tathagata.
With my one-pointed mind
I vow to nourish your solidity and freedom in myself
so I can offer solidity and freedom to countless others,
now and forever.

Here's to you, Mrs. Bergmann!

The poem for today is a riddle. There are nine lines, nine syllables in each line, and nine letters in the title. Can you guess what the poem is about? Here’s your hint: Mrs. Bergmann, this poem is dedicated to you. May you have a happy and healthy baby!

Metaphors

By Sylvia Plath

I'm a riddle in nine syllables,

An elephant, a ponderous house,

A melon strolling on two tendrils.

O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!

This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.

Money's new-minted in this fat purse.

I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.

I've eaten a bag of green apples,

Boarded the train there's no getting off.

Fr. Timo says, "Don't beat it to death!"

When I asked former English teacher, and now headmaster, Fr. Timothy Backous about his favorite poem, he talked about Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric," because "it speaks of hope and possibilities for the human race." But then the playful side of Fr. Timo emerged and he admitted that his real favorite poem is "Introduction to Poetry," by Billy Collins. He recalled the message Collins brought to SJP during his visit last year, that poems are not meant to be analyzed to death, they are meant to be enjoyed as nourishment for the mind and soul. Fr. Timo agrees whole-heartedly: "Next to food, poetry is the best nourishment I know!"

Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

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

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.


from The Apple that Astonished Paris, 1996
University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, Ark
Copyright 1988 by Billy Collins.

The Coolness of Poe

Mrs. Kelly is not the typical literature teacher. She loves poetry now, but admits that she didn’t know much about it until she had to teach it to her students in Alaska. Once she started reading and analyzing poetry, she realized how much fun it is. Her favorite poem is Edgar Allen Poe’s Annabel Lee because of its musical qualities. “It’s a great poem for teaching because it contains most of the poetic devices used in poetry,” she says. “Besides, Poe is cool!”

Annabel Lee

by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me--
Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we--
Of many far wiser than we--
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Mr. Miller, Heavy Metal, and Poetry

When I asked Mr. Miller, physics instructor, about his favorite poem he enthusiastically told me that it was Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” In fact, when Mr. Miller was assigned to read the poem for his Brit Lit class, he was the only one who read the whole thing. Why? Because he was already familiar with the poem from a song done by heavy metal band, Iron Maiden, in 1984. “There’s something to be found in poetry for everyone,” he says. Here is an excerpt from his favorite part of the poem:

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

Click here to read poem in it's entirety
Iron Maiden's Version