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Adrienne Rich __________________________________________ Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen, Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. They do not fear the men beneath the tree; They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. Aunt Jennifer’s fingers fluttering through her wool Find even the ivory needle hard to pull. The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand. When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by. The tigers in the panel that she made Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid. — Adrienne Rich
In the order they are posted/assigned, upload your individual annotations for the second AND third poetry folder. Please upload them as one upload (not as separate files). You can put them as a MS W
HARD ROCK RETURNS TO PRISON FROM THE HOSPITAL FOR THE CRIMINAL INSANE by Etheridge Knight Hard Rock was “known not to take no shitFrom nobody,” and he had the scars to prove it:Split purple lips, lumped ears, welts aboveHis yellow eyes, and one long scar that cutAcross his temple and plowed through a thickCanopy of kinky hair. The WORD was that Hard Rock wasn’t a mean niggerAnymore, that the doctors had bored a hole in his head,Cut out part of his brain, and shot electricityThrough the rest. When they brought Hard Rock back,Handcuffed and chained, he was turned loose,Like a freshly gelded stallion, to try his new status.And we all waited and watched, like indians at a corral,To see if the WORD was true. As we waited we wrapped ourselves in the cloakOf his exploits: “Man, the last time, it took eightScrews to put him in the Hole.” “Yeah, remember when he Smackedthe captain with his dinner tray?” “He setThe record for time in the Hole-67 straight days!””Ol Hard Rock! man, that’s one crazy nigger.”And then the jewel of a myth that Hard Rock had once bitA screw on the thumb and poisoned him with syphilitic spit. The testing came, to see if Hard Rock was really tame.A hillbilly called him a black son of a bitchAnd didn’t lose his teeth, a screw who knew Hard RockFrom before shook him down and barked in his face.And Hard Rock did nothing. Just grinned and looked silly,His eyes empty like knot holes in a fence. And even after we discovered that it took Hard RockExactly 3 minutes to tell you his first name,We told ourselves that he had just wised up,Was being cool; but we could not fool ourselves for long,And we turned away, our eyes on the ground. Crushed.He had been our Destroyer, the doer of thingsWe dreamed of doing but could not bring ourselves to do,The fears of years, like a biting whip,Had cut grooves too deeply across our backs.
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Marilyn Nelson How I Discovered Poetry It was like soul-kissing, the way the words filled my mouth as Mrs. Purdy read from her desk. All the other kids zoned an hour ahead to 3:15, but Mrs. Purdy and I wandered lonely as clouds borne by a breeze off Mount Parnassus. She must have seen the darkest eyes in the room brim: The next day she gave me a poem she’d chosen especially for me to read to the all except for me white class. She smiled when she told me to read it, smiled harder, said oh yes I could. She smiled harder and harder until I stood and opened my mouth to banjo playing darkies, pickaninnies, disses and dats. When I finished my classmates stared at the floor. We walked silent to the buses, awed by the power of words.
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SIREN SONG This is the one song everyonewould like to learn: the songthat is irresistible: the song that forces mento leap overboard in squadronseven though they see the beached skulls the song nobody knowsbecause anyone who has heard itis dead, and the others can’t remember. Shall I tell you the secretand if I do, will you get meout of this bird suit? I don’t enjoy it heresquatting on this islandlooking picturesque and mythical with these two feathery maniacs,I don’t enjoy singingthis trio, fatal and valuable. I will tell the secret to you,to you, only to you.Come closer. This song is a cry for help: Help me!Only you, only you can,you are unique at last. Alasit is a boring songbut it works every time. copyright 1976 by Margaret Atwood
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Leda and the Swan   by W. B. Yeats A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
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First They Came For The Jews / Martin Niemöller First they came for the Jewsand I did not speak outbecause I was not a Jew.Then they came for the Communistsand I did not speak outbecause I was not a Communist.Then they came for the trade unionistsand I did not speak outbecause I was not a trade unionist.Then they came for meand there was no one leftto speak out for me.
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“IN RESPONSE TO EXECUTIVE ORDER 9066: All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Centers” by Dwight Okita Dear Sirs: Of course I’ll come. I’ve packed my galoshes and three packets of tomato seeds. Denise calls them love apples. My father says where we’re going they won’t grow. I am a fourteen-year-old girl with bad spelling and a messy room. If it helps any, I will tell you I have always felt funny using chopsticks and my favorite food is hot dogs. My best friend is a white girl named Denise — we look at boys together. She sat in front of me all through grade school because of our names: O’Connor, Ozawa. I know the back of Denise’s head very well. I tell her she’s going bald. She tells me I copy on tests. We’re best friends. I saw Denise today in Geography class. She was sitting on the other side of the room. “You’re trying to start a war,” she said, “giving secrets away to the Enemy. Why can’t you keep your big mouth shut?” I didn’t know what to say. I gave her a packet of tomato seeds and asked her to plant them for me, told her when the first tomato ripened she’d miss me.
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The Flea By John Donne Mark but this flea, and mark in this,    How little that which thou deniest me is;    Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;    Thou know’st that this cannot be said A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,     Yet this enjoys before it woo,     And pampered swells with one blood made of two,     And this, alas, is more than we would do. Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, nay more than married are.    This flea is you and I, and this Our mariage bed and mariage temple is;    Though parents grudge, and you, we are met,    And cloisterd in these living walls of jet.     Though use make you apt to kill me,     Let not to that, self-murder added be,     And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?    Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?    Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou    Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;     ’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:     Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,     Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee. Source: The Norton Anthology of Poetry (1996)