IB Summer Packet of Poems

Name: ______

IB Literature, Juniors & Seniors

13 SONNETS

by William Shakepeare

Notes for certain words in the following poems appear immediately below the poem.

When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls, all silvered o’er with white;

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,

Which erst◦ from heat did canopy the herd,

And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves,

Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

That thou among the wastes of time must go.

Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake

And die as fast as they see others grow;

And nothing ‘gainst time’s scythe can make defense

Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

◦once

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:

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed▫;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair that thou ow’st٭:

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal line 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

▫ loses its beauty

٭ you own

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless◦ cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee – and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

◦useless

When to the sessions◦ of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless▫ night,
And weep afresh love's long since canceled woe,
And moan the expense٭ of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

◦sittings of a court

▫endless

٭loss

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon▫ permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack◦ on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
But out, alack!٭ he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud¤ hath mask'd him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain· when heaven's sun staineth.

▫momentarily

◦a wind-driven mass of high, broken clouds

٭alas

¤the clouds in the vicinity

·be stained

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

But you shall shine more bright in these conténts

Than unswept stone, besmeared◦ with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars◦ his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom◦

So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

◦smeared

◦Roman god of war

◦Christian Judgment Day; end of the world

Since brass, nor◦ stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack▫,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

◦since there is neither brass nor

▫alas

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
Oh, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the deathbed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere◦ long.

◦before

116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixéd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.▫
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.◦
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

▫although its elevation may be measured

◦Judgment Day, the end of the world

129

Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action; and till action, lust

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Enjoyed no sooner but despiséd straight:

Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,

Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,

On purpose laid to make the taker mad:

Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

A bliss in proof◦, and proved◦, a very woe;

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

All this the world knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell

◦in the experience

◦once experienced

130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked,◦ red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;◦

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

◦having patches of different colors

◦walk

138

When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutored youth,

Unlearnéd in the world’s false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:

On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.

But wherefore◦ says she not she is unjust?

And wherefore◦ say not I that I am old?

Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love loves not to have years told.

Therefore, I lie with her and she with me,

And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

◦why

Contemporary Free Verse Poems

Story Books on a Kitchen Table

by Audre Lorde

5 / Out of her womb of pain my mother spat me
into her ill-fitting harness of despair
into her deceits
where anger re-conceived me
piercing my eyes like arrows
pointed by her nightmare
of who I was not
becoming.
10
15
20
25 / Going away
she left in her place
iron maidens to protect me
and for my food
the wrinkled milk of legend
where I wandered through the lonely rooms of afternoon
wrapped in nightmares
from the Orange and Red and Yellow
Purple and Blue and Green
Fairy Books
where white witches ruled
over the empty kitchen table
and never wept
or offered gold
nor any kind enchantment
for the vanished mother
of a black girl.

The Yellow Star that Goes with Me

by Jessica Greenbaum

5
10
15
20 / Sometimes when I’m really thirsty, I mean really dying of thirst
For five minutes
Sometimes when I board a train
Sometimes in December when I’m absolutely freezing
For five minutes
Sometimes when I take a shower
Sometimes in December when I’m absolutely freezing
Sometimes when I reach from steam to towel, when the bed has soft, blue sheets
Sometimes when I take a shower
For twenty minutes, the white tiles dripping with water
Sometimes when I reach from steam to towel, when the bed has soft, blue sheets
Sometimes when I split an apple, or when I’m hungry, painfully hungry
For twenty minutes, the white tiles dripping with water
As the train passes Chambers Street. We’re all crammed in like laundry
Sometimes when I split an apple, or when I’m hungry, painfully hungry
For half an hour, sometimes when I’m on a train
As it passes Chambers Street. We’re all crammed in like laundry
It’s August. The only thing to breathe is everybody’s stains
For half an hour. Sometimes when I’m on a train
Or just stand along the empty platform
It’s August. The only thing to breathe is everybody’s stains
Sometimes when I board a train
Or just stand along the empty platform—
Sometimes when I’m thirsty, I mean really dying of thirst.

Occupational Hazards

by Sherman Alexie

(poem continues on next page)

1
5
10
15
20
25
30
35 / Working graveyard shift at a 7-11
in Seattle, making minimum
everything, when I got robbed
by a guy with a pistol. Now
I was thinking as it happened
thinking the gun ain’t loaded
everything is under control
this guy don’t want to hurt me
he understands I ain’t got much
more than he does. I got
an old car, high rent, even
the same dark skin as his
and my best shirt is the one
I have to wear to work
with 7-11 stitched on my chest.
But the robber takes me back
into the cooler, makes me
kneel on the cold floor
with my hands on my head/ my back turned to him/ and I wet
my pants when he puts the pistol/ up against my skull/ I keep
thinking/ I’m going to die/ between the broken eggs/ and the
expired milk/ and I keep thinking/ I’ll make a move/ on the
robber/ and tear the gun from him/ and I keep thinking/ I’d
rather die fighting/ and/ I’d rather die brave and crazy/
but the robber laughs, runs
out of the store, out
of the rest of my life
and leaves me to the police
and their sketch artist.
It takes hours to describe
the robber, detail by detail
the color of his hair, eyes, skin
his height, weight, age
all approximated, estimated.
After all that work
the sketch artist asks
if I’ve remembered everything
perfectly, if I’m sure
I’ve described the robber
40 / exactly as he looked, exactly
as he lived and breathed
and I tell the sketch artist
45 / “Yes, I could never forget”
and then he shows me his sketch
shows me my memory, my vision
and the face on the page
is the same face I always see
when I look in my mirror
50 / in those last seconds
before I walk out the door
and leave home for work.

First Indian on the Moon