Natalie Zan Ryan Department of English and Modern Languages

Happy Bad Poetry Day!

Today is National Book Lovers Day, be sure to read a book you love today!

Big day of change in the Natalie Zan Ryan Department of English & Modern Languages! Today, Dr. Erin Ashworth-King returns to full-time teaching and Dr. Mark Hama steps into his new role as Department Chair.

We want to thank Dr. Ashworth-King for her tireless dedication and leadership that has meant so much to the department over the past 5 years. We also want to wish Dr. Hama good fortune and success as our new leader.

The Natalie Zan Ryan Department of English and Modern Languages honors and remembers those who have served on this day. The university offices are closed today.

For our Hitcherhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans - today is Towel Day!

Today is Eliza Doolittle Day! - As Eliza says - "One evening the king will say, 'Oh Lliza....Next week on the 20th of May, I proclaim Liza Doolitle Day.'"

Today is National Biographer's Day and commemorates the anniversary of the first meeting of Samule Johnson (an English writer) and his biographer - James Boswell in London, England on May 16, 1763. In celebration of this day - find a good biography to read.

Congratulations and Happy Graduation Day to our Class of 2024!

Happy Peter Pan Day! A day to celebrate the birthday of J M Barre, the creator of Peter Pan.

Today is Teacher Appreciation Day - be sure to thank a teacher that had an impact on your life.

Celebrating Children's Book Week - May 6th through May 12th - No Rules. Just Read.

Star Wars Day - May the 4th be with you!

World Press Freedom Day - Observed to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression.

A hearty congratulations to Dr. David Faught for winning the ASU Presidential Excellence Award in the area of Teaching!

Dr. Rebecca Bernard was a Semifinalist in Research and Creative Endeavor and Dr. Mark Hama was a nominee in leadership and service! I am am proud to be among such wonderful and accomplished colleagues!

Happy Mother Goose Day! Take time to revisit a favorite nursery rhyme.

National Poetry Month
Day 30 - This was a Poet - by Emily Dickinson
Submitted by Dr. Linda Kornasky

This was a Poet –
It is That
Distills amazing sense
From Ordinary Meanings –

And Attar so immense
From the familiar species
That perished by the Door –
We wonder it was not
Ourselves
Arrested it – before –

Of Pictures, the Discloser –
The Poet – it is He –
Entitles Us – by Contrast –
To ceaseless Poverty –

Of Portion – so unconscious –
The Robbing – could not harm –
Himself – to Him – a Fortune –
Exterior – to Time –

National Poetry Month
Day 26 - Ars Poetica - by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Ella Kinney Burnett

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be.

As we are coming to the end of Poetry Month, let's celebrate Great Poetry Reading Day!

National Poetry Month
Day 28 - Try to Praise the Mutilated World - by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

National Poetry Month
Day 27 - The Song of Palderbum - by Shepa Dorje, the yogi Milarepa (11th century Tibetan poet)
Submitted by Prof. Joseph Garland

I can contemplate the sky, But clouds make me uneasy. Milarepa, tell me how
To meditate on clouds.

“If the sky’s as easy as you say, Clouds are just the sky’s play. Let your mind stay
Within the sky.”

I can contemplate the sea, But waves make me uneasy. Milarepa, tell me how
To meditate on waves.

“If the sea’s as easy as you say, Waves are just the sea’s play. Let your mind stay
Within the sea.”

I can contemplate my mind, But thoughts make me uneasy. Milarepa, tell me how
To meditate on thoughts.

“If your mind’s as easy as you say, Thoughts are just the mind’s play. Let your mind stay
Within your mind.”

National Poetry Month
Day 26 - The Raincoat - by Ada Limón
Submitted by Prof. Marcie Puckitt

When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.

Come celebrate National Poetry Month tomorrow with our students at their Creative Writing Slam - 5:30 PM @ The Bearded Barista

National Poetry Month
Day 25 - Excerpt from "poets have strange eating habits" - by Gloria Anazldua
Submitted by Dr. Mellisa Huffman

in the border between dusk and dawn
I listen to frozen thumpings, my soul
should I jump face tumbling
down the steps of the temple
heart offered up to the midnightsun

cutting tears from my eyes
the obsidian knife, air
the nightsky alone alone

the nightride has ripped open
its hunger rimmed with teeth
I feed it my throat my hands
let it glut itself on me
till it's pregnant with me.
wounding is a deeper healing.

suspended in fluid sky
I, eagle fetus, live serpent
feathers growing out of my skin

I bend my knees, break the fall
no arm snapping

I burrow deep into myself
pull the emptiness in
its hollows chisel my face
growing thin thinner
eyesockets empty
falling
into faceless air
Taking the plunge an act as
routine as cleaning my teeth

the Earth parts
I hit the bottom of the chasm
peer over the edge
coax and whip the balking mare
take the plunge again
jumping off cliffs an addiction
flailing pummeling

dark windowless no moon glides
across the nightsky
the maw opens wide I slip inside
taking deep breaths eyes closed
me la trago todita

National Poetry Month
Day 24 - For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper - by Joseph Fasano
Submitted by Dr. Mark Jackson

Now I let it fall back
in the grasses.
I hear you. I know
this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious
on this earth.
But what are you trying
to be free of?
The living? The miraculous
task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.

National Poetry Day
In observance of Shakespeare's Birthday
Day 23 - Sonnet 23 - by William Shakespeare

As an unperfect actor on the stage
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;
So I for fear of trust forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,
And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,
O’ercharged with burden of mine own love’s might.
O, let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ.
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

Happy Birthday Shakespeare!
The exact date of Shakespeare's birthday is not recorded. However, his baptism is recorded in the Parish Register at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon on Wednesday, April 26, 1564, so it is believed he was born around April 23.

National Poetry Month
In Honor of Earth Day
Day 22 - The Poet Tree - by Shel Silverstein

Underneath the poet tree
Come and rest awhile with me
And watch the way the word web weaves
Between the shady story leave.

The brances of the poet tree
Reach from the mountains to the sea.
So come and sit . . . and dream . . . and climb--
Just don't get hit by falling rhymes.

National Poetry Month
Day 21 - Humanities Lecture - by William E Stafford
Submitted by Dr. Laurence Musgrove

Aristotle was a little man with
eyes like a lizard, and he found a streak
down the midst of things, a smooth place for his feet
much more important than the carved handles
on the coffins of the great.

He said you should put your hand out
at the time and place of need:
strength matters little, he said,
nor even speed.

His pupil, a king's son, died
at an early age. That Aristotle spoke of him
it is impossible to find—the youth was
notorious, a conqueror, a kid with a gang,
but even this Aristotle didn't ever say.

Around the farthest forest and along
all the bed of the sea, Aristotle studied
immediate, local ways. Many of which
were wrong. So he studied poetry.
There, in pity and fear, he found Man.

Many thinkers today, who stand low and grin,
have little use for anger or power, its palace
or its prison—
but quite a bit for that little man
with eyes like a lizard.

National Poetry Month
Day 20 - The Grammar of Silk - by Cathy Song
Submitted by Dr. John Wegner

On Saturdays in the morning
my mother sent me to Mrs. Umemoto’s sewing school.
It was cool and airy in her basement,
pleasant-a word I choose
to use years later to describe
the long tables where we sat
and cut, pinned and stitched,
the Singers’ companionable whirr,
the crisp, clever bite of scissors
parting like silver fish a river of calico.

The school was in walking distance
to Kaimuki Dry Goods
where my mother purchased my supplies—
small cards of buttons,
zippers and rick-rack packaged like licorice,
lifesaver rolls of thread
in 50-yard lengths,
spun from spools, tough as tackle.
Seamstresses waited at the counters
like librarians to be consulted.
Pens and scissors dangled like awkward pendants
across flat chests,
a scarf of measuring tape flung across a shoulder,
time as a pincushion bristled at the wrist.
They deciphered a dress’ blueprints
with an architect’s keen eye.

This evidently was a sanctuary,
a place where women confined with children
conferred, consulted the oracle,
the stone tablets of the latest pattern books.
Here mothers and daughters paused in symmetry,
offered the proper reverence-
hushed murmurings for the Shantung silk
which required a certain sigh,
as if it were a piece from the Ming Dynasty.

National Poetry Month
Day 19 - England in 1819 - by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Dr. Allison Dushane

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field;
An army, whom liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.