For easier reading and larger images, view with the media viewer here.
Take "Part One" (or "Take One"), which is a closely related poll, here.
After voting, discuss here in a sonnet (although plain old prose is just fine).
Poem: "Acquainted with the Night" by Robert Frost
Excerpt: I have looked down the saddest city lane. / I have passed by the watchman on his beat / And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. / ... Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. / I have been one acquainted with the night.
Poem: "Come Celebrate with Me..." by Lucille Clifton
won't you celebrate with me / what i have shaped into / a kind of life? i had no model. / born in babylon / both nonwhite and woman / what did i see to be except myself? / i made it up / here on this bridge between / starshine and clay, / my one hand holding tight / my other hand; come celebrate / with me that everyday / something has tried to kill me / and has failed.
Poem: "The Break" by Anne Sexton
Excerpt: It was also my violent heart that broke, / ... It was also a message I never spoke, / calling, riser after riser, who cares // about you, who cares, splintering up / the hip that was merely made of crystal, / the post of it and also the cup. / I exploded in the hallway like a pistol. // So I fell apart. So I came all undone. / Yes. I was like a box of dog bones. / ... Burst like firecrackers! Held like stones! // ... and my heart, old hunger motor, with its sins / revved up like an engine that would not stop. // ... Yet like a fire alarm it waits to be known. / It is wired. In it many colors are stored. // ... But the heart, / this child of myself that resides in the flesh, / this ultimate signature of the me, the start / of my blindness and sleep, builds a death crèche. // ...The heart burst with love and lost its breath.// This little town, this little country is real / and thus it is so of the post and the cup / and thus of the violent heart. The zeal / of my house doth eat me up.
Poem: "A Ballad of Baseball Burdens" by Franklin Pierce Adams
Excerpt: The burden of a pennant. O the hope,/ The tenuous hope, the hope that’s half a fear, / The lengthy season and the boundless dope, / And the bromidic; “Wait until next year.”
Poem: "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver
Excerpt: You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert repenting / ... Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine /... the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.
Poem: "We Two Boys Together Clinging" by Walt Whitman
We two boys together clinging, / One the other never leaving, / Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making, / Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching, / ... on the turf or the sea-beach dancing / ...
(Note: Supposedly, the film's director was inspired by a David Hockney painting, which took its title from this poem.)
Poem: "Blessing the Boats" by Lucille Clifton
may the tide / that is entering even now / the lip of our understanding / carry you out / beyond the face of fear / may you kiss / the wind then turn from it / certain that it will / love your back may you / open your eyes to water / water waving forever / and may you in your innocence / sail through this to that
Poem: "For John, Who Begs Me Not to Inquire Further" by Anne Sexton
Excerpt: Not that it was beautiful, / but that, in the end, there was / a certain sense of order there; / something worth learning / in that narrow diary of my mind, / in the commonplaces of the asylum / where the cracked mirror / or my own selfish death / outstared me. / ...
There ought to be something special / for someone / in this kind of hope. / This is something I would never find / in a lovelier place, my dear / ...
Poem: "Eloisa to Abelard" by Alexander Pope
Excerpt: How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot. / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd
(Note: The film's title was taken directly from Pope's poem.)
Poem: "O Captain, My Captain" by Walt Whitman
Excerpt: O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; / Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, / For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, / For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning
(Note: Unlike most of the pairings on this list, the writer of the film, and not just the poll author, connected the poem to the film: in the movie, Robin Williams recites the poem in his class, eventually leading to the climactic moment later when students of Williams' character stand on the desks and declare, "O Captain! my Captain!")
marytpwk
voted for #10
BugsNobody
voted for #2
anup-kakad
voted for #1
tariq-32566
voted for #3
GulluGK
voted for #10
apostolospapadias77
voted for #3
miloszvuckovic
voted for #8
PK-Jay-2000
voted for #10
WinTheGreen
voted for #10
fatemehfarahani1
voted for #10
