Poems About Power Feel Free to Quote!

CHOOSE THE single clenched fist lifted and ready, Or the open asking hand held out and waiting. Choose: For we meet by one or the other. -- Carl Sandburg

The Balloon Of The Mind Hands, do what you're bid: Bring the balloon of the mind That bellies and drags in the wind Into its narrow shed. William Butler Yeats

An Interruption by Robert Foote A boy had stopped his car To save a turtle in the road; I was not far Behind, and slowed, And stopped to watch as he began To shoo it off into the undergrowth— This wild reminder of an ancient past, Lumbering to some Late Triassic bog, Till it was just a rustle in the grass, Till it was gone. I hope I told him with a look As I passed by, How I was glad he'd stopped me there, And what I felt for both Of them, something I took To be a kind of love, And of a troubled thought I had, for man, Of how we ought To let life go on where And when it can. In your Writer’s Notebook, summarize this poem using four vocab words from our current vocab unit.

“Keeping Quiet” by Robert Bly A friend of mine says that every war Is some violence in childhood coming closer. Those whoppings in the shed weren’t a joke. On the whole, it didn’t turn out well. This has been going on for thousands Of years! It doesn’t change. Something Happened to me, and I can’t tell Anyone, so it will happen to you.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: SIMILARITIES TO OUR READING? “Roar” by Katy Perry How do people generally acquire and maintain power? What happens when there is a change in power? What makes a person or group powerful at any given place or time? How can power be used to accomplish good? What constitutes an abuse of power and how do people respond to such abuses? You held me down, but I got up (HEY!) Already brushing off the dust You hear my voice, you hear that sound Like thunder gonna shake the ground Get ready ’cause I’ve had enough I see it all, I see it now I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire ‘Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar Louder, louder than a lion COMPARE AND CONTRAST: SIMILARITIES TO OUR READING?

Boarding House by Ted Kooser The blind man draws his curtains for the night and goes to bed, leaving a burning light above the bathroom mirror. Through the wall, he hears the deaf man walking down the hall in his squeaky shoes to see if there’s a light Under the blind man’s door, and all is right

We Wear the Mask by Paul Lawrence Dunbar      WE wear the mask that grins and lies,     It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—     This debt we pay to human guile;     With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,     And mouth with myriad subtleties.     Why should the world be over-wise,     In counting all our tears and sighs?     Nay, let them only see us, while             We wear the mask.     We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries     To thee from tortured souls arise.     We sing, but oh the clay is vile     Beneath our feet, and long the mile;     But let the world dream otherwise,             We wear the mask!

“The Courage that My Mother Had” by Edna St. Vincent Millay Fill out the “ticket in” on your desk 1. The courage that my mother had Went with her, and is with her still: Rock from New England quarried; Now granite in a granite hill. 5. The golden brooch my mother wore She left behind for me to wear; I have no thing I treasure more: Yet, it is something I could spare. 9. Oh, if instead she'd left to me The thing she took into the grave!- That courage like a rock, which she Has no more need of, and I have.

Evening on the Lawn by Gary Soto I sat on the lawn watching the half-hearted moon rise, The gnats orbiting the peach pit that I spat out When the sweetness was gone. I was twenty, Wet behind the ears from my car wash job, And suddenly rising to my feet when I saw in early evening A cloud roll over a section of stars. It was boiling, a cloud Churning in one place and washing those three or four stars. Excited, I lay back down, My stomach a valley, my arms twined with new rope, My hair a youthful black. I called my mother and stepfather, And said something amazing was happening up there.

. . . Evening on the Lawn ctnd. They shaded their eyes from the porch light. They looked and looked before my mom turned The garden hose onto a rosebush and my stepfather scolded the cat To get the hell off the car. The old man grumbled About missing something on TV, The old lady made a face When mud splashed her slippers. How you bother, She said for the last time, the screen door closing like a sigh. I turned off the porch light, undid my shoes. The cloud boiled over those stars until it was burned by their icy fire. The night was now clear. The wind brought me a scent Of a place where I would go alone, Then find others, all barefoot. In time, each of us would boil clouds And strike our childhood houses With lightning.