Poems

Free Verse

The poem we read today, Oranges by Gary Soto, is an example of free verse poetry. The poet, Gary Soto, was born in Fresno, California, on April 12, 1952. This means that in 1961, when the Berlin Wall went up that fateful Sunday in August, Soto was nine years old, just about the same age as Gerta, our protagonist of A Night Divided. After high school, Soto first enrolled at Fresno Community College; he finished his undergraduate degree at California State University, Fresno. In 1976, he received his MFA in poetry from the University of California, Irvine. Soto's poems focus on daily experiences and often reflect his life growing up as a Mexican-American.

Oranges

by Gary Soto

The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted -
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickle in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn’t say anything.
I took the nickle from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady’s eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.

Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl’s hand
In mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.

Haiku 

This afternoon, Micah shared his knowledge of the poem we know as the Haiku. One of the most celebrated poets of this form was born in 1644. This poet is known simply as Basho. While his name is simple, Basho became a Japanese haiku master. He was born Matsuo Kinsaku near Kyoto, Japan. Basho's father was a samurai. Shortly after Basho's birth, Japan closed its borders. Thus began a period of seclusion that many believe allowed Japan's native culture to flourish. Basho served the son of the local lord at Ueno Castle. While in service there, Basho grew interested in literature. After the young lord’s early death, Basho moved to Kyoto and studied with Kigin, a distinguished local poet. Basho studied Chinese poetry and Taoism, and soon began writing haikai no renga, a form of linked verses composed in collaboration.

The opening verse of a renga, known as hokku, is structured as three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. In Basho’s time, poets were beginning to take the hokku’s form as a template for composing small standalone poems engaging natural imagery, a form that eventually became known as haiku. Basho was a master of the form.

Don't Imitate Me 
by Basho

Don't imitate me,
it's as boring
as the two halves of a melon.

Formal Rhyme Scheme 

You may or may not have noticed that "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" has a nice ring to it, almost like a song. There's rhythm and there's reason, and even some rhyming in this poem. Composed of four four-lined stanzas, this poem is a classic example of the Rubaiyat Stanza. Do not be scared by the number of vowels in that word. "Rubaiyat" is a beautiful Persian word for "quatrain," which means a stanza composed of four lines. The Rubaiyat Stanza has a rhyme scheme of AABA. Let's take a look:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost


Whose woods these are I think I know. A
His house is in the village though; A
He will not see me stopping here B
To watch his woods fill up with snow. A

My little horse must think it queer B
To stop without a farmhouse near B
Between the woods and frozen lake C
The darkest evening of the year. B

He gives his harness bells a shake C
To ask if there is some mistake. C
The only other sound's the sweep D
Of easy wind and downy flake. C

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. D
But I have promises to keep, D
And miles to go before I sleep, D
And miles to go before I sleep. D

What are all of those strange letters in bold, you ask? Well, we (along with other scholars) like to pick poems apart and look at how they work and at how they sound. When poems contain lines that rhyme with one another, we like to map out these rhyme schemes, so that we can see what words are rhyming with each other. You'll notice that the first two lines and the last line of each stanza rhyme together, whereas the pesky third line introduces a new rhyme altogether. When the next stanza begins, three of the four lines rhyme with the third line of the previous stanza.

Have we thoroughly confused you? Take a look at "whose woods these are I think I know./ His house is in the village though./ He will not see me stopping here/ To watch his woods fill up with snow" (1-4). In this case, "know," "though," and "snow" all rhyme together, but "here" is like the ugly duckling of the group, not fitting in. Fortunately, "here" rhymes with the first, second, and fourth lines in the next stanza. That's just the way a Rubaiyat stanza works. You'll notice that there's an exception to this rhyming business in the final stanza. In this grand finale of a stanza, each line rhymes together – no new rhyme is introduced. In this way, we know the poem has come to an end.

Let's talk about rhythm. If you've heard about or read any Shakespeare, the word "iambic pentameter" might ring a bell. Shakespeare liked to write most of the lines in his plays with a particular rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables. His lines usually have ten syllables, or five pairs of syllables (pentameter). Frost's lines in "Stopping by Woods of a Snowy Evening," however, have eight syllables. Frost uses iambic tetrameter (think Tetras=four). Because it has a regular rhythm, and because each line only has eight syllables, the poem moves along at a brisk pace. It's a very neat and tidy poem. Look at the syllables in the first line (stressed syllables are in bold font): "whose woods these are I think I know." The iambic (unstressed/stressed) nature of these lines is what allows us to hear this poem in the way that we've been hearing it all of our life – in that slightly sing-songy way.

Call us crazy, but we went ahead and counted every word in this poem: 108. Out of those 108 words, only 20 have more than one syllable. In other words, this poem is built mostly of monosyllabic words. What does that mean exactly? Well, we're not quite sure, but monosyllabic words do help to keep up the pace, and they also seem to make the poem sound simpler than it really is. No fancy schmancy, New York Times crossword puzzle words clutter up this poem; and yet, we could argue about it's meaning until the cows come home. It's that multi-dimensional. (See Footnote 1 for Citation.)

Footnotes
 ¹Shmoop Editorial Team, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Form and Meter," Shmoop University, Inc., Last modified November 11, 2008, http://www.shmoop.com/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening/rhyme-form-meter.html.