Okay, here's the story in a nutshell...I'm a senior trying to graduate, and I've found myself taking a summer poetry course I need to graduate. Though I've always done well in school, I've never been very good at poetry despite my 3.5 GPA.
Anyway, we have a 5 page paper due this Saturday, and I've chosen the topic of city poems. We need to compare/contrast three poems, and I can't even get started, let alone write 5 pages. Thoughts or ideas are welcome...
The poems I'm considering so far are "In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus,"(X.J. Kennedy); "To Moscow" (Marina Tsvetaeva) ; and City That Does Not Sleep: (Lorca).
HELP!!

Marc, as in any essay assignment begin with an outline. In discussing poetry the following topics might be of some concern:

1. Theme
2. Language
3. Rhyme/meter
4. Meaning/connotation
5. Emotional impact

For a more specific discussion of the poems you've chosen post them here so the readers have some point of reference.


Les

City That Does Not Sleep

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the
street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead
dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.

One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the
eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention
of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes
are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.

Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.

No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the
night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

--

CIUDAD SIN SUEÑO
(NOCTURNO DE BROOKLYN BRIDGE)

No duerme nadie por el cielo. Nadie, nadie.
No duerme nadie.
Las criaturas de la luna huelen y rondan sus cabañas.
Vendrán las iguanas vivas a morder a los hombres que no sueñan
y el que huye con el corazón roto encontrará por las esquinas
al increíble cocodrilo quieto bajo la tierna protesta de los astros.

No duerme nadie por el mundo. Nadie, nadie.
No duerme nadie.
Hay un muerto en el cementerio más lejano
que se queja tres años
porque tiene un paisaje seco en la rodilla;
y el niño que enterraron esta mañana lloraba tanto
que hubo necesidad de llamar a los perros para que callase.

No es sueño la vida. ¡Alerta! ¡Alerta! ¡Alerta!
Nos caemos por las escaleras para comer la tierra húmeda
o subimos al filo de la nieve con el coro de las dalias muertas.
Pero no hay olvido, ni sueño:
carne viva. Los besos atan las bocas
en una maraña de venas recientes
y al que le duele su dolor le dolerá sin descanso
y al que teme la muerte la llevará sobre sus hombros.

Un día
los caballos vivirán en las tabernas
y las hormigas furiosas
atacarán los cielos amarillos que se refugian en los ojos de las vacas.

Otro día
veremos la resurrección de las mariposas disecadas
y aún andando por un paisaje de esponjas grises y barcos mudos
veremos brillar nuestro anillo y manar rosas de nuestra lengua.
¡Alerta! ¡Alerta! ¡Alerta!
A los que guardan todavía huellas de zarpa y aguacero,
a aquel muchacho que llora porque no sabe la invención del puente
o a aquel muerto que ya no tiene más que la cabeza y un zapato,
hay que llevarlos al muro donde iguanas y sierpes esperan,
donde espera la dentadura del oso,
donde espera la mano momificada del niño
y la piel del camello se eriza con un violento escalofrío azul.

No duerme nadie por el cielo. Nadie, nadie.
No duerme nadie.
Pero si alguien cierra los ojos,
¡azotadlo, hijos míos, azotadlo!
Haya un panorama de ojos abiertos
y amargas llagas encendidas.
No duerme nadie por el mundo. Nadie, nadie.
Ya lo he dicho.
No duerme nadie.
Pero si alguien tiene por la noche exceso de musgo en las sienes,
abrid los escotillones para que vea bajo la luna
las copas falsas, el veneno y la calavera de los teatros.

Federico García Lorca

IN A PROMINENT BAR IN SECAUCUS ONE DAY

In a prominent bar in Secaucus one day
Rose a lady in skunk with a top-heavy sway
Raised a knobby red finger - all turned from their beer -
While with eyes bright as snowcrust she sang high and clear

Now who of you'd think from an eyeload of me
That I once was a lady as proud as can be?
Oh I'd never sit down by a tumble-down drunk
If it wasn't, my dears, for the high cost of junk.

All the gents used to swear that the white of my calf
Beat the down of a swan by a length and a half
In the kerchief of linen I caught to my nose
Ah, there never fell snot, but a little gold rose.

I had seven gold teeth and a toothpick of gold
My Virginia cheroot with a leaf it was rolled
And I'd light it each time with a thousand in cash
Why the bums used to fight if I flicked them an ash

Once the toast of the Biltmore, the belle of the Taft
I would drink bottle beer at the Drake, never draft
And dine at the Astor on Salisbury Steak
With a clean table cloth for each bite I would take

In a car like the roxy, I'd roll to the track
A steel-guitar trio, a bar in the back
And the wheels made no noise, they turned ever so fast
Still it took you ten minutes to see me go past

When the horses bowed down to me that I might choose
I bet on them all for I hated to lose
Now I'm saddle each night for my butter and eggs
And the broken threads race down the backs of my legs

Let you hold in mind girls that your beauty must pass
Like a lovely white clover that rusts with its grass
Keep your bottoms off bar stools and marry your young
Or be left - an old barrel with many a bung

For when time takes you out for a spin in his car
You'll be hard-pressed to stop him from going too far
And be left by the roadside, for all your good deeds
Two toadstools for tits and a face full of weeds

All the house raised a cheer, but the man at the bar
Made a phone call and up pulled a red patrol car
And she blew us a kiss as he copped her away
From that prominent bar in Secaucus NJ


X. J. Kennedy
1961

To Moscow

1

You did not bend the shoulders, when the red-haired
Impostor seized you and for you did reach.
Where is your pride, you baroness? Your blush,
You beauty? Brilliant girl, your speech?

Like Tsar Peter, the law of sons despising,
Did lust with avarice after your head -
You answered to the Tsar of Russia truly
As baroness Morozova on the sled.

The fiery drink was not at all forgotten
By lips of Bonapart that were so cold.
The sides of Kremlin all things will endure.
In your cathedral not the first time stands a stall.


2

The thief Grishka did not make you Polish,
The Tsar Peter did not make you German.
"What're you doing, little dove?" "I'm crying."
"Where, Moscow, is your pride?" "It's gone."

"Where are all your doves?" "There is no feed."
"Who bore him away?" "The raven black."
"Where are all your holy crosses?" "Torn down."
"Where are your sons, Moscow?" "Killed."


3

Liquid ringing, meager ringing.
To all sides I'm curtsying.

Cry of infant, cow's roar.
The tsar's daring word.

Lashes' whistling, snow full of blood.
The dark word of Love.

The pigeons' quiet noise.
The Shooter's black eyes.

Marc, your choices are very, very loosely related to the theme. The chief task, as
I see it, in exploring the 3 you've chosen would be to tell how each relates to the theme. Secondly, it would be important to note the differences in style and point of view of the 3 authors.

More closely related works, such as these, might make your task easier.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Lights of London

The evenfall, so slow on hills, hath shot
Far down into the valley's cold extreme,
Untimely midnight; spire and roof and stream
Like fleeing spectres, shudder and are not.
The Hampstead hollies, from their sylvan plot
Yet cloudless, lean to watch as in a dream,
From chaos climb with many a sudden gleam,
London, one moment fallen and forgot.

Her booths begin to flare; and gases bright
Prick door and window; all her streets obscure
Sparkle and swarm with nothing true or sure,
Full as a marsh of mist and winking light;
Heaven thickens over, Heaven that cannot cure
Her tear by day, her fevered smile by night.

-- Louise Imogen Guiney

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chicago
---Carl Sandburg


HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight
Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cun-
ning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding.
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Braging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse,
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cities and Thrones and Powers
---Rudyard Kipling

Cities and Thrones and Powers,
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth,
The Cities rise again.

This season's Daffodil,
She never hears,
What change, what chance, what chill,
Cut down last year's;
But with bold countenance,
And knowledge small,
Esteems her seven days' continuance,
To be perpetual.

So Time that is o'er -kind,
To all that be,
Ordains us e'en as blind,
As bold as she:
That in our very death,
And burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
"See how our works endure!"


Les

>Date: July 28, 2021 02:29PM
>... we have a 5 page paper due this Saturday

I suspect the emule outage may already have left Marc high and dry on this particular assignment.

Probably so, but for any others interested in 'city' poems in future, here's a memorable little lyric from the American 'jazz poet' Kenneth Patchen:

I WENT TO THE CITY

I went to the City
And there I did weep
Men a-crowin’ like asses,
And livin’ like sheep.
   Oh, can’t hold the han’ of my love!
   Can’t hold her little white han’!

Yes, I went to the city,
And there I did bitterly cry,
Men out of touch with the earth,
And with never a glance at the sky.
   Oh, can’t hold the han’of my love!
   Can’t hold her pure little han’!