student reader pivotal words and phrases

UNIT

2

Pre-AP® English 1

STUDENT READER

Pivotal Words and Phrases

Eng1_U2_SR_Reader.indd 1 16/04/20 1:52 AM

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Contents

“What Happened During the Ice Storm” by Jim Heynen ....................................................................... 1

“Lottery” by Rasma Haidri ............................................................................................................................... 3

“The Fight” by John Montague .................................................................................................................... 19

“Tamara’s Opus” by Joshua Bennett ......................................................................................................... 21

Excerpt from Hamlet by William Shakespeare ........................................................................................ 25

Excerpt from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare ................................................................... 27

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Student Reader© 2021 College Board

1 Pre-AP English 1

“ What Happened During the Ice Storm” JIM HEYNENFrom You Know What Is Right


“What Happened During the Ice Storm”

Unit 2


2Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTES1 One winter there was a freezing rain. How beautiful! people

said when things outside started to shine with ice. But the freezing rain kept coming. Tree branches glistened like glass. Then broke like glass. Ice thickened on the windows until everything outside blurred. Farmers moved their livestock into the barns, and most animals were safe. But not the pheasants. Their eyes froze shut.

2 Some farmers went ice-skating down the gravel roads with clubs to harvest the pheasants that sat helplessly in the roadside ditches. The boys went out into the freezing rain to find pheasants too. They saw dark spots along a fence. Pheasants, all right. Five or six of them. The boys slid their feet along slowly, trying not to break the ice that covered the snow. They slid up close to the pheasants. The pheasants pulled their heads down between their wings. They couldn’t tell how easy it was to see them huddled there. The boys stood still in the icy rain. Their breath came out in slow puffs of steam. The pheasants’ breath came out in quick little white puffs. Some of them lifted their heads and turned them from side to side, but they were blindfolded with ice and didn’t flush.

3 The boys had not brought clubs, or sacks, or anything but themselves. They stood over the pheasants, turning their own heads, looking at each other, each expecting the other to do something. To pounce on a pheasant, or to yell Bang! Things around them were shining and dripping with icy rain. The barbed wire fence. The fence posts. The broken stems of grass. Even the grass seeds. The grass seeds looked like little yolks inside gelatin whites. And the pheasants looked like unborn birds glazed in egg white. Ice was hardening on the boys’ caps and coats. Soon they would be covered with ice too.

4 Then one of the boys said, Shh. He was taking off his coat, the thin layer of ice splintering in flakes as he pulled his arms from the sleeves. But the inside of the coat was dry and warm. He covered two of the crouching pheasants with his coat, rounding the back of it over them like a shell. The other boys did the same. They covered all the helpless pheasants. The small gray hens and the larger brown cocks. Now the boys felt the rain soaking through their shirts and freezing. They ran across the slippery fields, unsure of their footing, the ice clinging to their skin as they made their way toward the warm blurry lights of the house.



3 Pre-AP English 1

“Lottery”RASMA HAIDRIFrom Poem, Revised: 54 Poems, Revisions, Discussions


“Lottery”

Unit 2


4Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTES1 William Wordsworth’s famous definition of poetry as the

“spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings from emotions recollected in tranquility” appears at first to argue against revision. Something in the word spontaneous seems antithetical to revision, or so I thought when I first learned about Wordsworth back in college. At that time, I imagined he meant he lounged dreamily on a divan until, with a gold nib quill, he set about drafting the lines of a poem.

2 I believe part of this may have been right. Not the part about lounging dreamily, but the part about drafting. In this essay, I want to explore how through the hard work of revision over a long time, I was able to recollect the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” that were central to my poem “Lottery.”

3 The incident that spurred my poem was a time I took my mother grocery shopping, and she unexpectedly asked me to help her buy a lottery ticket. I was moved by the event and felt a need to tell about it. Now, I could have gone home and told my spouse about what happened and how it made me feel, but this retelling wouldn’t have been a poem. In order to get at the poem, I needed to grasp the deepest feelings the incident aroused in me. In other words, I needed to get to what Wordsworth meant by rec ollecting a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”

4 The problem with words about feelings or emotions is that they are abstract. Any word I might insert into the phrase “It made me feel ” is going to be theoretical, as if we are talking about the emotion. In poetry, we need to recollect the emotion itself. In doing so, we come up with a rendering of an ordinary event that is somehow bigger than the sum of its parts.

5 Sometimes beginning writers feel that to take a poem through many drafts is to apply some sort of censorship to it, to tame its spirited individuality and make it conform. They resist revision because they fear editing away the poem’s essence. Experience has taught me that revision can be the very means by which I recollect in tranquility. Each revision removes hindrances until the poem’s “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” is released.


“Lottery”

Unit 2


5 Pre-AP English 1

6 Let us see how this worked in the poem “Lottery.” The situation was that my mother depended on me for grocery shopping. During one routine outing, she surprised me by saying she wanted to buy a lottery ticket. I found the experience disquieting and wrote about it afterwards in my journal.

7 Many elements of what will be the final poem are already here, the beginning line in particular. “That’s 6 and a half million a year ... ” is at the heart of the poem. Had my mother not said these words, I probably would have experienced the entire lottery ticket incident differently. I didn’t think about this as I scribbled hurriedly in my journal, but intuitively I must have known it, which is why it’s the first thing I wrote. The line remains intact in all the revisions, and by the final version is positioned as a hinge that widens the poem’s perspective, essentially dividing it in two parts: what happened and what I felt about what happened.

8 The point of view of the journal entry switches between speaking to the mother using the second-person pronoun (you) to speaking about her in the third person (she). Here already the emerging poem hints at the need to try out different wordings before it settles on a final perspective and answers the core questions that must be asked about all poems. Just who is being addressed? Who is being asked to identify with the speaker of the poem? How does changing the relationship between the poem’s speaker and audience affect the poem’s impact?

9 The journal entry strives for verisimilitude in its use of descriptive details such as swaying, weaving, rummaging, digging; the color of the card board and wallet; the almost slow motion observation of the contents of the purse flowing out. There is also attention to what we might call plot detail: I also bought a ticket, it was computer generated, the purchase hap pened two weeks before my departure on a trip and now we’re back in the store to check the winning numbers, and so on. I’m all for authentic de scription and concrete sensory detail. They typically lend credibility and vi tality to a poem, and steer one away from the pitfall of abstractions. However, the journal entry

MY NOTES


“Lottery”

Unit 2


6Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTESshows the tedium of excessive details that don’t know why they are there. We can say these details are not “organic” to the poem, meaning they are not a natural expression of the poem’s bigger idea. It took me many drafts to realize that removing inorganic details was my main task in revising “Lottery.” At this journal stage of writing, I didn’t know the poem’s bigger idea. In fact, I had only the vaguest inkling of why I was compelled to write about the event at all.

10 Draft 1 of the poem is essentially identical to the journal entry. It appears that as soon as I had a hard copy in my hand, I attacked it with a pencil. Note the hard black lines indicating my confidence that, for example, removing the line break at “a year” was going to improve the poem. I am glad that I work through my drafts like this with a pencil instead of obliterating text on a word processor, because inevitably my revision of the first draft overcompensates. For example, isn’t the line break at “half a million / a year for life” much better than the more pedestrian “ ... million a year / for life”?

That’s 6 and a half million a year after taxes you tell me,

of the man who won $111 million. That’s more than Trump!

I have our lottery tickets in here you pt to your black

billfold with the brown ribbing. Rummage further for into

your handbag. Kleenex, and bent envelopes, a crumpled

single dollar rising over your wrist as you dig. The lottery

tickets are two weeks old. Bought on the eve of my

departure for California when I took her to Woodman’s to

buy everything she needed while I was gone. Two cartons

of ciggarettes, 3 gal. of milk, rice cakes and black bellied

bottles of diet rite — I want to buy a lottery ticket you said,

and weaved your way, half blind, exhausted, sore knees

Handwritten journal entry, page 1, June 1993


“Lottery”

Unit 2


7 Pre-AP English 1

from side to side pushed the weight of your body to the far

end of the store, by videos and ice cream and packaged

liquor.

You had your numbers picked out, written large and clear

on a tear of scrap cardboard, bright yellow.

Neither of us knew how to go about it. Mother could

not teach daughter. Daughter could not get it done. I

rubbed in the dots for you. Bought a computer generated

one for me — only lingering slightly over your numbers.

Trying to register their significance — and not seeing

any immediately didn’t dare ask intrude into their origin

— ask on what you are basing your luck. Just as now I

don’t ask you how they figur if you know how they figured

decided how many years to divide $111 million by to make

this man rich for the rest of his life, or what

(I don’t want to know ask) you would do if our tickets had

one with the money — could it buy back your teeth, your

eyesight, your light strong bones and lean flesh.

You didn’t check our numbers that night I was on vacation

But no one else has claimed it you tell me as if that’s all

it takes to mean everything, all of it, is out there waiting

for us to win, to call claim, start celebrating.

Handwritten journal entry, pages 2–3, June 1993

11 At this stage in the revision, I am fiddling very much with words, not having yet grasped the poem’s central idea. Much of this is trivial. I seem to think in line 4 that “winter” instead of “summer” will bring the poem more alive, as will substituting “deeper’” for “further’” two lines down. In some ways, I am only making the poem more wordy, such as adding “though” (an abstract word and therefore best avoided) in the first line of the fourth stanza. What was I thinking? Presumably I was looking for some kind of fluidity, having found the full stops jarring.

12 I am somewhat aware in this draft of needing to cut down on plot-de tail. In the second stanza, “the eve of my trip” is meant to supplant the entire first two and a half lines.


MY NOTES

“Lottery”

Unit 2


8Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTES“That week” instead of “while I was gone” is an attempt at succinctness. Neither of these really accomplishes much. A more significant change is that I have removed my own lottery ticket from the narrative. In the poem’s penultimate line “for us to claim our winnings” gives way to “just waiting / for you,” which brings the poem’s focus more onto the “you” who is my mother. A small word change in the final line may on first glance seem trivial. However, replacing “a” with “this” works toward bringing the poem more in touch with itself. The indefinite article (“a”) makes the celebration generic, belonging to anyone, and limits it to a celebration of the winnings referred to in the preceding line. The demonstrative pronoun (“this”) brings the celebration closer to the “you” and opens up the possibility that the celebration is potentially of much more than the winnings. Along with the insertion of “this,” the word “winnings” has been decisively crossed out. Here I am instinctively getting closer to the poem’s central idea, the essence that will show the event to be bigger than the sum of its parts.

13 Two other alterations in Draft 1 significantly aid the poem’s evolution. First of all, with the parentheses around the first stanza and arrow point ing down I am aware of the need to move the section starting with “That’s six and a half million ... ” to its pivotal position farther on in the poem. I have also added “for life,” which I remembered my mother had said, even though it was not written in the original journal entry. Compared to word fiddling, this is a major insight. The other marked change from the journal entry is at the end of the fifth stanza where I have added a long line. This addition is not plot detail, but rather what we might call story:

The long southern evenings when you and four 4 children you + the children playing (with) squirt guns + netting fireflies


“Lottery”

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9 Pre-AP English 1

Rasma Haidri6422 Hubbard Ave.

Middleton, WI 53562Lottery Ticket

That’s six and a half milliona year for lifeyou tell me of the manwho won.I have our lottery tickets in here,you point to your black billfold,rumage further into your purse,Kleenex, bent envelopes, a crumpled dollar billrising over your wrists as you dig.

The lottery tickets are two weeks old.Bought on the eve of my departurefor California, when I took you to Woodmanto buy everything you would need while I was gone.Two cartons of cigarettes,Three gallons of milk,Rice cakes and black bottles of diet cola.I want to buy a lottery ticket, you had said,and weaved your way, half-blind, worn outon stiff knees, to the far end of the storeby the videos, ice cream and packaged liquor.

You already had your numbers picked out,written in large clear cursive on a scrap of yellow cardboard.

Neither of us knew how to go about it,I fumbled, rubbing in the dots for you.Lingering only slightly over your numbers,trying to register their significance.Not seeing any I didn’t try into their origin, askon what you were banking your luck.

Just as know I don’t ask you how they figuredthe number of years in “the rest of his life”for the last $100 million winner, or whatyou would do with the money.Could you buy back your teeth,your eyesight, you light strong bonesand lean flesh?

You didn’t check our numbersthat night I was on vacation.But no one else has claimed it…You say, as if that alonethat everything, all of it,is still out there for us, just waitingfor us to claim our winningsand strike up a celebration.

First Draft

The

a year

last summer winter.

as you

for one two week old

as

ingdeeper

an

the eve of my trips

that week

6 xxxx

added

though

ed

and finding none, and found noneI did not ask their origin,

now, as you search for the ticket,

B

The long southern evenings whereyou and xxxxx If children xxxxx the children playing squirt guns netting fireflies

the ticket number

for you to lay claim

this

Draft 1 of “Lottery,” undated

14 These lines are evidence of recollection in tranquility, to return to Wordsworth a moment. They were not part of what happened on the gro cery outing, but as I worked with this first draft they came to me, a childhood memory connected to the idea of what the lottery money could buy back. They had been in my subconscious all along, subliminally feeding the pathos I felt for my mother during this whole lottery ticket episode. While working with the


MY NOTES

“Lottery”

Unit 2


10Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTESfirst draft, and feeling some frustration at the ineffectiveness of my word fiddling, they came as Wordsworth says: “a spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling recollected in tranquility.” They are at the heart of the poem that is trying to emerge from this overly detailed and heavily narrative first draft.

15 My process is always the same when writing poems: handwritten journal entry becomes a typed first draft. Then the printed first draft gets marked up with handwritten notes, and the whole thing gets typed into a second draft, which is then printed and marked up and so on. Until I am able to read a typed and properly set up version of the poem, the way it would appear in print, I cannot see (or hear) where changes need to be made. The subsequent drafts of “Lottery” each achieve a significant alter ation, as well as word substitutions and line breaks.

16 In Draft 2, I have typed in the lines about the fireflies and elaborated fur ther: we caught them because in my hometown of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, researchers would pay us thirty cents for a hundred bugs. The fact that we had to freeze the fireflies doesn’t get added until the final draft of the poem, but the importance of being paid for them is clear to me. The handwritten comment to the right of the penultimate stanza confirms this. I jotted it down as a woman in my poetry group said it: “Big expectations of Big money.”

17 This was not the first time that someone in my poetry group pointed out the essence of my own poem to me. That is the value of a good poetry critique group. “Big expectations of Big money” is an overt statement of the theme implicit in the lines I had chosen to add. This was encouraging. It meant I had started to feel the pulse of the poem.

18 One of my changes in Draft 2 is of paramount importance, and remained unaltered through the remaining drafts: switching from the second- to third-person pronoun. The seemingly simple changes in the first two lines of Draft 2 actually represent leaps of development. I can recreate them like this:


“Lottery”

Unit 2


11 Pre-AP English 1

Everything you would need the week of my vacation could be found at Woodman’s:

Everything you would need during the week of my vacation could be found at Woodman’s:

Everything my mother needed during the week of my vacation could be found at Woodman’s:

Everything my mother needed could be found at Woodman’s:

19 The fourth set of lines does two things that appear nearly counterintuitive. First, it says much more than the previous ones, even though it has fewer words. Why? Because it is not watered down by superfluous information. My going on vacation had nothing to do with the poem, yet it was hard for me to let go of talking about it. We sometimes refer to lines like this as scaffolding. They were a necessary structure to get into the poem, but once the actual poem emerges, much like a house under construction, more and more of the scaffolding must be done away with. Writers are averse to doing this. Often we don’t recognize scaffolding for what it is. We feel emotionally attached to it because it was in the poem from the onset. From this we get the well-known adage: Kill your babies.

20 Second, the reduction in the fourth set of lines brings the reader more closely into the poem. This is done, oddly enough, by removing the rather intimate personal pronoun “you” and referring to the mother in the third person. This distancing of the mother works to draw the reader in because the poem’s first-person narrator is now confiding her observations in the reader. When the “I” was engaged directly with the mother, we, the readers, were observing the scene from a distance and didn’t really feel involved with these two people huddled over their lottery ticket. With “you” gone from the poem, the reader observes the scene shoulder to shoulder with the narrator. Now the “I” is


MY NOTES

“Lottery”

Unit 2


12Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTESLottery

Everything you would needthe week of my vacationcould be found at Woodman’s:two cartons of cigarettesthree gallons of milkunsalted rice cakes andsix black bottles of diet cola.

I want to buy a lottery ticket,you added and weaved worn-out,stiff-kneed, half-blind,to the far end of the storenear the videos, ice cream, and packaged liquor

Neither of us knew how to go about it.

You had already chosen your numbers,written them in large cursiveon a tear of yellow cardboard.

I fumbled, rubbing in the dots for you.lingered slightly over your numbersto register their significance, but found none.

You did not check the ticket while I was gone,and look for it now in the depths of your purse,kleenex, envelopes, a dollar billrising over your wrists as you dig.

That’s six and a half million a year for life!you tell me of the man who won last winter,and I do not ask how they figuredthe number of years in his life, nor do I askwhat you would do with the moneyBuy back your teeth? Your eyesight,light bones and lean flesh?Buy back the Tennessee summersyou played squirt guns with usand caught fireflies we could sell to sciencefor thirty cents a hundred?

No one else has claimed it!you say, as if that alonemakes everything possible,

The Ticketmy mother

duringed

she

She the

her

when it returned

rumage

she tells me

she

say

her and

her

she

she

sold

smeans

is still

and all of it is just waiting for youto start up this celebration.

She kept the ticketI have our ticket in hereShe said, rumaging in her,Kleener, envelopes, a lonedrising over her wrists

Big expectations of Big m

out there


telling the reader about the mother, allowing the reader to share observations and know thoughts the mother is not privy to. These thoughts, the ones about fireflies and squirt guns and a long ago youthful mother, contain the poem’s soul. They are the thoughts overflowing with powerful feeling. They are the ones that were recollected in tranquility while fiddling with revisions.


“Lottery”

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13 Pre-AP English 1

21 In Draft 3, the contents of the purse, stanza six, are wisely removed. Not much else happens. The first stanza remains in past tense, and I still can’t decide on the indefinite or demonstrative pronoun for the celebration in the last line. I have unwisely turned the fireflies into wedding rings, a true fact from childhood, but I seem to have decided “Big expectations of Big money” was not the theme after all.

22 With Draft 3, I thought maybe the poem was as good as it was going to get. Unfortunately, these drafts are not dated, but they cover the course of a year. The original journal entry was in June 1993. Draft 4 has a handwritten note I know was from summer 1994.

23 In Draft 4, things pick up. I return to the idea of selling the fireflies to science. I spot prosaic language in the fifth stanza and realize that “lingering over her numbers trying to register their significance” is depicted more clearly if I don’t actually say it. Two other very significant changes are made, ones that shake the poem fully loose of its scaffolding: I put the poem into present tense and cut the last two lines. The switch to present tense, tried out methodically from verb to verb, releases the poem from its anchor in the past. This immediacy brings the reader even closer to the narrator’s shoulder, right into the moment itself. The speaker is no longer relating something that once happened but delivering a blow-by-blow account of the poignant event as it unfolds.

24 By cutting the two last lines of the poem, I do away with the troublesome “celebration.” Often when a word or line is a source of recurring doubt and consternation, it is really identifying itself as part of the scaffolding. Take these lines away, and lo and behold, the poem has found its true ending. “As if / everything is still possible” made my breath stop. Note the emphatically solid period I drew at the end. Still possible. Full stop. By Draft 4, I have begun to grasp the poem. Superfluous portions of the original poem are removed, and essential memories that concretize my feelings are added. The poem’s relationship to the reader is enhanced by two grammatical changes: the third-person point of view and present verb tense. The poem is there.


MY NOTES

“Lottery”

Unit 2


14Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTESLottery

Everything my mother neededcould be found at Woodman’s:two cartons of cigarettesthree gallons of milkunsalted rice cakes andsix black bottles of diet cola.

I want to buy a lottery ticket,she added and weaved a stiff-kneed,half-blind, to the far end of the storenear the videos and packaged liquor.

She had already chosen numbers,written them in large cursiveon a tear of yellow cardboard.


I fumbled, rubbing in the dots,lingering slightly over her numbersto register their significance, but found none.

I have ticket in here, she says,Kleenex, envelopes, a lone dollarrising over her wrists as she digs.

That’s six and a half million a year for life!she says of the man who won last winter.and I do not askhow one figured the years left in his life,nor do I askif we could buy back her teeth and eyesight,her light bonesand lean flesh.Buy back the Tennessee summersshe played squirt guns with usand caught fireflies we made into wedding rings.

No one else has claimed it!she says, as if everything is still possible,just waiting for herto start up this celebration.

she willher mouth full of teeth,

that means

ll it a


25 Still I keep fiddling. Subsequent drafts show I still believe there really is a right and wrong choice between “filling” and “rubbing” in the dots. There is a revision dated April 1995 in which I am changing line breaks to beat the band. Still, no more significant changes happen or are needed. About three years after I initially wrote the poem, I type up a draft that I start sending out for publication.

26 A final episode in the evolution of this poem is worth sharing. Sometime in 1996, I sent a batch of about five poems to the literary journal Prairie Schooner, and in January 1997, I was

af


“Lottery”

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15 Pre-AP English 1

delighted to receive an acceptance contract for a poem called “Books.” I shared this news with my mother, as I did all news regarding my poetry, so long as it wasn’t about her. I would never, for example, have shown her the poem “Lottery.” In fact, had a poem such as “Lottery” come into publication, I would have made very certain it was in a journal my mother had not heard of or would never come across. If, for example, Prairie Schooner had accepted “Lottery,” I would never have mentioned the journal’s name to my mother, and certainly not boasted about my publication contract with them.

27 Ten months later, on a Saturday in November, my mother awoke early, sat up in bed, and died instantly of a heart attack. This shock had me still reverberating in some zone of incredulity and disbelief when three days later, along with the very first sympathy cards to arrive in my mailbox, were proofs from Prairie Schooner for my poem “Books” and the poem “Lottery.” I stared dumbfounded at the papers in my hand, and when I had recovered somewhat went searching for the magazine contract. Sure enough, it was for one poem only. For “Books.”

28 There are two versions of the world we can choose to live in. In one, we are constantly struggling against the fact that things go wrong, mistakes are made, bad things happen, and people die. In the other world, there are no mistakes. Everything just happens and is perfect. I didn’t know about that second world until the poem “Lottery” managed to get itself published in what seemed to be cahoots with my dead mother. Posted in Nebraska on the last day of her life, the poem came into my hands as a gift, a mistake, or a miracle. It was labeled “proof.”


MY NOTES

“Lottery”

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16Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTESRasma Haidri

6422 Hubbard Ave.Middleton, WI 53562

Lottery

Everything my mother neededcould be found at Woodman’s:two cartons of ciggarettesthree gallons of milkunsalted rice cakes andsix black bottles of diet cola.

I want to buy a lottery ticket,she added and weaved a stiff-kneed,half-blind, to the far end of the storenear the videos and packaged liquor.

She had already chosen numbers,written them in large cursiveon a tear of yellow cardboard.


I fumbled, rubbing in the dots,lingering slightly over her numbers

That’s six and a half million a year for life!she says of the man who won last winter.and I do not ask

Nor do I askif she will buy back her teeth and eyesight,

Buy back the summerswe played squirt guns

into wedding rings.

No one else has claimed it!she whispers, as ifeverything is still possible,just waiting for herto start up a celebration.

s

has

usshe

30 1/2 a hundred

s

the

present tense

ing

a

s

prosy

Silye –

When u go to lilkha

apple = leaf



“Lottery”

Unit 2


17 Pre-AP English 1

Lottery

Everything my mother needs can be found at Woodman’s: two cartons of ciggarettes a gallon of milk, unsalted rice cakes and six black bottles of diet cola.

I want to buy a lottery ticket. she adds and weaves stiff-kneed, half-blind, to the far end of the store near the videos and packaged liquor.

She has already chosen the numbers, written them in large cursive on a scrap of yellow cardboard.

Neither of us knows how to go about it.

I fumble, rubbing in the dots, lingering slightly over her numbers but find no significance.

That’s six and a half million a year for life! she says of the man who won last winter and I do not ask how one figures the number of years left in his life. Nor do I ask if she will buy back her teeth, eyes, strong bones and lean flesh. Buy back the summers she played squirt guns with us and caught fireflies I could sell to science for thirty cents a hundred.

No one has claimed it! she whispers, as if everything is still possible.

Final draft of “Lottery,” 1996

29 In the spring of 1998, “Lottery” was printed in a special poetry issue of Prairie Schooner. I had spent nearly five years with that poem, revisiting it, trying to get it to breathe and speak My work in revising the poem was to remove verbiage and supply the words and grammar it asked for. In other words, I worked to get to know it. I


MY NOTES

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18Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTESworked to hear what it had to say. When you revise a poem, think of yourself as listening to it. Strain your ears and screw off your own chatter. For the longest time, I thought I knew that “Lottery” was about despair. Then the poem showed up on my doorstep of its own accord, and I glimpsed something bigger. Perhaps everything is still possible.



19 Pre-AP English 1

“The Fight” JOHN MONTAGUEFrom Collected Poems


“The Fight”

Unit 2


20Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTES1 When I found the swallow’s

Nest under the bridge— Ankle-deep in the bog stream, Traffic drumming overhead—

5 I was so pleased, I ran To fetch a school companion To share the nude fragility Of the shells, lightly freckled With colour, in their cradle

10 Of feathers, twigs, earth.

It was still breast warm Where I curved in my hand To count them, one by one Into his cold palm, a kind

15 Of trophy or offering. Turn- Ing my back, to scoop out The last, I heard him run Down the echoing hollow Of the bridge. Splashing

20 After, I bent tangled in Bull wire at the bridge’s Mouth, when I saw him take And break them, one by one

25 Against a sunlit stone.

For minutes we fought Standing and falling in The river’s brown spate, And I would still fight

30 Though now I can forgive.

To worship or destroy beauty— That double edge of impulse I recognize, by which we live; But also the bitter paradox

35 Of betraying love to harm, Then lungeing, too late, With fists, to its defence.



21 Pre-AP English 1

“Tamara’s Opus”JOSHUA BENNETTFrom Disability Studies Quarterly


“Tamara’s Opus”

Unit 2


22Pre-AP English 1

MY NOTES1 Tamara has never listened

to hip-hop Never danced to the rhythm of raindrops

5 or fallen asleep to a chorus of chirping crickets she has been Deaf for as long as I have been alive and ever since the day that I first turned five My father has said:

10 “Joshua. Nothing is wrong with Tamara. God just makes some people different.” And at that moment those nine letters felt like hammers

15 swung gracefully by unholy hands to shatter my stained-glass innocence into shards that could never be pieced back together or do anything more than sever the ties between my sister and I.

20 I waited was patient numberless years anticipating the second her ears would open like lotuses and allow my sunlight sentences to seep

25 into her insides make her remember all those conversations we must have had in Heaven back when God hand-picked us to be sibling souls centuries ago

30 I still remember her 20th birthday readily recall my awestruck eleven-year old eyes as I watched Deaf men and women of all ages dance in unison to the vibrations of speakers booming so loud

35 that I imagined angels chastising us for disturbing their worship with such beautiful blasphemy until you have seen a Deaf girl dance

40 you know nothing of passion.


“Tamara’s Opus”

Unit 2


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There was a barricade between us that I never took the time to destroy never for even a moment thought to pick up a book and look up

45 the signs for sister for family for goodbye, I will see you again some day remember the face of your little brother. It is only now I see

50 that I was never willing to put in the extra effort to love her properly So as the only person in my family who is not fluent in sign language I have decided to take this time

55 to apologize Tamara, I am sorry for my silence.

But true love knows no frequency So I will use these hands

60 to speak volumes that could never be contained within the boundaries of sound waves I will shout at the top of my fingertips until digits dance and relay these messages

65 directly to your soul I know that there is no poem that can make up for all the time that we have lost but please, if you can,

70 just listen


MY NOTES


25 Pre-AP English 1

Excerpt from Hamlet WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE


Unit 2


26Pre-AP English 1

Excerpt from Hamlet

MY NOTESFrom Act 1, Scene 2

KING 64 But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,—

HAMLET

[Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET

Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.

QUEEN68 Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailèd lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ‘tis common; all that lives must die,

73 Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET

Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN If it be,Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET

Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not ‘seems.’77 ‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,

82 Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,That can denote me truly; these indeed seem,For they are actions that a man might play;But I have that within which passeth show—These but the trappings and the suits of woe.



27 Pre-AP English 1

Excerpt from Romeo and Juliet WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE


Unit 2


28Pre-AP English 1

Excerpt from Romeo and Juliet

MY NOTESFrom Act 3, Scene 1

TYBALT

Follow me close, for I will speak to them. 35 Gentlemen, good e’en. A word with one of you.

MERCUTIO

And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something, make it a word and a blow.

TYBALT You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, and you will give me occasion.

MERCUTIO40 Could you not take some occasion without giving?

TYBALT

Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo—

MERCUTIO

Consort! What, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s that shall make you dance.

45 ’Zounds, consort!

BENVOLIOWe talk here in the public haunt of men. Either withdraw unto some private place, And reason coldly of your grievances, Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.

MERCUTIO50 Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;

I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.

Enter Romeo.

TYBALT

Well, peace be with you, sir, here comes my man.


Unit 2


29 Pre-AP English 1


MERCUTIOBut I’ll be hang’d, sir, if he wear your livery. Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower;

55 Your worship in that sense may call him man.

TYBALTRomeo, the love I bear thee can affordNo better term than this: thou art a villain.

ROMEOTybalt, the reason that I have to love theeDoth much excuse the appertaining rage

60 To such a greeting. Villain am I none;Therefore farewell, I see thou knowest me not.

TYBALT

Boy, this shall not excuse the injuriesThat thou hast done me, therefore turn and draw.

ROMEO

I do protest I never injured thee,65 But love thee better than thou canst devise,

Till thou shalt know the reason of my love,And so, good Capulet—which name I tenderAs dearly as mine own—be satisfied.

MERCUTIOO calm, dishonorable, vile submission!

70 Alla stoccata carries it away.

Draws.

Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?

TYBALTWhat wouldst thou have with me?

MERCUTIOGood King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck


MY NOTES

Unit 2


30Pre-AP English 1


MY NOTESyour sword out of his pilcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.

TYBALTI am for you.

ROMEOGentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

MERCUTIO80 Come, sir, your passado.

They fight.

ROMEODraw, Benvolio, beat down their weapons.Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hathForbid this bandying in Verona streets.

Romeo steps between them.

85 Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!

Tybalt under Romeo’s arm thrusts Mercutio in.

Away Tybalt with his followers.

MERCUTIOI am hurt.A plague a’ both houses!


Unit 2


31 Pre-AP English 1

Credits

Credits“The Fight” by John Montague from Collected Poems, copyright © 1995 Wake Forest University Press. Used by permission of Wake Forest University Press.

“Lottery” by Rasma Haidri from Poem, Revised: 54 Poems, Revisions, Discussions by Marion Street Press, copyright © 2004 by Rasma Haidri. Used by permission of Rasma Haidri.

“Tamara’s Opus” by Joshua Bennett from Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 3, copyright © 2012 by Joshua Bennett. Used by permission of Joshua Bennett.

“What Happened During the Ice Storm” by Jim Heynen from You Know What Is Right, copyright © 1985 by Jim Heynen. Used by permission of the author.


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