Poetry

 Defying Gravity by Roger McGough

Extract 1

Defying Gravity

     Gravity is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

     Let go of the book and it abseils to the ground

     As if, at the centre of the earth, spins a giant yo-yo

     To which everything is attached by an invisible string.

 

     Tear out a page of the book and make an aeroplane.

     Launch it. For an instant it seems that you have fashioned

     A shape that can outwit air, that has slipped the knot.

     But no. The earth turns, the winch tightens, it is wound in.

 

     One of my oldest friends is, at the time of writing,

     Attempting to defy gravity, and will surely succeed.

     Eighteen months ago he was playing rugby,

     Now, seven stones lighter, his wife carries him ak-

 

     Kwardly from room to room. Arranges him gently

     Upon the sofa for the visitors. ‘How are things?’

     Asks one, not wanting to know. Pause. ‘Not too bad.’

     (Open brackets. Condition inoperable. Close brackets.)

 

     Soon now, the man that I love (not the armful of bones)

     Will defy gravity. Freeing himself from the tackle

     He will sidestep the opposition and streak down the wing

     Towards a dimension as yet unimagined.

 

     Back where the strings are attached there will be a service

     And homage paid to the giant yo-yo. A box of left-overs

     Will be lowered into a space on loan from the clay.

     Then, weighed down, the living will walk wearily away.

 Lonely Hearts by Wendy Cope

Extract 2

Lonely Hearts

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

Male biker seeks female for touring fun.

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

Gay vegetarian whose friends are few,

I’m into music, Shakespeare and the sun.

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

Executive in search of something new –

Perhaps bisexual woman, arty, young.

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

Successful, straight and solvent? I am too –

Attractive Jewish lady with a son.

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

I’m Libran, inexperienced and blue –

Need slim non-smoker, under twenty-one.

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

Please write (with photo) to Box 152

Who knows where it may lead once we’ve begun?

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

 Listen Mr Oxford Don by John Agard

Extract 3

Listen Mr Oxford Don

Me not no Oxford don

me a simple immigrant

from Clapham Common

I didn’t graduate

I immigrate

But listen Mr Oxford don

I’m a man on de run

and a man on de run

is a dangerous one

I ent have no gun

I ent have no knife

but mugging de Queen’s English

is the story of my life

I don’t need no axe

to split/ up yu syntax

I don’t need no hammer

to mash/ up yu grammar

I warning yu Mr Oxford don

I’m a wanted man

and a wanted man

is a dangerous one

Dem accuse me of assault

on de Oxford dictionary/

imagine a concise peaceful man like me/

dem want me serve time

for inciting rhyme to riot

but I tekking it quiet

down here in Clapham Common

I’m not a violent man Mr Oxford don

I only armed wit mih human breath

but human breath

is a dangerous weapon

So mek dem send one big word after me

I ent serving no jail sentence

I slashing suffix in self-defence

I bashing future wit present tense

and if necessary

I make de Queen’s English accessory/to my offence

 Rain by Edward Thomas

Extract 4

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain

On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me

Remembering again that I shall die

And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks

For washing me cleaner than I have been

Since I was born into this solitude.

Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:

But here I pray that none whom once I loved

Is dying to-night or lying still awake

Solitary, listening to the rain,

Either in pain or thus in sympathy

Helpless among the living and the dead,

Like a cold water among broken reeds,

Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,

Like me who have no love which this wild rain

Has not dissolved except the love of death,

If love it be for what is perfect and

Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

Prose

 The Catcher in the Rye (extract) by J.D. Salinger

Extract 1

Old Sally didn’t talk much, except to rave about the Lunts, because she was busy rubbering and being charming, Then, all of a sudden, she saw some jerk she knew on the other side of the lobby. Some guy in one of those very dark grey flannel suits and one of those checkered vests. Strictly Ivy League. Big deal. He was standing next to the wall, smoking himself to death and looking bored as hell. Old Sally kept saying, “I know that boy from somewhere.” She always knew somebody, any place you took her, or thought she did. She kept saying that till I got bored as hell, and I said to her, “Why don’t you go on over and give him a big soul kiss, if you know him. He’ll enjoy it.” She got sore when I said that. Finally, though, the jerk noticed her and came over and said hello. You should’ve seen the way they said hello. You’d have thought they hadn’t seen each other in twenty years. You’d have thought they’d taken baths in the same bathtub or something when they were little kids. Old buddyroos. It was nauseating. The funny part was, they probably met each other just once, at some phoney party. Finally, when they were all done slobbering around, old Sally introduced us. His name was George something – I don’t even remember – and he went to Andover. Big, big deal. You should’ve seen him when old Sally asked him how he liked the play. He was the kind of a phoney that have to give themselves room when they answer somebody’s question. He stepped back, and stepped right on the lady’s foot behind him. He probably broke every toe in her body. He said the play in itself was no masterpiece, but that the Lunts, of course, were absolute angels. Angels. For Chrissake. Angels. That killed me. Then he and old Sally started talking about a lot of people they both knew. It was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life.

 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (extract) by Milan Kundera

Extract 2

And then suddenly they were all singing the three or four simple notes again, speeding up the steps of their dance, fleeing rest and sleep, outstripping time, and filling their innocence with strength. Everyone was smiling, and Eluard leaned down to a girl he had his arm around and said,

A man possessed by peace never stops smiling.

And she laughed and stamped the ground a little harder and rose a few inches above the pavement, pulling the others along with her, and before long not one of them was touching the ground, they were taking two steps in place and one step forward without touching the ground, yes, they were rising up over Wenceslaus Square, their ring the very image of a giant wreath taking flight, and I ran off after them down on the ground, I kept looking up at them, and they floated on, lifting first one leg, then the other, and down below – Prague with its cafes full of poets and its jails full of traitors, and in the crematorium they were just finishing off one Socialist representative and one surrealist, and the smoke climbed to the heavens like a good omen, and I heard Eluard’s metallic voice intoning,

Love is at work it is tireless,

and I ran after the voice through the streets in the hope of keeping up that wonderful wreath of bodies rising above the city, and I realized with anguish in my heart that they were like flying birds and I was falling like a stone, that they had wings and I would never have any.

 Women in Love (extract) by D.H. Lawrence

Extract 3

“The fool!” cried Ursula loudly. “Why doesn’t he ride away till it’s gone by?”

Gudrun was looking at him with black-dilated, spellbound eyes. But he sat glistening and obstinate, forcing the wheeling mare, which spun and swerved like a wind, and yet could not get out of the grasp of his will, nor escape from the mad clamour of terror that resounded through her, as the trucks thumped slowly, heavily, horrifying, one after the other, one pursuing the other, over the rails of the crossing.

The locomotive, as if wanting to see what could be done, put on the brakes, and back came the trucks resounding on the iron buffers, striking like horrible cymbals, clashing nearer and nearer in frightful strident concussions. The mare opened her mouth and rose slowly, as if lifted up on a wind of terror. Then suddenly her fore-feet struck out, as she convulsed herself utterly away from the horror. Back she went, and the two girls clung to each other, feeling she must fall backwards on top of him. But he leaned forward, his face shining with fixed amusement, and at last he brought her down, sank her down, and was bearing her back to the mark. But as strong as the pressure of his compulsion was the repulsion of her utter terror, throwing her back away from the railway, so that she spun round and round on two legs, as if she were in the centre of some whirlwind. It made Gudrun faint with poignant dizziness, which seemed to penetrate to her heart.

 The Heart of the Matter (extract) by Graham Greene

Extract 4

Wilson sat on the balcony of the Bedford Hotel with his bald pink knees thrust against the ironwork. It was Sunday and the Cathedral bell clanged for matins. On the other side of Bond Street, in the window of the High School, sat the young negresses in dark blue gym smocks engaged on the interminable task of trying to wave their wirespring hair. Wilson stroked his very young moustache and dreamed, waiting for his gin-and-bitters.

Sitting there, facing Bond Street, he had his face turned to the sea. His pallor showed how recently he had emerged from it into the port: so did his lack of interest in the schoolgirls opposite. He was like the lagging finger of the barometer, still pointing to Fair long after its companion had moved to Stormy. Below him the black clerks moved churchward, but their wives in brilliant afternoon dresses of blue and cerise aroused no interest in Wilson. He was alone on the balcony except for one bearded Indian in a turban who had already tried to tell his fortune: this was not the hour of the day for white men – they would be at the beach five miles away, but Wilson had no car. He felt almost intolerably lonely. On the other side of the school the tin roofs sloped toward the sea, and the corrugated iron above his head clanged and clattered as a vulture alighted.

 Grid for Tone Words

Tone Words - Grid

bitter	urgent	joking	detached	sentimental
humorous	nostalgic	sombre	irreverent	whimsical
ironic	indignant	flippant	cynical	vibrant
tender	romantic	angry	sympathetic	sardonic
alarming	despondent	gloomy	morose	sullen
playful	witty	agitated	anxious	contemptuous

 List of Tone Words: An Optional Handout to Students

Tone Words

angry     sharp     upset     silly     boring     afraid     happy     hollow     joyful     allusive     sweet     vexed     tired     bitter     dreamy     restrained     proud     dramatic     sad     cold     urgent     joking     poignant     detached     confused     childish     peaceful     mocking     objective     vibrant     frivolous     audacious     shocking     somber     giddy     sentimental     fanciful     complimentary     condescending     sympathetic     contemptuous     apologetic     humorous     horrific     sarcastic     nostalgic     zealous     irreverent     benevolent     seductive     candid     pitiful          

More Tone Words

Satiric     whimsical     learned     informative     somber     urgent     confident     mock-heroic     objective     diffident     ironic     petty     factual     restrained     elegiac     disdainful     lugubrious     candid     pedantic     indignant     bantering     flippant     condescending     patronizing     facetious     clinical     mock-serious     inflammatory     benevolent     benign     burlesque     cynical     incisive     allusive     scornful     effusive     fanciful     colloquial     compassionate     impartial     insipid     pretentious     vibrant     irreverent     sentimental     moralistic     complimentary     contemptuous     sympathetic     taunting     angry     turgid     sardonic     contentious     insolent     concerned     bellicose     belligerent

Tone Words – Categorized

Reverence – awe     veneration     solemn

Happiness – glad     pleased     merry     glee     delight     cheerful     gay     sanguine     mirth     enjoy     relish     bliss

Sadness – somber     melancholy     sorrow     lament     despair     despondent     regret     dismal     funereal     saturnine     dark     gloomy     dejection     grave     grief     morose     sullen     woe     bleak     remorse     forlorn     agony     anguish     depression     misery     barren     empty     pity     lugubrious     distress

Irony – smirking     sneering     derisive     icy     acerbic     playful     witty     humorous     sarcastic     sardonic     flippant     cynical     biting

Love – affection     cherish     fondness     admiration     tenderness     sentiment     romantic     platonic     adoration     narcissism     passion     lust     rapture     ecstasy     infatuated     enamor     compassion

Anger – vehement     rage     outrage     antipathy     irritation     indignant     vexation     incensed     petulant     irascible     riled     bitter     acrimony     irate     fury     wrath     rancor     consternation     hostility     choleric     aggravation     futility     umbrage     gall     bristle     exasperation

Joy – exaltation     zeal     fervor     ardor     elation     jubilant     buoyancy

Calm – serene     tranquil     placid     composed     restful

Hope – expect     anticipate     confidence     optimistic

Hate – vengeance     abhorrence     animosity     enmity     malice     pique     rancor     aversion     loathing     despise     scorn     contempt     disdain     jealousy     repugnance     repulsion     resentment     spite     disgust

Fear – apprehension     timidity     anxiety     terror     horror     dismay     agitation     sinister     alarm     startle     uneasy     qualms     angst     trepidation     intimidation     appalled     dread

Words that describe language – jargon     vulgar     scholarly     insipid     precise     esoteric     connotative     plain     literal     colloquial     artificial     detached     emotional     pedantic     euphemistic     pretentious     sensuous     exact     learned     symbolic     simple     figurative     bombastic     abstruse     grotesque     concrete     poetic     moralistic     slang     idiomatic     concrete     cultured     picturesque     homespun     provincial     trite     obscure     precise     exact