Oranges : : By GARY SOTO first time I walked With a girl, I was twelve, Cold, and weighted down With two oranges in my jacket. 4
December. 5 Frost cracking Beneath my steps, my breath Before me, then gone, As I walked toward Her house, the one whose Porch light burned yellow Night and day, in any weather. 12
A dog barked at me, until 13 She came out pulling At her gloves, face bright With rouge. I smiled, Touched her shoulder, and led Her down the street, across A used car lot and a line Of newly planted trees, Until we were breathing Before a drugstore. We Entered, the tiny bell Bringing a saleslady Down a narrow aisle of goods. 27
I turned to the candies Tiered like bleachers, And asked what she wanted – Light in her eyes, a smile Starting at the corners Of her mouth. I fingered A nickle in my pocket, And when she lifted a chocolate That cost a dime, I didn’t say anything. 38
I took the nickle from 39 My pocket, then an orange, And set them quietly on The counter. When I looked up, The lady’s eyes met mine, And held them, knowing Very well what it was all About. 47
Outside, 48 A few cars hissing past, Fog hanging like old Coats between the trees. 51
I took my girl’s hand 52 In mine for two blocks, Then released it to let Her unwrap the chocolate. 55
I peeled my orange 56 That was so bright against The gray of December That, from some distance, Someone might have thought I was making a fire in my hands. 61 — Gary Soto
“Oranges” A 61 lines Narrative Poem By Gary Soto , his most famous poem which is About the exciting First Date Of a 12 year old 🥶YoungBoyat a Drug store on a cold ❄️ frosty night of a December recited with happy recalling of warmheartedness , fondness and affectionateness. : : : :
Notes for each of the lines Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India June 14 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
Sandra Cineros : American Poet : Born 1954 Sandra Cineros American Poet and Writer.
One Last Poem For Richard : : By Sandra Cisneros December 24th and we’re through again.
This time for good I know because I didn’t throw you out — and anyway we waved.
No shoes. No angry doors.
We folded clothes and went our separate ways.
You left behind that flannel shirt of yours I liked but remembered to take your toothbrush. Where are you tonight?
Richard, it’s Christmas Eve again and old ghosts come back home.
I’m sitting by the Christmas tree wondering where did we go wrong.
Okay, we didn’t work, and all memories to tell you the truth aren’t good.
But sometimes there were good times.
Love was good. I loved your crooked sleep beside me and never dreamed afraid.
There should be stars for great wars like ours. There ought to be awards and plenty of champagne for the survivors.
After all the years of degradations, the several holidays of failure, there should be something to commemorate the pain.
Someday we’ll forget that great Brazil disaster.
Till then, Richard, I wish you well.
I wish you love affairs and plenty of hot water, and women kinder than I treated you.
I forget the reason, but I loved you once, remember?
Maybe in this season, drunk and sentimental, I’m willing to admit a part of me, crazed and kamikaze, ripe for anarchy, lovesstill.
“One Last Poem For Richard”A December Poem By An American Poet Sandra Cisnerosis About A breakup in a sad 😢 “sentimental”way “wondering where ( the lovers ) go wrong.” : : : :
Notes for each of the lines Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India June 13 , 2023 : : : :
Love and Friendship by Emily Brontë Love is like the wild rose-briar, Friendship like the holly-tree — The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms But which will bloom most contantly? The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring, Its summer blossoms scent the air; Yet wait till winter comes again And who will call the wild-briar fair? Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now And deck thee with the holly’s sheen, That when December blights thy brow He may still leave thy garland green. — Emily Brontë
“Love And Friendship”, A December Poem By Emily Bronte is About comparing or contrasting 💕😘 Love like the wild 🌹 Rose – briar And Friendship a like the holy tree 🌲 – – dark when the rose – briar, a symbol of romance 💒 blooms sending scent in the spring air and having sweet taste and becoming more brighter. Love is connected withfriendship asfriends share love , Yet the friendship survives the harshness of wintery cold ❄️🥶 like a more stable and still green lively tree of December. She looks down on Love / weathering rose – briar of the season of cold with disdain , direspect and pronounced contempt by her argument saying ,”And who will call the wild-briar fair? Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now And deck thee with the holly’s sheen, That when December blights thy brow He may still leave thy garland green.” : In a way giving preferential choice for friendship over romantic love. : : : :
Notes for each of the 3 Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India June 12 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
Neruda in 1963 ; Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto 12 July 1904 Parral, Maule Region, Chile – – 23 September 1973 (aged 69) Santiago, Chile. : : Poet diplomat politician of communist party : ; International Peace Prize (1950) Stalin Peace Prize (1953) Nobel Prize in Literature (1971). Pablo Neruda (/nəˈruːdə/; Spanish: [ˈpaβlo neˈɾuða] (listen))(born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto; 12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), was a Chilean poet Neruda won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old, and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems such as the ones in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924 ) : : Chilean ambassador to France, lasting from 1970 to 1972; his final diplomatic posting. During his stint in Paris, Neruda helped to renegotiate the external debt of Chile, billions owed to European and American banks, but within months of his arrival in Paris his health began to deteriorate.[59] Neruda returned to Chile two-and-a-half years later due to his failing health. In 1971, Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prizea , a decision that did not come easily because some of the committee members had not forgotten Neruda’s past praise of Stalinist dictatorship. But his Swedish translator, Artur Lundkvist, did his best to ensure the Chilean received the 🏆prize. As the coup d’état of 1973 unfolded, Neruda was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet saw Neruda’s hopes for Chile destroyed. Shortly thereafter, during a search of the house and grounds at Isla Negra by Chilean armed forces at which Neruda was reportedly present, the poet famously remarked: “Look around – there’s only one thing of danger for you here – poetry.” : : It was originally reported that, on the evening of 23 September 1973, at Santiago’s Santa María Clinic, Neruda had died of heart failure. He was scheduled to fly to Mexico where he may have been planning to lead a government in exile that would denounce General Augusto Pinochet, who led the coup against Allende on September 11, according to his friends, researchers, and other political observers”. The funeral took place amidst a massive police presence, and mourners took advantage of the occasion to protest against the new regime, established just a couple of weeks before. Neruda’s house was broken into and his papers and books taken or destroyed. His wife ,Matilde Urrutia ( m. 1966 ) subsequently compiled and edited for publication the memoirs and possibly his final poem “Right Comrade, It’s the Hour of the Garden”. These and other activities brought her into conflict with Pinochet’s government, which continually sought to curtail Neruda’s influence on the Chilean collective consciousness. : : American singer/songwriter Taylor Swift referenced Neruda’s line “love is so short, forgetting is so long” in the prologue for her 2012 album, Red. : Many composers have composed a good number of pieces using poems by Neruda : Several Poems of Neruda were translated in Gujarati too. La Chascona, Neruda’s house in Santiago. Neruda owned three houses in Chile; today they are all open to the public as museums: La Chascona in Santiago, La Sebastiana in Valparaíso, and Casa de Isla Negra in Isla Negra, where he and Matilde Urrutia are buried.
A bust of Neruda stands on the grounds of the Organization of American States building in Washington, D.C.
Ode To Tomatoes : : By Pablo Neruda : : : ; : : : The street filled with tomatoes, midday, summer, light is halved like a tomato, its juice runs through the streets.
In December, unabated, the tomato invades the kitchen, it enters at lunchtime, takes its ease on countertops, among glasses, butter dishes, blue saltcellars.
It sheds its own light, benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must murder it: the knife sinks into living flesh, red viscera a cool sun, profound, inexhaustible, populates the salads of Chile, happily, it is wed to the clear onion, and to celebrate the union we pour oil, essential child of the olive, onto its halved hemispheres, pepper adds its fragrance, salt, its magnetism; it is the wedding of the day, parsley hoists its flag, potatoes bubble vigorously, the aroma of the roast knocks at the door, it’s time! come on! and, on the table, at the midpoint of summer, the tomato, star of earth, recurrent and fertile star, displays its convolutions, its canals, its remarkable amplitude and abundance, no pit, no husk, no leaves or thorns, the tomato offers its gift of fiery color and coolcompleteness.
“Ode To Tomatoes”, By Pablo Neruda is About the blood-red tomato : of fiery colour and cool completeness , the star ⭐ of the 🌎 earth and described vividly, while with the street and through the streets ;while cutting by the knife 🗡️🔪 ; on its happy wedding 💒 with the clear onion🧅 ; and such other interesting way including the one that “beds cheerfully” while populating or sharing with vegetables in the preparation of a salads of Chile. : : : :
Further notes Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India June 11 , 2023 : : ::
December Snow by William Belcher Glazier : : : : Fall thickly on the rose-bush, O faintly falling snow! For she is gone who trained its branch, And wooed its bud to blow. Cover the well-known path-way, O damp December snow, Her step no longer lingers there, When stars begin to glow. Melt in the rapid river, O cold and cheerless snow! She sees no more its sudden wave, Nor hears its foaming flow. Chill every song-birds music, O silent, sullen snow! I cannot hear her loving voice, That lulled me long ago. Sleep on the Earth’s broad bosom,— O heavy, winter snow! Its fragrant flowers and blithesome birds Should with its loved one go.
— William Belcher Glazier : : From DiscoverPoetry.com For Educational Purposes only.
“December Snow”A December Poem By William Belcher Glazier is About silent sullen ,cold ❄️ chilling 🌨️ Snow faintly and heavily fallingin Winter ☃️ the impact we see are in our surroundings including well known pathways being covered , song -birds music being chilled , rose bush 🌹🌹 thickly layered , and fragrant flowers and blithesome 🐦🕊️ birds gone away with each one with loved ones 💕😘 : : : : ❄️🌨️❄️ 🌨️
Notes for each of the lines Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India June 10 , 2023 : : : :
Henry Thomas Mackenzie Bell 2 March 1856 Liverpool, England, U.K. – 13 December 1930 (aged 74) London , England : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Writer poet critic journalist lecturer : : : Genre Fiction, poetry, non-fiction, biographies, essay, literary criticism : :Notable works A Forgotten Genius: Charles Whitehead, Christina Rossetti: A Biographical and Critical Study : : : : A noted world traveller, he was acquainted with many literary figures in Victorian Britain and abroad. He was a personal friend of Christina Rossetti and authored her biography, as well as those of fellow English poets Algernon Swinburne and Charles Whitehead, and published critical studies of their literary work. He also contributed biographies to the Dictionary of National Biography.
A staunch Liberal Imperialist, Bell was a charter member of W. E. Forster’s Imperial Federation Committee, lectured for the Social and Political Education League and on four occasions contested St George Hanover Square on behalf of the Liberal Party. He was a member of the Athenaeum for many years. Henry Thomas Mackenzie Bell was born at 8 Falconer Square, Liverpool, England, on 2 March 1856, the youngest child of merchant Thomas Bell and Margaret Mackenzie. His uncle was the Scottish judge and Solicitor-General for Scotland Lord Thomas Mackenzie. Bell suffered from poor health as a child, a fall resulting from a careless nurse having caused a minor paralytic stroke, and he was educated privately. Though he was trained in preparation for a career in law at Cambridge University, Bell instead chose to study abroad and lived in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Madeira. During his years as a world traveller, he became close friends with Christina Rossetti and wrote her biography after her death. While a young man, he published his first poetry books The Keeping of the Vow and Other Verses (1879), Verses of Varied Life (1882) and Old Year Leaves (1883).
In 1884, Bell returned to Great Britain and settled in Ealing, London, as a professional writer. The same year, he published a well-received biography on Charles Whitehead entitled A Forgotten Genius (1884). He gained a staff position on the London Academy and eventually became its leading literary critic. Bell went on to become a contributor of articles, poems and letters to various Victorian era publications including The Fortnightly Review, The Pall Mall Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The Athenaeum, The Speaker, The Literary World, Temple Bar, The Lady’s Realm, Black and White and The Academy. He also wrote articles for the Dictionary of National Biography, The Poets and the Poetry of the Century and the Savage Club Papers.
During the 1890s, he published a second series of poetry collections Spring’s Immortality and Other Poems (1893), Pictures of Travel and Other Poems (1898) and Collected Poems (1901). Four years after the death of Rossetti, he published her biography Christina Rossetti: A Biographical and Critical Study (1898) : :
Bell was active politically during this time as a Liberal Imperialist. He was a charter member of W. E. Forster’s Imperial Federation Committee, lectured for the Social and Political Education League and on four occasions contested St George Hanover Square (or the London County Council) on behalf of the Liberal Party. For several years, he was a member of the Athenaeum. Bell died at his Orme Square home in Bayswater, London, on 13 December 1930.
December Daisies And December Days : : : : By H. T. Mackenzie Bell : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Ah, how the sight of fair untimely flowers Awakes a subtle sentiment, and fills The soul with quiet pleasure. Something thrills Our being to the core and softly showers Strange yearning thought upon us. When the close Of a December day is stirless, mild As is this twilight hour, we are beguiled By its seductive softness: and there grows (As one by one from out the placid sky The tranquil stars appear), the half-formed doubt Whether the scene be real. For without A question kindly Auster cannot try To bring a greater boon. Joys that arise All unexpected we most keenly prize.
— Henry Thomas Mackenzie Bell ( 2 March 1856 – 13 December 1930 ) : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : From pickmeuppoetry.org For Educational Purposes only .
Notes for each of the lines Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India June 9 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
Ina Donna Coolbrith in 1880s : : ( born Josephine Donna Smith; March 10, 1841 – February 29, 1928 ) was an American poet, writer, librarian, and a prominent figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary community. Called the “Sweet Singer of California”, she was the first California Poet Laureate and the first poet laureate of any American state. She began to publish poetry in los Angeles California, terminated a youthful failed marriage to make her home in San Francisco, and met writers Bret Harte and Charles Warren Stoddard with whom she formed the “Golden Gate Trinity” closely associated with the literary journal Overland Monthly. Her poetry received positive notice from critics and established poets such as Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce and Alfred Lord Tennyson. She held literary salons at her home in Russian Hill[3]—in this way she introduced new writers to publishers. Coolbrith befriended the poet Joaquin Miller and helped him gain global fame. she came to reside in Oakland and accepted the position of city librarian. Her poetry suffered as a result of her long work hours, but she mentored a generation of young readers including Jack London and Isadora Duncan. She moved back to San Francisco and was invited by members of the Bohemian Club to be their librarian.the fire following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake consumed her work. Author Gertrude Atherton and Coolbrith’s Bohemian Club friends helped set her up again in a new house, and she resumed writing and holding literary salons. She traveled by train to New York City several times and, with fewer worldly cares, greatly increased her poetry output. On June 30, 1915, Coolbrith was named California’s poet laureate, and she continued to write poetry for eight more years. Her style was more than the usual melancholic or uplifting themes expected of women—she included a wide variety of subjects in her poems, which were noted as being “singularly sympathetic” and “palpably spontaneous”. Her sensuous descriptions of natural scenes advanced the art of Victorian poetry to incorporate greater accuracy without trite sentiment, foreshadowing the Imagist school and the work of Robert Frost.[6] California poet laureate Carol Muske-Dukes wrote of Coolbrith’s poems that, though they “were steeped in a high tea lavender style”, influenced by a British stateliness, “California remained her inspiration.”Coolbrith in San Francisco at the age of 29 or 30. ; : : : Coolbrith soon met Bret Harte and Samuel Langhorne Clemens, writing as Mark Twain, in San Francisco.She published poems in the Californian, a new literary newspaper. In July 1868, Coolbrith supplied a poem, “Longing”, for the first issue of the Overland Monthly, ( For a decade, Coolbrith supplied one poem for each new issue of the Overland Monthly) , and served unofficially as co-editor with Harte in selecting poems, articles and stories for the periodical. : : Coolbrith’s “The Mother’s Grief” was positively reviewed in The New York Times. Another poem, “When the Grass Shall Cover Me”, appeared unattributed in an anthology of John Greenleaf Whittier’s favorite works by other poets, entitled Songs of Three Centuries (1875); Coolbrith’s poem was judged the best of that group. : : Coolbrith’s literary work connected her with poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and naturalist John Muir, as well as Charles Warren Stoddard. Harte, Stoddard and Coolbrith were known as the “Golden Gate Trinity” : : writer and critic Ambrose Biercefelt that Coolbrith’s best poems were “California”, the commencement ode she wrote for the University of California in 1871, and “Beside the Dead”, written in 1875. : : Miller quoted Tennyson in describing Coolbrith as “divinely tall, and most divinely fair”: Portrait of Coolbrith from a publication of her poem California, 1918. In 1933, the University of California established the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize, given annually to authors of the best unpublished poems written by undergraduate students enrolled at the University of the Pacific, Mills College, Stanford University, Santa Clara University, Saint Mary’s College of California, and any of the University of California campuses. Coolbrith portrait by Ansel Adams. seated near one of her white Persian cats and wearing a large white mantilla on her head. : In April 1926, she received visitors such as her old friend, art patron Albert M. Bender, who brought young Ansel Adams to meet her. : : In May 1923, Coolbrith’s friend Edwin Markham found her at the Hotel Latham in New York, “very old, ill and moneyless”( Crippled with arthritis,) : Coolbrith died on Leap Day, February 29, 1928,[citation needed] and was buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. Her grave (located in Plot 11 at 37.8332°N 122.2390°W) was unmarked until 1986 when a literary society known as The Ina Coolbrith Circle placed a headstone. Her name is commemorated by Mount Ina Coolbrith, a 7,900-foot (2,400 m) peak near Beckwourth Pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains near State Route 70. Near her Russian Hill home, Ina Coolbrith Park, established earlier as a series of terraces ascending a steep hill, received a memorial plaque placed in 1947 by the San Francisco parlors of the Native Daughters of the Golden West. The park is known for its “meditative setting and spectacular bay views”. : Wings of Sunset, a book of Coolbrith’s later poetry, was published in the year after her death. : Remember Them Humanitarian Monument. Strong women of Oakland / Statute honors 20 artists, leaders : In 2001, a $63,000 sculpture by Scott Donahue was placed in Oakland’s central Frank Ogawa Plaza, adjacent to Oakland City Hall. The artist’s polychrome patchwork statue was a composite image of 20 women,in the city’s history, was installed outside City Hall at Frank Ogawa Plaza.The work is titled “Sigame/Follow Me,” with the second phrase being the English translation of the Spanish word. It stands tall at 13 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs 2,400 pounds. lived from the 1700s to the present, including: poet laureate Ina Donna Coolbirth, architect Julia Morgan, choreographer Isadora Duncan, educators Hannah Jayne Adams, Marcella Ford and Ida Jackson, Olympic diver Zoe Ann Olsen and novelist Amy Tan. A complete list of women represented is given HERE In BELOW : Donahue used a kind of concrete that resists the acidic urban air and coated the statue with specially formulated tints to keep the colors vibrant. ; sculpture elicited protests because the city did not follow its own process for acquiring public art. Oakland’s Craft and Cultural Arts Department leader, “just don’t like the sculpture’s looks”. By late 2004, the sculpture had been removed to a remote former industrial site called Union Point Park on the Oakland Estuary, opening to the public in 2005.
With its steel skeleton and thick walls of concrete, the statue can withstand even riots, he says, jumping up and swinging with all his might on the arm of two mystery women. “You can tell,” the artist says, “she’s a strong woman.”. : : : : The City of Berkeley in 2003 installed a series of 120 poem-imprinted cast-iron plates flanking one block of a downtown street, to become the Addison Street Poetry WalkA 55-pound (25 kg) plate bearing Coolbrith’s poem “Copa De Oro (The California Poppy)” in raised porcelain enamel text is set into the sidewalk at the high-traffic northwest corner of Addison and Shattuck Avenues. In 2016, a path in the Berkeley Hills was renamed for Coolbrith. : At the bottom of the stairway, the Berkeley Historical Society has installed a plaque to commemorate Coolbrith.
December : : By Ina Donna Coolbrith Nauvoo, Illinois. California. U S : 1841 – 1928:: Now the Summer all is over! We have wandered through the clover, We have plucked in wood and lea Blue-bell and anemone.
We were children of the Sun, Very brown to look upon; We were stained, hands and lips, With the berries’ juicy tips.
And I think that we may know Where the rankest nettles grow, And where oak and ivy weave Crimson glories to deceive.
Now the merry days are over! Woodland-tenants seek their cover, And the swallow leaves again For his castle-nests in Spain.
Shut the door, and close the blind: We shall have the bitter wind, We shall have the dreary rain Striving, driving at the pane.
Send the ruddy fire-light higher; Draw your easy chair up nigher; Through the winter, bleak and chill, We may have our summer still.
Here are poems we may read— Pleasant fancies to our need. Ah, eternal Summer-time, Dwells within the Poet’s rhyme!
All the birds’ sweet melodies Linger in these songs of his; And the blossoms of all ages Waft their fragrance from his pages. — Ina Donna Coolbrith : : From allpoetry.com : for educational purposes only.
“December”, A 8 Stanzas in 32 lines December Poem By Ina Donna Coolbrith, California’s first poet laureate, Also known variously as “Sappho of the west” and the “Sweet Singer of California.” And California’s best-known nineteenth-century poet , is About fancies of eternal Summer -time with Natural World described and called upon through the Poet’s rhymes read sitting on an easy 🪑 chair in the room with aclosed doordoor through the Winter ❄️☃️ : : : :
Notes for each of the 8 Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India June 8 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
Christopher Pearce Cranch ( March 8, 1813 District of Columbia – January 20, 1892 Cambridge, Massachusetts ) Alma mater George Washington University Harvard Divinity School : : Christopher Cranch was born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1813. His poetry was published in The Harbinger and The Dial among other publications. He sent “Enosis”, which Hazen Carpenter noted as perhaps Cranch’s most well-known poem, to Emerson for The Dial on March 2, 1840He is the author of Poems (Carey and Hart, 1844), and a translator of Virgil’s Aeneid ( J. R. Osgood, 1872). An editor, painter, and poet, Cranch also served as a Unitarian minister. He died in 1892.Red frozen rowan berries on blue sky
December By Christopher Pearce Cranch ( 1813 – 1892 )
No more the scarlet maples flash and burn Their beacon-fires from hilltop and from plain; The meadow-grasses and the woodland fern In the bleak woods lie withered once again.
The trees stand bare, and bare each stony scar Upon the cliffs; half frozen glide the rills; The steel-blue river like a scimitar Lies cold and curved between the dusky hills.
Over the upland farm I take my walk, And miss the flaunting flocks of golden-rod; Each autumn flower a dry and leafless stalk, Each mossy field a track of frozen sod.
I hear no more the robin’s summer song Through the gray network of the wintry woods; Only the cawing crows that all day long Clamor about the windy solitudes.
Like agate stones upon earth’s frozen breast, The little pools of ice lie round and still; While sullen clouds shut downward east and west In marble ridges stretched from hill to hill.
Come once again, O southern wind,—once more Come with thy wet wings flapping at my pane; Ere snow-drifts pile their mounds about my door, One parting dream of summer bring again.
Ah, no! I hear the windows rattle fast; I see the first flakes of the gathering snow, That dance and whirl before the northern blast. No countermand the march of days can know.
December drops no weak, relenting tear, By our fond summer sympathies ensnared; Nor from the perfect circle of the year Can even winter’s crystal gems be spared.
— Christopher Pearce Cranch : : Published in Poem-a-Day on December 14, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets : From poets.org For Educational Purposes only.
“December” Stanzas in 32 lines December Poem , Originally published in The Bird and the Bell with Other Poems (James R. Osgood and Company, 1875 ) By Christopher Pearce Cranch , is About weather in the month of December defining a change of season after Automnal 🍂🍁Fall of Leaves transformed gradually in to Cold ❄️ Winter ☃️ 🥶
Notes for each of the 8 Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India June 7 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
Michael Miller ( http://www.michaelmillerpoet.com ) A native of Fullerton, California, Michael Miller is the cofounder of Moon Tide Press and the author of College Town (Tebot Bach, 2010), The First Thing Mastered (Tebot Bach, 2013) and Angels in Seven (Moon Tide Press, 2016). A longtime journalist, he has written for the Los Angeles Times and other publications and won a 2014 Orange County Press Club award for his story on poets Lee Mallory and Charles Bukowski. He has served as a judge for Poetry Out Loud and the San Diego Book Awards, and his work has appeared in Poetry Quarterly, San Pedro River Review, Pea River Journal, Lummox, Potomac Review and elsewhere. He earned a BA from the University of California, Irvine and an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. He teaches English and runs the creative writing club at Our Lady of Lourdes School in Los Angeles. ( Biography in poetryfoundation.org ) Blissful days under the safe and secured journey with dear Father at the seat on wheels.Father driving his passenger son safely to his school.
December BY MICHAEL MILLER I want to be a passenger in your car again and shut my eyes while you sit at the wheel,
awake and assured in your own private world, seeing all the lines on the road ahead,
down a long stretch of empty highway without any other faces in sight.
I want to be a passenger in your car again and put my life back in your hands. Michael Miller, “December” from College Town , 2010 Tebot Bach. : : From poeryfoundation.org For Educational Purposes only.
“December”, By Michael Miller is About A young son’s return to past situations of extreme happiness o his childhood and his desire to be under control again of parents while undergoing a highway journey merelyas a passenger. : : : :
“I want to be a passenger in your car again and shut my eyes while you sit at the wheel,” : : : : Stanza 1 : : : : About thoughts and emotions of a son in youth time ( presumably , in mid – age ) wishing to travel merely as a passenger in a car 🚗 driven by his parent at driving seat while undergoing a journey so that in the safe and secured driving hands of his parent , he would shut his eyes in relaxation conferring in him a trust andfaith completely. It would be his car , his driving and his control and expecting himself as a passenger with No anxiousness, and No fear. : : : :
” awake and assured in your own private world, seeing all the lines on the road ahead,” : : : : Stanza 2 : : : : About Emblematical illustration of driving on the road ( It is Highway , made clear in next Stanza 3 ) with the clear, “all lines on the road ahead,” disciplining the traffic which must be strictly adhered to without deviating from the eyes on them for the enjoyment of the safe assured journey ahead, as driven along by a sincere driver of presence of mind and alertness who is fully awakened with his responsibility for the safe and secured journey that will confide in his passenger back with calm and comfort on “seeing All the lines” : these lines on the road would break the metaphor of ‘car’ journey and insert in to a poetic idea with which the observer(s) would be given to understand a nostalgic vibe to wishful longing for familiar person (s) and the blissful thing in their company ( here a car ride together with his parent (s) driving his passenger son in his childhood ) This will become more touching and subtler later in the last Stanza. : : : :
” down a long stretch of empty highway without any other faces in sight.” : : : : Stanza 3 : : : : About “long stretch empty highway” which is metaphorical , representing a long journey of life 🧬requiring very many right judgements after inculcated perceiving , recognising, and realising all the possibilities and situations controlled and managed with skills , experiencesand care.: : A long stretch of highway is suggestive of a large and unbroken expanse or a distance to be covered up by a car. A racetrack to reach a destination with a required Speed and Efficiency of your Car. : : ” Without any other faces in sight.” Means , considering yourself in command of your journey, and you, on the seat before the steering wheel does not have to look for other companions, alongside your car because they could be much ahead of you or well behind you ; may be a follower of their own destination or destiny with their own plan and requirements. : : Thus “empty highway” does not mean that it is not holding other traffic. You might see someone else would approach your car , overtake , travel past , or remain behind you. Moreover , empty highway does not have to be challenged with by your speedier car to accelerate uncontrollably. You have to drive ahead with your own set of plan, remain in discipline and in full control of your emotions. Emptiness should not be allowed to fill any extraneous sensory inputs that overwhelmingly overpower your drive. : : : :
“I want to be a passenger in your car again and put my life back in your hands.” : : : : Stanza 4 : : : :
The first two lines are repeated and are same as in the opening lines. The Poet Speaker emphasises his desire ‘to be a passenger’ once again, giving up his liberty and self reliance, and control over car to travel for the long journey independently. He wants one of his parents to take command of the long journey / metaphorically , journey of life which he wants comfortable , easy and free of struggle and strenuous task, in addition tohis inner wish to visit his past happy days of carefree childhood rolled past under his parent’s lead at every turn 🛞 🛞🛞🛞
“All the lines” break the metaphor of “car” journey and poetic ideas in nostalgia ( as explained earlier in Stanza 2 ) which states that he desires to “put my life back/in your hands”, giving control over his parent again in a driving seat.( Please find this in interesting pictures posted HERE In ABOVE ) The expression “back in your hands” means he is more comfortable with a parent. If his parent is ready to go for him that will be a nice break from the prevailing or emergingbedlam of life, 🧬 leading him for a happy return to his destination beingapassenger in the intimacy with his parent which will be a blissful time as good as his happy childhood days. : : 😊😁
Thus ” back in your hands” Meaning : : ‘under your control’ is more comfortable and more convenient connection with parent(s) that subtly intimates beautiful moments in the relationship of father ( or mom ) and son in closeness and desirously , a paternal familiarity.: : : :
“December”, By Michael Miller Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India June 6 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
John Keats ( 1795 – 1821 ) : Joseph Severn’s miniature of Keats, 1819 : : Biography ( Poets.org )
English Romantic poet John Keats was born on October 31, 1795, in London. The oldest of four children, he lost both his parents at a young age. His father, a livery-stable keeper, died when Keats was eight; his mother died of tuberculosis six years later. After his mother’s death, Keats’s maternal grandmother appointed two London merchants, Richard Abbey and John Rowland Sandell, as guardians. Abbey, a prosperous tea broker, assumed the bulk of this responsibility, while Sandell played only a minor role. When Keats was fifteen, Abbey withdrew him from the Clarke School, Enfield, to apprentice with an apothecary-surgeon and study medicine in a London hospital. In 1816 Keats became a licensed apothecary, but he never practiced his profession, deciding instead to write poetry.
Around this time, Keats met Leigh Hunt, an influential editor of the Examiner, who published his sonnets “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” and “O Solitude.” Hunt also introduced Keats to a circle of literary men, including the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and William Wordsworth. The group’s influence enabled Keats to see his first volume, Poems by John Keats, published in 1817. Shelley, who was fond of Keats, had advised him to develop a more substantial body of work before publishing it. Keats, who was not as fond of Shelley, did not follow his advice. Endymion, a four-thousand-line erotic/allegorical romance based on the Greek myth of the same name, appeared the following year. Two of the most influential critical magazines of the time, the Quarterly Review and Blackwood’s Magazine, attacked the collection. Calling the romantic verse of Hunt’s literary circle “the Cockney school of poetry,” Blackwood’s declared Endymion to be nonsense and recommended that Keats give up poetry. Shelley, who privately disliked Endymion but recognized Keats’s genius, wrote a more favorable review, but it was never published. Shelley also exaggerated the effect that the criticism had on Keats, attributing his declining health over the following years to a spirit broken by the negative reviews.
Keats spent the summer of 1818 on a walking tour in Northern England and Scotland, returning home to care for his brother, Tom, who suffered from tuberculosis. While nursing his brother, Keats met and fell in love with a woman named Fanny Brawne. Writing some of his finest poetry between 1818 and 1819, Keats mainly worked on “Hyperion,” a Miltonic blank-verse epic of the Greek creation myth. He stopped writing “Hyperion” upon the death of his brother, after completing only a small portion, but in late 1819 he returned to the piece and rewrote it as “The Fall of Hyperion” (unpublished until 1856). That same autumn Keats contracted tuberculosis, and by the following February he felt that death was already upon him, referring to the present as his “posthumous existence.”
In July 1820, he published his third and best volume of poetry, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems. The three title poems, dealing with mythical and legendary themes of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance times, are rich in imagery and phrasing. The volume also contains the unfinished “Hyperion,” and three poems considered among the finest in the English language, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode on Melancholy,” and “Ode to a Nightingale.” The book received enthusiastic praise from Hunt, Shelley, Charles Lamb, and others, and in August, Frances Jeffrey, influential editor of the Edinburgh Review, wrote a review praising both the new book and Endymion.
The fragment “Hyperion” was considered by Keats’s contemporaries to be his greatest achievement, but by that time he had reached an advanced stage of his disease and was too ill to be encouraged. He continued a correspondence with Fanny Brawne and—when he could no longer bear to write to her directly—her mother, but his failing health and his literary ambitions prevented their getting married. Under his doctor’s orders to seek a warm climate for the winter, Keats went to Rome with his friend, the painter Joseph Severn. He died there on February 23, 1821, at the age of twenty-five, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery.
In drear nighted December : : By John Keats ( 1795 – 1821 ) : : : :
In drear nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne’er remember Their green felicity— The north cannot undo them With a sleety whistle through them Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime.
In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne’er remember Apollo’s summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the frozen time.
Ah! would ’twere so with many A gentle girl and boy— But were there ever any Writh’d not of passed joy? The feel of not to feel it, When there is none to heal it Nor numbed sense to steel it, Was never said in rhyme.
“In drear nighted December”A 3 Stanzas in Octave ( of 8 lines ) set in Rhyme scheme of , ababcccd., By John Keats ( 1795 – 1821) isAboutThe memories of the happier time in Warmer period remembered in the dark and cold of December.
“Drear” means dark , dismal , gloomy , uncheerful : used here to describe about the “frozen time” of December. The Speaker Poet describes the way a tree is able to live happily as the tree does not have a memory power mindful to remember the previous happening. Hence the tree is happier than a human being. In the coldest month of December when it is being battered by the wind, it is unmoved. Tree does not pine for summer, or wish for a different life. It is lucky in this way. : : In the second stanza, the speaker takes much of the same approach but in regards to a brook. This brook, just like the tree, does not remember. It might be frozen and unmoving now, but in the summer it will be free and rushing. It makes no difference to the water what state it is in. : : In the Third and final stanza, the speaker wonders if there has ever been a human being who could live in this same way, without the influence of memories. He declares that no, this is impossible. Or, at least no one has written down such experiences. Humans do not have the ability to “steel” or “numb” their senses against the present, or forget a better life they used to lead.
Notes for each of the Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India June 5 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
MADHU MALTI 