Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry

Born in Muskegon, Michigan, John Frederick Nims received his M.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Chicago. He has taught poetry and given workshops in poetry at Notre Dame, the University of Toronto, the University of Illinois at Urbana, Harvard University, Willialms College, the University of Florida, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the universities of Florence and Madrid and has been on the staff of many writers conferences, including the one at Bread Loaf, Vermont, where he taught for more than ten years. He is the author of eight books of poetry among them, The Iron Pastoral, Knowledge of the Evening (a National Book Award nominee), The Kiss: A Jambalaya, Zany in Denim, and The Six Cornered Snowflakebooks that have brought him awards from The National Foundation of Arts and Humanities, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Brandeis University, which awarded him its Creative Arts Citation in Poetry. He has been the Phi Beta Kappa poet at the College of William and Mary and at Harvard University. He has also published several books of translations, including Sappho to Valery: Poems in Translation, The Poems of St. John of the Cross, and The Complete Poems of Michelangelo and edited The Harper Anthology of Poetry. Several times on the staff of Poetry (Chicago), he was its editor from 1978 to 1984. In 1982, he was awarded the Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets; in 1986, a Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry; in 1991, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry. David Mason was born and raised in Bellingham, Washington, and received degrees from The Colorado College and the University of Rochester. He spent most of his twenties traveling and working as a manual laborer, with a brief stint working for a film company. He has taught at Minnesota State University, Moorhead, and is now on the faculty of The Colorado College. He lives in the mountains outside Colorado Springs. Masons two prize-winning books of poems are The Buried Houses (1991) and The Country I Remember (1996). With Mark Jarman he co-edited Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism (1996; reprinted 1998) and with the late John Frederick Nims Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry (2000). His collection of literary essays, The Poetry of Life and the Life of Poetry, appeared in 2000. Mason is also a memoirist, fiction writer and frequent book reviewer.

*- indicates selection or author is new to this editionPREFACEBefore We BeginPart One: The Senses1. WHERE EXPERIENCE STARTS: The ImageThe Role of the Senses*Jim Moore The Same LifeAnonymous Western WindArchibald Macleish ElevenSappho There's A ManT.S. Eliot PreludesAnonymous Brief AutumnalThe Specific ImageEzra Pound In A Station Of The Metro Alba ("As cool as the pale wet leaves...")Anthony Hecht The End Of The WeekendAnonymous Sir Patrick SpensExercises and DiversionsBrewester Ghiselin Rattler, AlertSappho Leaving Crete, Come Visit AgainEssay and Poem*Jim Moore Haiku/Touch2. WHAT'S IT LIKE? Simile, Metaphor and Other FiguresSimile and MetaphorRobinson Jeffers The Purse-SeineRobert Frost The Silken TentEmily Dickinson My Life Had Stood--A Loaded GunLinda Pastan ReturningMargaret Atwood HabitationWilliam Butler Yeats No Second TroyRobert Frost A Patch Of Old Snow*Al Young Up Vernon's AlleyHelen Chasin City PigeonsAnalogyWalter de la Mare All But BlindSynesthesia AllusionAlexander Pope Intended For Sir Isaac Newton*Michael Donaghy Local 32BPersonfication, MythologyKarl Shapiro A Cut FlowerWilliam Butler Yeats Leda And The SwanWalter Savage Landor DirceExercises and DiversionsAlan Shapiro Against PoetsEssays and Poems3. SYMBOLISM: The Broken Coin Synecdoche, Metonymy*Mary Jo Salter A Poetics of SexThe SymbolHoward Nemerov Money*Jenn Habel Another Poem About the HeartGeorge Herbert HopeWilliam Blake The Sick RoseRobert Frost Acquainted With The NightSaint John Of The Cross The Dark NightThing-PoemsRainer Maria Rilke The Merry-Go-RoundWilliam Carlos Williams Nantucket*Frank O'Hara Why I am Not a PainterAllegorySir Thomas Wyatt My Galley Charged with ForgetfulnessKingsley Amis A Note on WyattBilly Collins The Death of AllegoryExercises and DiversionsJohn Crowe Ransom Good ShipsCarl Sandburg A FenceEssays and Poems4. DOUBLE VISION: Antipoetry, Paradox, and IronyAntipoetryWilliam Shakespeare WinterFrancis P. Osgood Winter Fairyland In VermontElizabeth Bishop Filling StationWalt Whitman BeautyWilliam Shakespeare Sonnet 130ParadoxRobert Graves The Face in the MirrorAlexander Pope From An Essay on ManIrony*Wilfred Owen The Parable of the Old Man and the YoungUnderstatement--The Withheld ImageSimonides On the Spartan Dead at ThermopylaeX.J. Kennedy Loose WomanOverstatementRobert Graves SpoilsExercises and DiversionsRod Taylor Dakota: October, 1822: Hunkpapa WarriorWallace Stevens The Emperor Of Ice-CreamEssays and PoemsPart Two: The Emotions.5. THE COLOR OF THOUGHT: Emotions in Poetry The Role of EmotionWilliam Butler Yeats The SpurDick Davis Desire*Heather McHugh Earthmoving MaledictionAmmianus Epitaph of Nearchos*Michael McFee Time EnoughW.H. Auden The Shield of AchillesSense and SentimentalityAnonymous The Unquiet Grave*Julia Moore Little LibbieJohn Crowe Ransom Bells For John Whiteside's DaughterAlgernon Charles Swinburne Étude Réaliste (I)James Wright A Song for The Middle of the NightMay Swenson Cat & The WeatherWilliam Stafford Traveling Through The Dark*Richard Wilbur The PardonExercises and DiversionsKenneth Fearing Yes, The Agency Can Handle ThatEssays and PoemsPart Three: The Words.6. MACHINE FOR MAGIC: The Fresh Usual WordsLiving WordsKenneth Patchen Moon, Sun, Sleep, Birds, LiveRobert Frost Dust of Snow; Neither Out Far Nor In DeepEmily Dickinson A Narrow Fellow in The GrassLess Is MoreAlfred, Lord Tennyson Break, Break, BreakA.E. Housman Along the Field as We Came ByWilliam Butler Yeats An Irish Airman Foresees His DeathEzra Pound The Bath TubHilaire Belloc On His BooksWilliam Stafford Godiva County, MontanaW.H. Auden The Wanderer*Roger Mitchell The Word for Everything*Emily Grosholz Remembering the ArdecheExercises and DiversionsRandall Jarrell The Knight, Death, and the DevilEssays and PoemsPart Four: The Sounds. 7. GOLD IN THE ORE: Sound as Meaning*Kay Ryan Crustaceon IsalndGail Tremblay Not SenseVowels and AssonanceDylan Thomas Do Not Go Gentle into That Good NightRobert Frost Once By The PacificE.E. Cummings Chansons Innocentes, I*Christian Bök VowelsConsonants and AlliterationExercises and DiversionsJohn Milton On the Late Massacre in PiedmontEssays and Poems8. WORKING WITH GOLD: Rhyme and MusicLanguage as MimicryJohn Updike Player Piano*Anne Stevenson Making PoetryA Reason for Rhyme?*Etheridge Knight A Poem for MyselfEzra Pound Alba ("When the nightingale . . .")Off-Rhyme or Slant Rhyme Wilfred Owen Anthem For Doomed Youth; Arms and the Boy*Thomas McGrath Remembering the Children of AuschwitzThe Music of PoetryWilliam Butler Yeats The Lake Isle of Innisfree*Anonymous Sumer Is Icumen In*Ezra Pound Ancient MusicAnonymous The Streets of LaredoCharles Causley Lord Lovelace Exercises and Diversions*Timothy Murphy Twice Cursed; Poet’s PrayerEdwin Arlington Robinson The Dark HillsEssays and PoemsPart Five: The Rhythms9. THE DANCER AND THE DANCE: The Play of RhythmsRhythmRepetition as RhythmRobert Graves Counting The BeatsWalt Whitman From Leaves of GrassThe Rhythm of AccentA Note on ScansionIambic PentameterVariations on IambicWilliam Shakespeare Sonnet 66Meter and RhythmWilliam Butler Yeats The Second ComingLine LengthMatthew Arnold Dover Beach*May Swenson QuestionTheodore Roethke My Papa's WaltzExercises and DiversionsWilliam Browne On the Countess Dowager of PembrokeKatherine McAlpine That Ghastly Night in DoverEssays and Poems10. DIFFERENT DRUMMERS: Alternative Forms of MeterOther Syllable-Stress RhythmsGeorge Gordon, Lord Byron The Destruction Of Sennacherib*Timothy Murphy Harvest of Sorrows Strong-Stress RhythmsAnonymous I Have Labored SoreRichard Wilbur Funk*Anonymous How Many Miles to Babylon?E.E. Cummings if everything happens that can't be done*W.H. Auden As I Walked Out One EveningSprung RhythmA Word about Quantity*Timothy Steele Sapphics against AngerSyllabic MeterJames Tate Miss Cho Composes in the Cafeteria*Ron Rash ScarecrowExercises and DiversionsEssays and Poems11. REMOVING THE NET: "Free Verse," Concrete Poetry, Prose PoemsSome Background on Free Verse*H.D. Oread*William Carlos Williams Dedication for a Plot of GroundLine BreaksStephen Crane A Man Said to the Universe*Denise Levertov The Ache of Marriage*George Oppen Psalm*Suzanne Lummis Morning After the 6.1*Rachel Loden The Killer InstinctThe Variable FootWilliam Carlos Williams The DescentConcrete and Shaped PoetryEmmett Williams Like Attracts LikeHanjorg Mayer Oil*Jan D. Hodge CarouselThe Prose Poem*Robert Hass A Story About the Body*Marie Howe Part of Eve’s Discussion*Jay Meek Trains in WinterExercises and DiversionsWilliam Carlos Williams Iris Essays and PoemsPart Six: The Mind.12. THE SHAPE OF THOUGHT: Sentences and StructureThe SentenceEugenio Montale The EelGwendolyn Brooks We Real CoolUse of ConnectivesJacques Prevert The MessageParallelismWalt Whitman I Hear America Singing*Shirley Geok-Lin Lim Learning to Love AmericaSentence StructureE.E. Cummings Me up at doesPeter Viereck To Helen Of Tro
y (N.Y.)Robert Frost Beyond WordsAlice Fulton What I LikeJohn Clare Remember Dear MaryThinking about DictionRobert Graves The Persian VersionEdward Field Curse of the Cat WomanCreating New WordsE.E. Cummings wherelings whenlingsExercises and DiversionsEssays and PoemsCOLOR PLATESU. A. Fanthorpe Not My Best SideW. H. Auden Musée des Beaux Arts*Jorie Graham San SepolcroLawrence Ferlinghetti Short Story on a Painting by Gustav KlimtLisel Mueller Paul Delvaux: The Village of the Mermaids13. GOLDEN NUMBERS: On Nature and Form William Butler Yeats The StatuesJohn Donne The AnniversaryFixed Stanza FormsHoward Nemerov "Good-Bye," Said The River, "I'm Going Downstream"X.J. Kennedy On a Given BookBruce Bennett On Being Immortalized in BronzeAmareh I'll Hide Within My Poems (trans. Dick Davis)*Charles Martin Taken Up*George Szirtes Like a Black BirdWilliam Wordsworth A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal*Dick Davis On the Iranian DiasporaEdgar Allen Poe To Helen*Catherine Tufariello This ChildFixed Forms for PoemsGeorge Meredith Lucifer in StarlightWilliam Shakespeare Sonnet 29*Thomas Carper Why Did TheGwendolyn Brooks The Rites For Cousin Vit*A.E. Stallings Sime Qua NonGerard Manley Hopkins Pied BeautyFrancois Villon Ballade to His Mistress*Wendy Cope ValentineFrederick Morgan 1904Lady Izumi Shikibu Lying Here AloneAdelaide Crapsey Cinquain: A WarningBasho Evening darkens. Hunched; Lightning in the clouds!Richard Wilbur Sleepless at Crown PointR.S. Gwynn Black HelicoptersAnonymous Sir Isaac NewtonE. William Seaman Higgledy-piggledyPaul Pascal TactAnonymous There Was a Young Lady of TottenhamExercises and DiversionsA.E. Housman With Rue My Heart Is LadenThomas Hardy I Look into My GlassEssays and Poems14. A HEAD ON ITS SHOULDERS: From Realism to SurrealismCommon SenseMiller Williams A Poem for EmilyJohn Berryman He ResignsWilliam Wordsworth The Solitary ReaperWill Allen Dromgoole Building The BridgeUncommon Sense*Terese Svoboda Old GodLisel Mueller PalindromeStevie Smith Our Bog Is DoodFederico Gracia Lorca Sleepwalker's Ballad*Mark Irwin XA Comparison*Li Po Drinking Alone by Moonlight (trans. Arthur Waley)*Li Po Drinking Alone with the Moon (trans. Vikram Seth)Exercises and DiversionsAnonymous I Never Plucked-a BumblebeeEssays and Poems15. ADAM'S CURSE: Inspiration and EffortRobert W. Service InspirationDylan Thomas In My Craft or Sullen ArtD.H. Lawrence The PianoExercises and DiversionsA.E. Housman I Hoed and Trenched and WeededWilliam Butler Yeats The Lamentation of the Old PensionerWalter de la Mare The Stone; Slim Cunning HandsEssays and PoemsANTHOLOGYAnonymous: Lord Randal; *The Wife of Usher's WellSir Thomas Wyatt: They Flee from MeChristopher Marlowe: The Passionate Shepherd to His LoveSir Walter Raleigh: The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd*Sir Edmund Spenser: *One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the StrandSir Philip Sidney: With How Sad Steps, O MoonWilliam Shakespeare: Sonnet 18; Sonnet 73; Sonnet 116; Sonnet 129.Thomas Campion: My Sweetest Lesbia, Let Us Live And Love;It Fell On A Summer's DayThomas Nashe: Adieu, Farewell Earth's BlissJohn Donne: The Sun Rising; A Valediction: Of Weeping; A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning; Death Be Not ProudBen Jonson: On My First SonRobert Herrick: Delight In DisorderGeorge Herbert: Redemption; Easter-Wings; *The Pulley*Edmund Waller: Go, Lovely RoseJohn Milton: Lycidas; On His BlindnessAnne Bradstreet: To My Dear and Loving HusbandAndrew Marvell: To His Coy MistressKatherine Philips: An Answer to Another Persuading a Lady to MarriageAphra Behn: Song: Love ArmedJonathan Swift: A Description of the MorningThomas Gray: Elegy Written in a Country ChurchyardChristopher Smart: From Jubilate AgnoWilliam Blake: The Tyger; London; A Poison TreeWilliam Wordsworth: She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways; The World Is Too Much With Us; Composed upon Westminster BridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge: Kubla KhanPercy Bysshe Shelley: Ozymandias; Ode to the West WindJohn Clare: AutumnJohn Keats: La Belle Dame sans Merci; Ode to A Nightingale; To AutumnEdward Fitzgerald: From The Rubaiyat Of Omar KhayamAlfred Lord Tennyson: Ulysses Robert Browning: My Last DuchessEmily Bronte: RemembranceArthur Hugh Clough: The Latest DecalogueWalt Whitman: From Leaves Of Grass; Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking; When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer; Reconciliation Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The WoodspurgeEmily Dickinson: Went Up A Year This Evening; I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died; I Started Early-Took My Dog; Because I Could Not Stop for Death; *The Bustle in a House; Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant*Christina Rossetti: Up-HillThomas Hardy: The Ruined Maid; The Self-Unseeing; The Man He Killed; The Oxen; In Time of "The Breaking of Nations"Gerard Manley Hopkins: God's Grandeur; The Windhover; Felix Randal; Spring And FallA.E. Housman: To an Athlete Dying Young; Loveliest Of Trees, The Cherry NowWilliam Butler Yeats: Adam's Curse; The Cold Heaven; Sailing To Byzantium; Among School Children; A Last ConfessionEdwin Arlington Robinson: The Mill; Mr. Flood's PartyWalter de la Mare: The ListenersRobert Frost: Mending Wall, "Out, Out-"; Provide, Provide; *For Once, Then, Something; *To Earthward; The Subverted FlowerWallace Stevens: Sunday Morning; The Snow Man; The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand ManWilliam Carlos Williams: To Waken an Old Lady; The Red Wheelbarrow; The DanceEzra Pound: The River-Merchant's Wife: A LetterMarianne Moore: A Grave; A Carriage from SwedenEdwin Muir: The HorsesT.S. Eliot: The Love Song Of J. Alfred PrufrockArchibald Macleish: Ars Poetica*Edna St. Vincent Millay: I Shall Forget You Presently, My DearE.E. Cummings: anyone lived in a pretty how townJean Toomer: Reapers*Louise Bogan: WomenHart Crane: *My Grandmother's Love LettersRobert Francis: Pitcher; SwimmerKenneth Fearing: Love, 20¢ the First Quarter MileLangston Hughes: Dream Variations; The Negro Speaks Of RiversOgden Nash: Very Like a WhaleStevie Smith: Not Waving but DrowningStanley Kunitz: The AbductionW.H. Auden: Lullaby: In Memory Of W. B. YeatsLouis MacNeice: *Snow; The Sunlight on the GardenTheodore Roethke: *Root Cellar; *Forcing House; Elegy for Jane; The WakingRobert Fitzgerald: Cobb Would Have Caught ItElizabeth Bishop: The Fish, Sandpiper, One ArtRobert Hayden: Those Winter Sundays*John Frederick Nims: *Love PoemMuriel Rukeyser: Effort at Speech between Two PeopleJohn Berryman: Dream Songs, 4, 22Randall Jarrell: Next DayDylan Thomas: Fern HillJohn Ciardi: FacesGwendolyn Brooks: The Bean EatersRobert Lowell: Skunk Hour; For The Union DeadMay Swenson: Stripping and Putting OnHoward Nemerov: Because You Asked about the Line between Prose And PoetryRichard Wilbur: The Catch; Hamlen BrookPhilip Larkin: At Grass; The Explosion; *AubadeJames Dickey: Cherrylog RoadAnthony Hecht: The Dover Bitch, The Book of YolekDonald Justice: *Variations on a Text by Vallejo; *Psalm and Lament Maxine Kumin: The Retrieval SystemGerald Stern: The DogA.R. Ammons: The Constant; Cut the GrassAllen Ginsberg: A Supermarket in CaliforniaJames Merrill: Charles on Fire; The Blue GrottoW.D. Snodgrass: Leaving the MotelDavid Wagoner: On a Man Dancing by Himself in a TavernJohn Ashbery:
Mixed FeelingsW.S. Merwin: *For the Anniversary of My Death; On the Old WayJames Wright: Autumn Begins In Martin's Ferry, Ohio; *A BlessingPhilip Levine: Keep TalkingAdrienne Rich: From Twenty-one Love Poems (VI, XVI, XVIII); The Slides; What Kind of Times Are TheseGary Snyder: *Why Log Truck Drives Rise Earlier than Students of Zan; *Axe HandlesDerek Walcott: *Sea GrapesSylvia Plath: Tulips; Blackberrying; MirrorVern Rutsala: WordsMark Strand: The TunnelMary Oliver: Shadows; The StormLucille Clifton: homage to my hipsC.K. Williams: TarCharles Simic: Fear; Fork; Classic Ballroom Dances; *Slaughterhouse FliesMargaret Atwood: Siren SongStephen Dunn: At the Smithville Methodist ChurchSeamus Heaney: Death of A Naturalist; Follower; DamsonTed Kooser: Abandoned Farmhouse; *That Was IRobert Pinsky: A WomanBilly Collins: *Embrace; The DeadWilliam Matthews: Mood IndigoSharon Olds: The Death of Marilyn Monroe; PhysicsLouise Glück: The School Children; *Mock OrangeEllen Bryant Voigt: The StarvelingMargaret Benbow: Crazy Arms: Earlene RemembersJeanne Murray Walker: Studying Physics with My Daughter*Wendy Cope: Some More Light Verse*B.H Fairchild: Brazil*Kay Ryan: BlandeurThomas Lux: Cellar StairsMarilyn Nelson: Epithalamium and Shvaree; *How I Discovered PoetryLawrence Raab: Learning How to WriteYusef Komunyakaa: Facing ItRobert B. Shaw: Shut In*Amy Uyematsu: Deliberate*R.S. Gwynn: Body BagsLeslie Marmon Silko: Prayer to the PacificAugust Kleinzahler: Watching Dogwood Blossoms Fall in a Parking Lot off Route 46Julia Alvarez Old HeroinesCarolyn Forché: For the Stranger; The Garden Shukkei-enDana Gioia: *Palnting a SequoiaRodney Jones: A BlasphemyJoy Harjo: Eagle PoemAndrew Hudgins: The Persistence of Nature in Our LivesBrigit Pegeen Kelly: Song*Judith Ortiz Cofer: QuinceañeraRita Dove: ÖAlice Fulton: News of the Occluded CycloneMark Jarman: *Ground Swell; From Unholy Sonnets (13)David Mura: The NativesNaomi Shihab Nye: *FamousJim Simmerman: Child's Grave, Hale County, AlabamaGary Soto: Oranges*Mark Irwin: The IrisesGjertrud Schanckenberg: Walking Home*Benjamin Alire Sáenz: To the DesertMary Jo Salter: Boulevard du MontparnasseMark Doty: BrillianceLouise Erdrich: Jacklight*Carol Moldaw: Beads of RainLi-Young Lee: Eating Alone*Jane Hilberry: The Moment*Kate Light: There Comes the Strangest Moment*Joe Bolton: Adult Situations*April Linder: GirlRafael Campo: *What the Body Told*Sherman Alexie: The Powwow at the End of the World*Diane Thiel: The Mine Field*Kevin Young: Quivira City LimitsAPPENDIXESAppendix A: PoeticsAppendix B: Writing About PoetryAppendix C: Literary CriticismPermissions AcknowledgmentsIndex of Names and TitlesIndex of First LinesIndex of Principal Terms and Topics