ANTHOLOGY
ON
WORLD POETRY
Subject: Language and Literature
Unit Title: World Poetry
Global Context: Identities and Relationships- human
nature and human dignity, moral reasoning and ethical judgment,
consciousness and mind
Key Concept: Connections
Related Concepts: Theme, Context, Audience
Imperatives, Structure
Who Am I ?
- Nazik Al-Malaika
(Explores moral reasoning)
The night asks who am I ?
I am its secrets-anxious, black, profound
I am its rebellious silence
I have veiled my nature, with silence,
Wrapped my heart in doubt
And solemn, remained here
gazing, while the ages ask me,
Who am I ?
The wind asks who am I ?
I am its confused spirit, whom time has disowned
I, like it, never resting
continue to travel without end
continue to pass without pause
should we reach a bend
we would think it the end of our suffering
and then-void
Time asks who am I?
I, like it, am a giant, embracing centuries
I return and grant them resurrection
I create the distant past
From the charm of the pleasant hope
And I return to bury it
to fashion for myself a new yesterday
whose tomorrow is ice.
The self asks me who am I?
I, like it, am bewildered, gazing into shadows
Nothing gives me peace
I continue asking-and the answer
will remain veiled by mirage
I will keep thinking it has come close
but when I reach it- it has dissolved,
died, disappeared.
Reflect on this:
1. What impression does the title of the poem give you?
2. What has the poet talked about in her poem?
3. Did you notice the use of symbolic language in the poem?
4. Did the poem/ poet manage to strike any connection with you? How?
5. What is your take-away from the poem?
6. How, in your opinion, is the poem related to the Global Context-
Identities and Relationships? Which element of the strand do you think it
most represents?
Your Research Work:
About the Poet:
About the Poem:
Song of Myself (1892 version)
- Walt Whitman
(Explores consciousness and mind)
1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the
same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is
odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood
and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’d sea-
rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and
meeting the sun.
Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth
much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns
left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the
eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.
Reflect on This:
1. What does the use of the word ‘song’ in the title tell you about the poem?
2. Why, do you think, is the poet ‘singing’ about himself?
3. How has the poet brought out the beauty of ‘individuality’ in his poem?
4. Did you notice the use of sensory imagery in the poem? Can you
illustrate some examples?
5. What is your take-away from the poem?
6. Did the poem/ poet manage to strike any connection with you? How?
7. How, in your opinion, is the poem related to the Global Context-
Identities and Relationships? Which element of the strand do you think it
most represents?
Your Research Work:
About the Poet:
About the Poem:
MINORITY
- Imtiaz Dharker
(Explores moral reasoning)
I was born a foreigner.
I carried on from there
to become a foreigner everywhere
I went, even in the place
planted with my relatives,
six-foot tubers sprouting roots,
their fingers and faces pushing up
new shoots of maize and sugar cane.
All kinds of places and groups
of people who have an admirable
history would, almost certainly,
distance themselves from me.
I don't fit,
like a clumsily-translated poem;
like food cooked in milk of coconut
where you expected ghee or cream,
the unexpected aftertaste
of cardamom or neem.
There's always that point where
the language flips
into an unfamiliar taste;
where words tumble over
a cunning tripwire on the tongue;
where the frame slips,
the reception of an image
not quite tuned, ghost-outlined,
that signals, in their midst,
an alien.
And so I scratch, scratch
through the night, at this
growing scab on black on white.
Everyone has the right
to infiltrate a piece of paper.
A page doesn't fight back.
And, who knows, these lines
may scratch their way
into your head -
through all the chatter of community,
family, clattering spoons,
children being fed -
immigrate into your bed,
squat in your home,
and in a corner, eat your bread,
until, one day, you meet
the stranger sidling down your street,
realise you know the face
simplified to bone,
look into its outcast eyes
and recognise it as your own.
Reflect on This:
1. What does the title of the poem tell you about it? What do the words
‘minority’ and ‘foreigner’ mean to you?
2. How does this poem explore the issue of ‘identity’? What is your
‘identity’? What are the factors that make you who you are?
3. Did you notice the use of sensory imagery in the poem? Do you think it
helps enhance the impact on you, as a reader?
4. What is your take-away from the poem?
5. Did the poem/ poet manage to strike any connection with you? How?
6. How, in your opinion, is the poem related to the Global Context-
Identities and Relationships? Which element of the strand do you think it
most represents?
Your Research Work:
About the Poet:
About the Poem:
A Poison Tree
-William Blake
(Explores human nature and human
dignity)
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I water’d it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
Reflect on this:
1. What impression does the title of the poem create on you? What is the
poem about?
2. Did you notice the use of ‘symbolism’ in the poem? Why do you think has
the poet used symbolic language to give his message?
3. What is the message of the poem?
4. Did you notice the use of ‘rhyme’ in the poem? Does it enhance the
impact on you, as a reader, in any way?
5. What is your take-away from the poem?
6. Did the poem/ poet manage to strike any connection with you? How?
7. How, in your opinion, is the poem related to the Global Context-
Identities and Relationships? Which element of the strand do you think it
most represents?
Your Research Work:
About the Poet:
About the Poem:
Traveling Through the Dark
- William Stafford
(Explores consciousness and mind)
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.
Reflect on This:
1. What is the poem about?
2. Have you ever had to make a difficult choice in your life? Are you
satisfied with the choice you made?
3. Did you notice an air of nonchalance in the voice of the poet? Does it
affect your reading of it?
4. What are some of the poetic devices used in the piem?
5. What is your take-away from the poem?
6. How, in your opinion, is the poem related to the Global Context-
Identities and Relationships? Which element of the strand do you think it
most represents?
Your Research Work:
About the Poet:
About the Poem:
