The God Who Loves You

The God Who Loves You

By Carl Dennis

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.

MLA Citation for Video

The God Who Loves You by Carl Dennis. Dir. BAMFPRODUCTIONS123. Perf. Meghan Anedes' and Garrett Tubman. The God Who Loves You By Carl Dennis. 1 Dec. 2010. 5 May 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgPPyQ_hrPE.

MLA Citation for Poem

Roberts, Edgar V., and Darlene Stock. Stotler. "The God Who Loves You." Literature an Introduction to Reading and Writing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson / Prentice Hall, 2008. 804-05. Print.



Homage to my hips

Homage to my hips

By Lucille Clifton

these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top 

MLA Citation for Video

Homage to my Hips. Dir. Lanthony0421. Perf. Laura, Derek, Kathleen, Ben, Matt. Youtube: Homage to my hips. 24 Apr. 2008. 5 May 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ej6lcnVrSQ.

MLA Citation for Poem

Roberts, Edgar V., and Darlene Stock. Stotler. "Homage to my hips." Literature an Introduction to Reading and Writing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson / Prentice Hall, 2008. 612. Print.

Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

By William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

MLA Citation for video

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. Dir. Gillesrousel. Youtube: William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. 29 Sept. 2010. 5 May 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYchG2rln-Y&feature=related.

MLA Citation for Poem

Roberts, Edgar V., and Darlene Stock. Stotler. "Sonnet 18: Shall I compare Thee to a Summer's day?" Literature an Introduction to Reading and Writing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson / Prentice Hall, 2008. 584-85. Print.

Remember

Remember

By Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her
in a bar once in Iowa City.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe. I heard her singing Kiowa war
dance songs at the corner of Fourth and Central once.
Remember that you are all people and that all people
are you.
Remember that you are this universe and that this
universe is you.
Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember that language comes from this.
Remember the dance that language is, that life is.
Remember.

MLA Citation for Video

Remember by Joy Harjo. Dir. 324Brittanyj. Youtube: Remember by Joy Harjo. 5 Sept. 2010. 5 May 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g85rxLzdPsY.

MLA Citation for Poem

Roberts, Edgar V., and Darlene Stock. Stotler. "Remember." Literature an Introduction to Reading and Writing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson / Prentice Hall, 2008. 577-78. Print.

A Red, Red Rose

A Red, Red Rose

By Robert Burns

Oh my luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
Oh my luve is like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

MLA Citation for Video

A Red, Red Rose by Robert burns, Sung by Andy M. Stewart. Dir. Liozzo. Youtube: A Red, Red Rose by Robert burns, Sung by Andy M. Stewart. 17 June 2007. 5 May 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBCQMWMbeMU.

MLA Citation for Poem

Roberts, Edgar V., and Darlene Stock. Stotler. "A Red, Red Rose." Literature an Introduction to Reading and Writing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson / Prentice Hall, 2008. 570. Print.

Let Us Take the Road

Let Us Take the Road

By John Gay

Let us take the road.

Hark! I hear the sound of coaches!

The hour of attack approaches,

To your arms, brave boys, and load.

See the ball I hold!

Let the chemists toil like asses,

Our fire their fir surpasses

And turns all our lead to gold.

MLA Citation for Video

"Let us take the road" from The Beggar's Opera. Dir. Thomas Petiet. Youtube: "Let us take the road" from The Beggar's Opera. 1 Aug. 2010. 4 May 2011 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-75ULrewWs>.


MLA Citation for Poem

Roberts, Edgar V., and Darlene Stock. Stotler. "Let Us Take the Road." Literature an Introduction to Reading and Writing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson / Prentice Hall, 2008. 566. Print.

Bright Star

Bright Star

By John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen maskOf snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

MLA Citation for Video

John Keats "Bright Star" poem animation. Dir. Poetryreincarnation. Youtube: John Keats "Bright Star" poem animation. 18 Feb. 2011. 4 May 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbeGlWcgbE0.

MLA Citation for Poem

Roberts, Edgar V., and Darlene Stock. Stotler. "Bright Star." Literature an Introduction to Reading and Writing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson / Prentice Hall, 2008. 565. Print.