Poetry Corner

I told my robot to my biddin’
He yawned and said, “You must be kiddin’.”
I told my robot to cook me a stew.
He said, “I got better things to do.”
I told my robot to sweep my shack.
He said. “You want me to stain my back?”
I told my robot to answer the phone.
He said, ‘ I must make some calls of my own.”
I told my robot to brew me some tea.
He said, “Why don’t you make tea for me?”
I told my robot to boil me an egg.
He said, “First– – lemme hear you beg.”
I told my robot, “There’s a song you can play me.”
He said, “How much are you gonna pay me?”
So I sold that robot, ‘cause I never knew
Exactly who belonged to who.
-My Robot by Shel Silverstein

When I was in first grade, my teacher read to us from Shel’s books. We’d gather in the story corner, on the bright red rug, and listen as the rhythm of the words carried us away. I don’t remember any of the other poems or stories she’d read but I remember My Robot, probably because I have a technologically obsessed brother.

As I grew older, my parents bought me Shel’s books. I’d read them every night before bed. There was a sense of comfort as I grew up.

And then, one day, I read Annabel Lee.

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
-Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe

I was hooked. In class we read The Telltale Heart and The Raven, which I obsessively tried to memorize. I think I got halfway through before moving on to memorize the Sorting Hat’s song from Harry Potter. Don’t judge me. It was the summer and I was bored.

After memorizing the Sorting Hat’s song, I went back to school. Classes began, same old schpeal. Until we got to Emily Dickinson.

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
-I’m Nobody by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then ‘t is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
-The Chariot by Emily Dickinson

Then, I watched Because I Said So. I have this compulsive habit of reading the trivia about nearly everything I watch. When I read it for this movie, I learned that the girls were named for a poem by e.e. cummings.

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
-Maggie, Milly, Molly, and May by e.e. cummings