Mr John Herzfeld
Lesson Plan from the 2008 Toyota International Teacher Program to the Galápagos Islands
Herzfeld, left, at the Instituto Alejandro Humboldt School in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristobal.
Philosophy/Rationale
This lesson is designed to have middle students explore metaphor in poetry and apply it to original poems based on Galápagos animals. The poetry lessons will be interdisciplinary as the students learn about evolution and the significance of the Galápagos Islands in their science classes. The poetry for models comes from Spanish and Latin American poets, and wherever I have provided the poems in the original Spanish as well as English translations. Ideally these lessons would suit a bilingual English-Spanish classroom, but they can be adapted in other ways.
My intent is to collaborate with a teacher in the Galápagos to have our students create a book or website of original bilingual poetry about the unique animals on the islands.
Objectives
Terminal objectives:
- To have students understand metaphor and apply it to descriptive and vivid poetry about the fauna of the Galapagos Islands;
- To create an understanding and appreciation in students of the interdependence of living organisms.
- To have students create a class anthology of Galápagos nature poems combined with photographs or drawings.
Language objectives:
- To increase student vocabulary related to sensory description;
- To increase student awareness of figurative language.
Enabling objectives:
- To have students include and expand sensory detail in their writing;
- To have students understand and apply the need for descriptive writing; particularly if the audience has not shared their experience;
- To demonstrate metaphor and other poetic techniques through nature poetry by Latino writers.
Connections
Through speaking, listening and writing, students will
- Record observations and make sense of the various things they observe (KERA 1.3);
- Use appropriate forms, conventions, and styles to communicate ideas and information to different audiences for different purposes (KERA 1.11);
- Students make sense of ideas and communicate ideas with the visual arts (KERA 1.13);
- Students understand how living and non-living things change over time and the factors that influence the changes (KERA 2.6);
- Effectively use interpersonal skills (KERA 4.1);
- Effectively use productive team membership skills KERA 4.2);
- Use what they already know to acquire new knowledge, develop new skills, or interpret new experiences (KERA 6.2);
- To use English to achieve academically in all content areas: Students will use English to interact in the classroom (TESOL Goal 2, Standard 1));
- To use English to achieve academically in all content areas: Students will use English to obtain, process, construct, and provide subject matter information in spoken and written form (TESOL Goal 2, Standard 2);
- Imitate how others use English (TESOL);
- Explore alternative ways of saying things (TESOL);
- Learn and use language “chunks” (TESOL);
- Practice new spoken and written language (TESOL);
- Use context to construct meaning (TESOL);
- Follow oral and written directions (TESOL);
- Imitate a classmate’s response to a teacher’s question or directions (TESOL)
- Participate in whole class and heterogeneous group discussions (TESOL);
- Listen, speak, read, and write about subject (TESOL);
- Respond to the work of peers and others (TESOL);
- Actively connect new information to information previously learned (TESOL).
Context
This series of lessons on figurative language in nature poetry will coincide with the science class’s lessons on evolution. Aristotle said, “All knowledge begins with wonder,” and in this way, poetry and science share common ground. In Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin becomes overwhelmed trying to describe Patagonia’s stark plains. When his words fail, he reaches to poetry and quotes from Percy Shelley’s “Lines on Mont Blanc”:
Is this the scene Where the old Earthquake-demon taught her young Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea Of fire envelop once this silent snow? None can reply - all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue . . . .
Science isn’t cold observation: it begins with the passion of poetry. Darwin, stunned by the land’s austere beauty, feels that nature’s secrets are beyond words, so he relies on poetry, which tries to describe the inexpressible through metaphor. The “mysterious tongue” of the wilderness spoke a language that Darwin devoted his life to understanding. Darwin himself relied on poetic metaphor in The Origin of Species, when he explains how species evolve through the visual metaphor of the tree of life:
“As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications.”
Here, too, metaphor doesn’t exist for its own sake; Darwin uses it to express the beauty in biodiversity and change.
Metaphor is powerful. It makes the distant accessible, the abstract real, and the ordinary immediate, beautiful, and comprehensible. This lesson plan will address these strengths of metaphor through collaborative teaching with Galápagueño and Kentucky classrooms. Despite great distance, I hope students will be able to connect and teach one another. My students, who may never see the Galápagos, will witness its wonders through correspondence, films, images, and the some of the best poetry by Latino writers. With the students in the Galápagos, they will appreciate the beauty and perilous balance of the natural world and be moved to protect the last of the wild places, whether they are in North or South America.
Materials/Technology/Equipment
- Morris, P. (Producer) Galapagos: The Islands that Changed the World. BBC. 2007.
- Teacher-created PowerPoint images of Galapagos fauna;
- Handouts of nature poetry from various Latino poets. (Attached)
- Andrade, Jorge Carrera. Century of the Death of the Rose. Steven Ford Brown, trans. NewSouth Books, Montgomery. 2002.
- de la Serna, Ramon Gomez. Greguerías. Catedra Letras Hispánícas, Madrid. 1995.
- These Are Not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women. Marjorie Agosin, ed. White Pine Press, 2001.
- Neruda, Pablo. Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda. Margaret Sawyer Peden, trans. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990.
- Neruda, Pablo. The Poetry of Pablo Neruda. Farar, Straus and Giroux, New York. 2003.
- Zavatsky, Bill. “Introducing the Greguería.” Julio Marzan, ed. Luna, Luna.. Teachers and Writers Collaborative, New York, 1996.
- The Charles Darwin Foundation website: http://darwinfoundation.org/en/library
- Naomi Shihab Nye, ed. This Same Sky. Aladdin Paperbacks, New York, 1992.
Procedures
Day One: To illustrate metaphor in poetry, introduce students to the greguerías of Spanish poet Ramón Gómez de la Serna. De la Serna was a highly prolific poet—the collection of prose poems about the moon, for instance, shows that he could look at the same object through many different metaphors. Have students select one of de la Serna’s poems to illustrate literally. They can add his text to the image, using either the original Spanish or the English translations.
For enrichment, present students with Jorge Carrera Andrade’s poem, “Invective Against the Moon.” Split students into pairs to see if they can identify the many lunar metaphors here. If class composition permits, it would be ideal to combine an English and Spanish speaking student in each pair. For background, tell students that Andrade was the poet laureate of Ecuador. To prepare them for the next lesson, ask what students know about this country in general and the Galápagos Islands in particular. Next, using inspiration from these poems or the shorter list, students imitate de la Serna’s style by writing their own one-liner metaphors from natural images. Distribute some old copies of National Geographic, Smithsonian, Natural History, or other periodicals with striking wildlife photography.
Day Two: To show metaphor in science, students demonstrate adaptive functions of various bird bills using hand tools as comparisons: a pick for a woodpecker beak, for instance. Have them experiment with various tools, then introduce students to the handout “Bird Adaptations: Beaks” that uses analogies in addressing bird beaks.
Introduce the story of Darwin’s Galápagos finches that evolved different bills to gather different seeds on separate islands. Summarize Darwin’s explanation of adaptive evolution.
Day Three: Introduce more Galápagos animals through images. Have students predict their specific adaptations given their environment. Have students check their predictions through online research at the Charles Darwin Foundation website http://darwinfoundation.org/en/library , which contains PDF files on many topics, including information and photos of fauna. While they are on this site, encourage students to “adopt” three animals that they might want to write poetry about later. They should write four scientific facts about each of those animals.
Day Four: Explain to the students that they have found objective scientific facts about Galápagos animals, but now they are to take what they know to develop poetry, which is more subjective. The poetry they write should include some form of metaphor. Show portions of the BBC documentary, Galápagos: The Islands that Changed the World. There are two goals: 1) Did the students’ earlier predictions about adaptations prove correct? 2) Can they devise a metaphor for each of the animals they adopted? For instance, knowing that marine iguanas eat algae is an objective scientific fact, but saying that they look like stone dragons is a metaphor. Saying that a Frigatebird soars is objective; describing its wings as boomerang-shaped is more subjective, as is calling it an airborne pirate for the way it snatches food from other seabirds.
Day Five: Show how poets can view the same subject through different metaphors. Contrast Pablo Neruda’s “The Magellanic Penguin” with Ricardo Yáñez’s “The Penguin.” Neruda says of his penguin that “it had neither arms nor wings/but hard little oars/on its sides.” Yañez says that his penguin “feels uneasy on soil he limps/in water he moves by sculling/and on air/he flaps and falls down.” Note the difference in tone as well as choices of metaphor; although both poets are speaking of a similar bird, their choices of comparison show different attitudes. Neruda’s ode praises the penguin as a “deliberate priest of the cold, while Yañez focuses on the animal’s awkwardness and weaknesses: “[a]s if she herself felt strange about him,/nature hides him/in the frontier of the world.”
Select some students who have drafted poems about the same Galápagos animals. See if the class can identify the different metaphors these poets use. To extend the idea that there are many metaphorical approaches to these animals, try a whole-class writing game with students working individually or in pairs. Display an image of a Galápagos animal on a screen and give students one minute to develop a metaphorical way of describing it.
For enrichment, or simply for an example of how one poet wrote an ode to a Galapagos animal, show students Neruda’s “Ode to a Lizard.”
Day Six: Show how poets focus on the small, the overlooked. Have students find the many metaphors in Jorge Carrera Andrade’s “Life of the Grasshopper.” Andrade calls him “an invalid since time began/he goes on little green crutches.”Andrade also compares the cricket’s “pizzicato voice” to the sound of a plucked violin. Andrade also describes“[H]is antennae/dragging like fish-lines/troll the high floods of air.” Have students take one of the Galápagos animals or plants they researched in the fourth class and write a short poem that imitates the layered metaphors of Andrade’s work.
Day Seven: Show students Alberto Blanco’s “The Parakeets,” and note his use of personification. Students take their earlier subject and write a new poem using this kind of figurative language. Do any of their adopted Galápagos animals seem human-like? Again, portions of the BBC documentary can help inspire students.
Day Eight: Introduce students to Pablo Neruda’s “What Is It that Upsets the Volcanoes” and have them write a poem that directly addresses the natural subject and questions it. For comparison, show students William Blake’s “Tyger, Tyger.”
Day Nine: Introduce students to Neruda’s odes with “Ode to a Seagull.” Note how he uses metaphor, description, hyperbole, and praise. See also “Ode to the Birds of Chile.” Using one of their three adopted Galapagos animals, students write an ode employing some of Neruda’s figurative language.
Day Ten: Using Neruda’s “Bird” as an example, have students write a poem in which they imagine themselves as an animal on the Galapagos Islands.
Day Eleven and beyond: Students revise poetry for clarity, creativity, and scientific accuracy. They will choose which of their works they want to publish. Through collaboration, my school and one in the Galápagos will publish these works online or in hard copies, depending on resources. Students in the Galápagos could also translate my students’ poetry into Spanish; my Spanish-speaking students could translate poetry from the Galápgueños students into English. We should end up with a bilingual poetry collection that communicates the beauty and value of the Galápagos.
Student Assessment
Students will have formative assessment based on their progress through various class activities and drafts of their poems. Summative assessment will be based on two final poems that have been revised into a publishable form. These poems must be accurate scientifically, show deep description, and contain appropriate and creative metaphors.
Reflection/Analysis of Teaching and Learning
I hope this lesson will not only teach students about metaphor and other figurative language in poetry, but also connect literature to their science classes. Beyond these goals, I hope that students will develop both a sense of wonder at the natural beauty around them and an incentive to protect it. The Galapagos Islands include some of the world’s threatened and endangered animals, yet even in Kentucky we have species that need protection, too. My hope is that students will be motivated to act locally, too. I would like to have my students perform their work for an audience.
The Ramón Gómez De la Serna greguerías translations are my own and therefore likely to be flawed. I have included the original Spanish both for the benefit of bilingual students and in the hope that someone will improve my translations.
LA LUNA / THE MOON
Greguerias by Ramón Gómez de la Serna
Sólo el poeta tiene reloj de luna. Only the poet owns the moon’s clock. La luna es un Banco de metáforas arruinado. The moon is a Bank of ruined metaphors. La luna de los rascacielos no es la misma luna de los horizontes. The moon of the skyscrapers is not the same as the moon of the horizon. La luna sí que está llena de conejos blancos. The moon is full of white rabbits. A la luna le gusta cortarse el pelo al cero. The moon likes to cut all its hair. Raja de sandía: luna de sangre. Slice of watermelon: the moon’s blood. La luna está llena de objetos perdidos. The moon is full of lost objects. A la luna sólo le falta tener marco. The moon is lonely because the window keeps it out. La luna sobre el mar es aviador y buzo. The moon over the sea is both aviator and diver. La luna: actriz japonesa en su monólogo de silencio. The moon: Japanese actress in a silent monologue. La luna es el único viajero sin pasaporte. The moon is an old traveler without a passport. La luna es la gran enceradora de pisos de los lagos. The moon waxes the floor of the lakes. La luna se hace tirabuzones en les magnolias. The moon performs corkscrews in the magnolias. La luna arrebujada de nubes es que ha salido de tapadillo. The moon gathers up the clouds like a woman covering herself with a veil. Luna: gran jofaina de la noche. Moon: giant washbasin of the night. La luna: la hermana de caridad de la noche. The moon: charitable sister of the night. Luna: cinematógrafo con películas viejas. Moon: projector of old movies. A la luna nunca la ha sentado bien el sombrero. The moon has never worn a hat well. Mirando a la luna nos ponemos bizcos de soledad. We look at the moon and become cross-eyed with loneliness. La luna es uno de esos peces redondos y pálidos que hay en el fondo del mar. The moon is one of the round and pale fish at the bottom of the sea. La luna va fijando pasquines en blanco por los sitios que pasa. The moon’s white face ridicules the places that pass beneath it. La luna es el espejo de la experiencia de los siglos. The moon is the mirror of time. En la noche alegre la luna es una pandereta. On a happy night, the moon is a tambourine. La luna es la lápida sin epitafio. The moon is a stone without an epitaph. La luna es a veces una maestro de escuela que nos quiere enseñar geografía. The moon is a place where a schoolteacher cannot teach us geography. En el fondo de los pozos suenan los discos de la luna. At the bottom of the well sleep the faces of the moon. La isla tropical es una luna que se baña. The tropical island is a moon bathing. La luna es el ojo de cristal del cielo. The moon is the crystal eye of the sky. La luna es lavandera de la noche. The moon is the night’s laundress. La luna es el ojo de buey del barco de la noche. The moon is an ox’s eye on the ship of night. La luna y la arena se aman con frenesí. The moon and the sand love each other with frenzy. La luna en la solapa de la noche es la condecoración circulante. The moon in the lapel of night is a circulating decoration.
Other Greguerías by Ramón Gómez de la Serna (Spain)
“Lightning is a kind of furious corkscrew.”
“The lion carries his own loudspeaker.”
“A foot lifts the bedspread of the sea: it’s a dolphin.”
“Water has no memory; that’s why it’s so clear.”
“In mineral water invisible fish bubble up, the souls of aquatic silence, the breathing of frogs, extinct fish, and the last gasps.”
“A hand that’s old clings to life like a bird to the branch.”
“Seagulls are born from the handkerchiefs that wave goodbye at ports.”
“Rain doesn’t matter to the waves, as if they were waterproof.”
“Elevator: one-minute prison.
“The anchor smiles at the bottom of the sea.”
“The swallow lands so far away because it is both the arrow and the bow.”
“Cat: mystery’s hidden camera.”
“He has the eyes of a tightly-sewn button.”
Zavatsky, Bill. “Introducing the Greguería.” Julio Marzan, ed. Luna, Luna.. Teachers and Writers Collaborative, New York, 1996. 169-182.
Here is a greguería-like poem by the Cuban poet Dulce María Loynaz:
“Futile Flight, Futile Fugue.”
The water of the river goes fleeing from itself: It is afraid of its eternity.
These Are Not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women. Marjorie Agosin, ed. White Pine Press, 2001. P. 46
Name: ___________________ English 7
Your Greguerías
Think about an object in nature and what you might compare it to, Consider brainstorming your greguerías by using this structure:
____________________ is like ___________________ because
____________________.
Another way to approach this task is to draw images of two things that seem similar:
If you want to say that the Galápagos penguin stands at attention like a soldier, you could illustrate this idea:
Invective Against the Moon By Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador)
I could say: moon, icy fruit in the blue branches of night. But so many cries are hidden away in stones, so many quiet battles are fought in the shadows, that I say: the moon is only a well of human tears.
So many tears roll through graveyards, So many tears flow from hunger, from ageless eyes, for centuries, that rains on this earth will never cease. And all I see is the moon’s white flour, in empty plate and shroud.
I could say: the moon is a mine of fabulous silver, or the moon promenades in white gloves on its way to gather daisies. But there are so many dead without flowers, so many children to have frozen hands, that I say: the moon is the North Pole of the sky.
Blue witch, bewitching dreams of men, invented a young virgin’s first love, and, in joyful times, wandered through a forest in glass slippers. The moon was a feather pillow plucked from the angels to sleep on for celestial eternity.
Moon, throw your mask in the water, distribute your white flour, your sheets, your bread among the people. No longer be a pool of tears, an iceberg, or an island of salt, but a granary for the infinite hunger of the earth.
Andrade, Jorge Carrera. Century of the Death of the Rose. Steven Ford Brown, trans. NewSouth Books, Montgomery. 2002. 97.
Invectiva Contra la Luna Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador)
Yo podría decir: Luna, fruto de hielo en las ramas azules de la noche. Pero tantos sollozos se esconden en las piedras, tantos combates mudos se libran en la sombra, que yo digo; la luna es sólo un pozo de llanto de los hombres.
Tantas lágrimas ruedan por las tumbas, tantas lágrimas corren por el hambre de ojos ya sin edad, desde hace siglos, que la lluvia no cesa sobre el mundo y yo veo tan sólo la harina de la luna y su plato vacío y su mortaja.
Yo podría decir: La luna es una mina de plata fabulosa, la luna de paseo va con sus guantes blancos a coger margaritas. Pero hay tantos difuntos sin flores, tantos niños con las manos heladas que yo digo: La luna es el Polo de cielo.
Bruja azul, encantaba el sueño de los hombres, inventaba el primer amor de las doncellas, andaba por los bosques con chinelas de vidrio en los tiempos felices. La luna era una almohada de plumas arrancadas a los ángeles para dormir la eternidad celeste.
Luna: arroja tu máscara en el agua, reparte tus harinas, tus sábanas, tus panes entre todos los hombres. No seas sólo un pozo de lágrimas, un témpano o un islote de sal, sin un granero para el hambre infinita de la tierra.
Andrade, Jorge Carrera. Century of the Death of the Rose. Steven Ford Brown, trans. NewSouth Books, Montgomery. 2002. 96.
Bird Adaptations - Beaks Did you ever wonder why there are so many types of bird beaks (scientists call them bills)? The most important function of a bird bill is feeding, and it is shaped according to what a bird eats. If you want to learn more about birds, you may want to pay attention to bill shapes! You can use it as one of the characteristics you use to identify birds. If you have already identified a bird, you can learn more about its behavior by looking at the bill and thinking about what it eats. Then you may think about where it lives, and so on. To help you get started, here are some common bill shapes and the food that they are especially adapted to eat:
SHAPE TYPE ADAPTATION
Cracker Seed eaters like sparrows and cardinals have short, thick conical bills for cracking seed.
Shredder Birds of prey like hawks and owls have sharp, curved bills for tearing meat.
Chisel Woodpeckers have bills that are long and chisel-like for boring into wood to eat insects.
Probe Hummingbird bills are long and slender for probing flowers for nectar.
Strainer Some ducks have long, flat bills that strain small plants and animals from the water.
Spear Birds like herons and kingfishers have spear-like bills adapted for fishing.
Tweezer Insect eaters like warblers have thin, pointed bills.
Swiss Army Knife Crows have a multi-purpose bill that allows them to eat fruit, seeds, insects, fish, and other animals.
Norman Bird Sanctuary. 2000. www.aviary.org/curric/teachers/t_beaks.htm Accessed April 9, 2008.
Magellanic Penguin
by Pablo Neruda (Chile) Neither clown nor child nor black
nor white but vertical and a questioning innocence dressed in night and snow: The mother smiles at the sailor, the fisherman at the astronaut, but the child does not smile when he looks at the bird child, and from the disorderly ocean the immaculate passenger emerges in snowy mourning.
I was without doubt the child bird there in the cold archipelagoes when it looked at me with its eyes, with its ancient ocean eyes: it had neither arms nor wings but hard little oars on its sides: it was as old as the salt; the age of moving water, and it looked at me from its age: since then I know I do not exist; I am a worm in the sand.
the reasons for my respect remained in the sand: the religious bird did not need to fly, did not need to sing, and through its form was visible its wild soul bled salt: as if a vein from the bitter sea had been broken.
Penguin, static traveler, deliberate priest of the cold, I salute your vertical salt and envy your plumed pride.
Poemhunter.com. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/magellanic-penguin/ Accessed 4/9/08
Pingüino (Spheniscus Magellanicus) by Pablo Neruda
Ni bobo ni niño ni negro ni blanco sino vertical y una inoncencia interrogante vestida de noche y de nieve. Ríe la madre al marinero, el pescador al astronauta, pero no ríe el niño niño cuando mira al pájaro niño y del océano en desorden inmaculado pasajero emerge de luto nevado.
Fui yo sin duda el niño pájaro allá en los fríos archipiélagos: cuando él me miró con sus ojos, con los viejos ojos del mar: no eran brazos y no eran alas, eran pequeños remos duros los que llevaba en sus costados: tenía la edad de la sal, la edad del agua en movimiento y me miró desde su edad: desde entonces sé que no existo, que soy un gusano en la arena.
Las razones de mi respeto se mantuvieron en la arena: aquel pájaro religioso no necesitaba volar, no necesitaba cantar y aunque su forma era visible sangraba sal su alma salvaje como si hubieran cercenado una vena del mar amargo.
Pingüino, estático viajero, sacerdote lento del frío: saludo tu sal vertical y envidio tu orgullo emplumado.
Spanish Poems http://spanishpoems.blogspot.com/2005/02/pablo-neruda-pingino.html Accessed June 18, 2008. The Penguin Ricardo Yáñez (Mexico)
The penguin isn’t meat, fish or bird, doesn’t belong to carnival or Lent. Least attractive animal, and most mysterious, he splashes in the three elements, and has some rudimentary right over them all, but yet he feels uneasy with them: on soil he limps
in water he moves by sculling and on air
he flaps and falls down. As if she herself felt strange about him, nature hides him in the frontier of the world.
Translated by Raul Aceves and Arturo Suarez with Jane Taylor. Naomi Shihab Nye, ed. This Same Sky. Aladdin Paperbacks, New York, 1992. 107.
Galapagos Penguin
The Parakeets By Albert Blanco (Mexico)
They talk all day and when it starts to get dark they lower their voices to converse with their own shadows and with the silence
They are like everybody, the parakeets: all day chatter and at night bad dreams.
With their gold rings on their clever faces, brilliant feathers and the heart restless with speech.
They are like everybody, the parakeets: the ones that talk best have separate cages.
Translated by W.S. Merwin. Naomi Shihab Nye, ed. This Same Sky. Aladdin Paperbacks, New York, 1992. 56.
Vida del Grillo By Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador)
Inválido desde siempre, ambula por el campo con sus muletas verdes.
Desde las cinco el chorro de la estrella llena el pequeño cántaro del grillo.
Trabajador, con las antenas hace cada día su pesca en los ríos del aire.
Por la noche, misántropo, cuelga en su casa de hierba la lucesita de su canto.
¡Hoja enrollada y viva, la música del mundo conserva dentro escrita!
Andrade, Jorge Carrera.“Century of the Death of the Rose: Selected Poems. Translated by Steven Ford Brown. NewSouth Books: Montgomery, 2002. 122.
Life of the Grasshopper Jorge Carrera Andrade
An invalid since time began, he goes on little green crutches stitching the countryside.
Incessantly from five o'clock the stars stream through his pizzicato voice.
Hard worker, his antennae, dragging like fish-lines, troll the high floods of air.
At night a cynic, he lies inert in his grass house, songs folded and hung up.
Furled like a leaf, his folio preserves the records of the world.
Translated by John Malcolm Brinnin. Naomi Shihab Nye, ed. This Same Sky. Aladdin Paperbacks, New York, 1992. 21.
Pablo Neruda (Chile)
What is it that upsets the volcanoes that spit fire, cold and rage?
Why wasn't Christopher Columbus able to discover Spain?
How many questions does a cat have?
Do tears not yet spilled wait in small lakes?
Or are they invisible rivers that run through sadness?
“Here and Now.” http://www.7beats.com/2008_01_01_7beats_archive.html
Accessed April 9, 2008.
THE TYGER By William Blake Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art. Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Ode to a Sea Gull By Pablo Neruda (Chile)
To the seagull high above the pine woods of the coast, on the wind the sibilant syllable of my ode.
Sail, bright boat, winged banner, in my verse, stitch, body of silver, your emblem across the shirt of the icy firmament, oh, aviator, gentle serenade of flight, snow arrow, serene ship in the transparent storm, steady, you soar while the hoarse wind sweeps the meadows of the sky.
After your long voyage, feathered magnolia, triangle borne aloft on the air, slowly you regain your form, arranging your silvery robes, shaping your bright treasure in an oval, again a white bud of flight, a round seed, egg of beauty.
Another poet would end here his triumphant ode. I cannot limit myself to the luxurious whiteness of useless froth. Forgive me, sea gull, I am a realist poet, photographer of the sky. You eat, and eat, and eat, there is nothing you don’t devour, on the waters of the bay you bark like a beggar’s dog, you pursue the last scrap of fish gut, you peck at your white sisters, you steal your despicable prize, a rotting clump of floating garbage, you stalk decayed tomatoes, the discarded rubbish of the cove. But in you it is transformed into clean wing, white geometry, the ecstatic line of flight.
That is why, snowy anchor, aviator, I celebrate you as you are: your insatiable voraciousness, your screech in the rain, or at rest a snowflake blown from the storm, at peace or in flight, sea gull, I consecrate to you my earthbound words, my clumsy attempt at flight; let’s see whether you scatter your birdseed in my ode.
Oda a la Gaviota by Pablo Neruda
A la gaviota sobre los pinares de la costa, en el viento la sílaba silbante de mi oda.
Navega, barca lúcida, bandera de dos alas, en mí verso, cuerpo de plata, sube tu insignia atravesada en la camisa del firmamento frió oh voladora, suave serenata del vuelo, flecha de nieve, nave tranquila en la tormenta transparente elevas tu equilibrio mientras el ronco viento barre las praderas del cielo.
Después del largo viaje, tú, magnolia emplumada, triángulo sostenido por el aire en la altura, con lentitud regresas a tu forma cerrando tu plateada vestidura, ovalando tu nítido tesoro, volviendo a ser botón blanco del vuelo, germen redondo, huevo de la hermosura.
Otro poeta aquí terminaría su victoriosa oda. Yo no puedo permitirme sólo el lujo blanco de la inútil espuma. Perdóname, gaviota, soy poeta realista, fotógrafo del cielo. Comes, comes, comes, no hay nada que no devores, sobre el agua del puerto ladras como perro de pobre, corres detrás del último pedazo de intestino de pescado, picoteas a tus hermanas blancas, robas la despreciable presa, el desarmado cúmulo de basura marina, acechas los tomates decaídos, las descartadas sobras de la caleta. Pero todo lo transformas en ala limpia, en blanca geometría, en la estática línea de tu vuelo.
Por eso, ancla nevada, voladora, te celebro completa: con tu voracidad abrumadora, con tu grito en la lluvia o tu descanso de copo desprendido a la tormenta, con tu paz o tu vuelo, gaviota, te consagro mi palabra terrestre, torpe ensayo de vuelo, a ver si tú desgranas tu semilla de pájaro en mi oda.
Neruda, Pablo. Selected Odes. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990. 207-211.
Ode to the Lizard by Pablo Neruda
Margaret Sayers Peden, trans.
On the sand a lizard with a sandy tail. Beneath a leaf, a leaflike head.
From what planet, from what cold green ember did you fall? From the moon? From frozen space? Or from the emerald did your color climb the vine?
On a rotting tree trunk you are a living shoot, arrow of its foliage. On a stone you are a stone with two small, ancient eyes -- eyes of the stone. By the water you are silent, slippery slime. To a fly you are the dart
of an annihilating dragon.
And to me, my childhood, spring beside a lazy river, that's you! lizard, cold, small and green; you are a long-ago siesta beside cool waters, with books unopened.
The water flows and sings.
The sky, overhead, is a warm corolla.
Lava Lizard
Oda a la Lagartija Pablo Neruda
Junto a la arena una lagartija de cola enarenada.
Debajo de una hoja su cabeza de hoja.
De qué planeta o brasa fría y verde, caíste? De la luna? Del más lejano frío? O desde la esmeralda ascendieron tus colores en una enredadera?
Del tronco carcomido eres vivísimo retoño, flecha de su follaje. En la piedra eres piedra con dos pequeños ojos antiguos: los ojos de la piedra. Cerca del agua eres légamo taciturno que resbala. Cerca de la mosca eres el dardo del dragón que aniquila.
Y para mí, la infancia, la primavera cerca del río perezoso, eres tú! lagartija fría, pequeña y verde: eres una remota siesta cerca de la frescura, con los libros cerrados.
El agua corre y canta.
El cielo, arriba, es una corola calurosa.
Land Iguana
Bird By Pablo Neruda (Chile)
It was passed from one bird to another, the whole gift of the day. The day went from flute to flute, went dressed in vegetation, in flights which opened a tunnel through the wind would pass to where birds were breaking open the dense blue air - and there, night came in.
When I returned from so many journeys, I stayed suspended and green between sun and geography - I saw how wings worked, how perfumes are transmitted by feathery telegraph, and from above I saw the path, the springs and the roof tiles, the fishermen at their trades, the trousers of the foam; I saw it all from my green sky. I had no more alphabet than the swallows in their courses, the tiny, shining water of the small bird on fire which dances out of the pollen.
Neruda, Pablo. “Bird.” http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bird/ Accessed April 9, 2008.
The Eye of the Whale By Homero Aridjis (Mexico) For Betty
“And God created the great whales. . .” Genesis:1,2 And there in San Ignacio Lagoon God created the great whales and each creature that moves on the shadowy thighs of the waters.
God created dolphin and sea lion, blue heron and green turtle, white pelican, golden eagle and double crested cormorant. And God said unto the whales: “Be fruitful and multiply in acts of love that are visible on the surface only through a bubble or a fin, flapping while the cow is seized on the long prehensile penis below; there is no splendor greater than a gray when the light turns it silver. Its bottomless breath is an exhalation.” And God saw that love Between the whales and the sporting with their calves in the magical lagoon was good. And God said: “Seven whales together make up a procession. A hundred, a daybreak.” And the whales came up to spot God over the dancing gunnels of the waters and God was sighted by a whale’s eye. And whales filled the waters of the earth, And the evening and the morning Were the fifth day.
MacedonianP.E.N.,Winter,2003. http://www.pen.org.mk/publications/2003_winter/tekst.asp?lang=eng&id=9. Accessed June 2, 2008.
APPENDIX
Latino Poems that Explore the Relationship between Humans and Nature
The following poems pose a greater challenge for middle grades students in both form and content. Once again, poets use metaphor, but this time the context is different. Here we deal more explicitly with the relationship of people to nature.
With Jorge Carrera Andrade’s entries, we find poems that address humanity’s alienation from the natural world. “Biography for the Use of Birds” shows that growing industrialization has diminished rural quality of life, as does “Sketch of Contemporary Man.” In the former, Andrade states “the motor had already driven out the angels.” Urbanization and automobiles have separated humans from the natural and divine worlds. In the latter poem, this synthetic environment has victimized humans:
Weighed down by climates, making his way among towers, chimneys and antennae, a traveler each day in his own city, he is shipwrecked by five o’clock among an electric vegetation of advertisements.
These poems raise the important issue of how fragile our environments are, whether they are remote tropical archipelagos bustling cities. Both poems lend themselves to discussion about what we lose with technological progress and why nature is worth conserving.
The next poems, “Sea Surrounded” and “Rocking,” give us two poets who use metaphors in nature to talk about humans. Dulce María Loynaz uses many ocean metaphors to talk about enduring love. Gabriela Mistral uses several natural analogies to a mother rocking a child, and then extends that comparison to a divine one; just as a mother comforts a child, God secures everyone.
In “Pointless Journey,” Yolanda Bedregal’s narrator finds solace after a broken love affair by identifying with a seascape. Nature is not as benign as the previous two poets expressed, but it can still satisfy human needs beyond mere physical sustenance. A point to discuss with students might be whether they, too, have ever felt rewarded simply by being in nature.
Finally, we have Alfonsina Storni’s “The World is Bitter,” almost apocalyptic in its description of a desolate earth. The poet lets us imagine the context here. Is she indeed speaking of the waning days of humans and nature? What language hints at this idea? In one stanza, Storni states:
The sun is bitter over the world choked in the vapors rising from the stalled unripe place.
Even the earth itself is “a desert of suns/blind . . . .” Could such destruction indeed be possible? Perhaps a class discussion could develop around issues such as global climate change, energy issues, or endangered and threatened species.
Biography for the Use of Birds By Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador)
I was born in the century of the death of the rose when the motor had already driven out the angels. Quito watched as the last stagecoach rolled away, and at its passing trees ran by in perfect order, and also hedges and houses of new parishes, at the threshold of the countryside where cows were slowly chewing silence as wind spurred on its swift horses.
My mother, clothed in the setting sun, stored her youth deep in a guitar and only on certain evenings would she show it to her children, wrapped in music, light, and words. I loved the hydrography of rain, yellow fleas on apple trees, and toads that rang two or three times their thick wooden bells.
The great sail of the air maneuvered endlessly. The cordillera was a shore of the sky. A storm came, and as drums rolled its drenched regiments charged; but then the sun’s golden patrols restored translucent peace to the fields. I watched men embrace barley, horsemen sink into sky, and laden wagons pulled by lowing oxen travel down to the mango-fragrant coast.
There was a valley with farms where dawn set off a trickle of roosters, and to the west was a land where sugarcane waved its peaceful banner, and cacao trees stored in coffers their secret fortunes, and the pineapple girded on its fragrant cuirass, the nude banana its silken tunic.
It has all passed, in successive waves, just as the useless ciphers of sea foam pass. Entangled in seaweed, the years went by slowly as memory became scarcely a water lily, its drowned face looming up between two waters. The guitar is only a coffin for songs as the cock with its head wound laments and all the earth’s angels have emigrated, even the dark brown angel of the cacao tree Andrade, Jorge Carrera.“Century of the Death of the Rose: Selected Poems. Translated by Steven Ford Brown. Jacket 12, July 2000. http://jacketmagazine.com/12/andr-poems.html Accessed April 10, 2008.
Biografía Para Uso de los Pájaros Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador)
Nací en el siglo de la defunción de la rosa cuando el motor ya había ahuyentado a los ángeles. Quito veía andar la última diligencia y a su paso corrían en buen orden los árboles, las cercas y las casas de las nuevas parroquias en el umbral del campo donde las lentas vacas rumiaban el silencio y el viento espoleaba sus ligeros caballos.
Mi madre revestida de poniente guardó su juventud e una honda guitarra y sólo algunas tardes la mostraba a sus hijos envuelta entre la música, la luz y las palabras. Yo amaba la hidrografía de la lluvia, las amarillas pulgas de manzano y los sapos que hacían sonar dos o tres veces su gordo cascabel de palo.
Sin cesar maniobraba la gran vela del aire. Era la cordillera un litoral del cielo. La tempestad venía, y al batir del tambor cargaban sus mojados regimientos; mas luego el sol con sus patrullas de oro restauraba la paz agraria y transparente. Yo veía a los hombres abrazar la cebada, sumergirse en el cielo unos jinetes y bajar a la costa olorosa de mangos los vagones cargados de mugidores bueyes.
El valle estaba allá con sus haciendas donde prendía el alba su reguero de gallos y al oeste la tierra donde ondeaba la caña de azúcar su pacífico banderín, y el cacao guardaba en un estuche su fortuna secreta, y ceñían, la piña su coraza de olor, la banana desnuda su túnica seda. Todo ha pasado ya en sucesivo oleaje como las vanas cifras de la espuma. Los años van sin prisa enredando sus líquenes y el recuerdo es apenas un nenúfar que asoma entre dos aguas su rostro de ahogado. La guitarra es tan sólo ataúd de canciones y se lamenta herido en la cabeza el gallo. Han emigrado todos los ángeles terrestres, hasta el ángel moreno del cacao.
Andrade, Jorge Carrera.“Century of the Death of the Rose: Selected Poems. Translated by Steven Ford Brown. NewSouth Books: Montgomery, 2002. 28-30.
Dibujo del Hombre Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador)
El mundo está cubierto de cunas que cantan en la noche.
El hombre vive amontonando cubos de piedra para las casas de los futuros hombres.
Agobiado de climas, orientado entre torres, chimeneas y antenas, viajero cada día en su ciudad, náufrago desde las cinco entre una vegetación eléctrica de avisos.
Amaestrador de máquinas, habitante de los rascacielos. Estás al norte y al sur, al este y al oeste: hombre blanco, hombre amarillo, hombre negro.
Florecen en sus manos itinerarios de trenes y de barcos. Se suman en sus ojos las mañanas nutridas de periódicos. El ferrocarril cepilla la tierra estirando virutas de paisajes y el avión se levanta contra la geografía guiado por el hombre de manos perfectas.
El hombre grita en México y Berlin, y Moscú y Buenos Aires y sus radiogramas cubren el planeta.
Este es el paisaje de nuestra noche: La ciudad se ciñe su cinturón de trenes, cuernos de caracol sacan los proyectores y desciende un avión, náufrago celeste.
Y se levanta el Hombre, inventor del futuro, circundado de máquinas, carteles de Lenin, planos de Nueva York y panoramas del mundo.
Andrade, Jorge Carrera.“Century of the Death of the Rose: Selected Poems. Translated by Steven Ford Brown. NewSouth Books: Montgomery, 2002. 154-156.
Sketch of Contemporary Man By Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador) The world is covered with cradles that sing in the night.
Man lives accumulating blocks of stone for the houses of the future man.
Weighed down by climates, making his way among towers, chimneys and antennae, a traveler each day in his own city, he is shipwrecked by five o’clock among an electric vegetation of advertisements.
Master of machines, he lives in skyscrapers. You are in the North, South, East and West: white man, yellow man, black man.
In his hands bloom itineraries of boats and trains. Nourished by newspapers mornings are summed up in his eyes.
The railroad plows through the earth, turning up shavings of landscapes; piloted by the man with perfect hands an airplane rises against the geography.
Man shouts in Mexico and Berlin, in Moscow and Buenos Aires as his telegrams cover the planet.
This is the landscape of our night: the city girds on its belt of trains, as searchlights extend their snail’s antenna and an airplane, a celestial shipwreck, descends.
Man, inventor of the future, arises surrounded by machines, posters of Lenin, street plans of New York and panoramas of the world. Loneliness of Cities By Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador) Without knowing my number, enclosed by walls and borders, I walk around with a prisoner’s moon and perpetual shadow chained to my ankle.
Living frontiers arise a step beyond my footsteps.
There is neither north nor south, east or west, only a multiplied loneliness exists, a loneliness divided by a cipher of men. Time’s race around the circus of the clock, luminous navels of streetcars, bells with athletic shoulders, walls that spell out two or three colored words, are the materials of loneliness.
Image of solitude: bricklayer singing on a scaffold, fixed raft in the sky. Images of solitude: a traveler submerged in a newspaper, a waiter hiding a photograph in his vest pocket.
The city has a mineral appearance. Urban geometry is less beautiful than the geometry we learned at school. A triangle, egg, cube of sugar initiated us into a celebration of forms. Circumferences only came later: the first woman, and the first moon.
Where were you, loneliness, that I never knew you before I turned twenty? On trains, in mirrors, in photographs, you are always at my side now.
Country people are less alone because they are one with the land: trees are their sons, they see weather changes in their own flesh, and are taught by the saints’ calendar of little animals.
This solitude is nourished by books, solitary walks, pianos, and fragments of crowds, by cities and skies conquered by machines, sheets of foam unfolding toward the limits of the seas. Everything has been invented, but nothing has been invented to deliver us from loneliness.
Playing cards guard the secret of garrets, sobs are formed to be smoked away in a pipe, and there have been attempts to inter solitude in a guitar. It’s known that loneliness walks through vacant apartments, has commerce with the clothing of suicides, and confuses messages in the telegraph wires.
Andrade, Jorge Carrera.“Century of the Death of the Rose: Selected Poems. Translated by Steven Ford Brown. Jacket 12, July 2000. http://jacketmagazine.com/12/andr-poems.html Accessed April 10, 2008.
Soledad de las Cuidades Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador)
Sin conocer mi número. Cercado de murallas y de límites. Con una luna de forzado y atada a mi tobillo una sombra perpetua.
Fronteras vivas se levantan a un paso de mis pasos.
No hay norte ni sur, este ni oeste, sólo existe la soledad multiplicada, la soledad dividida para una cifra de hombres. La carrera del tiempo en el circo del reloj, el ombligo luminoso de los tranvías, las campanas de hombres atléticos, los muros que deletrean dos o tres palabras de color, están hechos de una materia solitaria.
Imagen de la soledad: el albañil que canta en un andamio, fija balsa del cielo. Imágenes de la soledad: el viajero que se sumerge en un periódico, el camarero que esconde un retrato en el pecho.
La ciudad tiene apariencia mineral. La geometría urbana es menos bella que la que aprendimos en la escuela. Un triángulo, un huevo, un cubo de azúcar nos iniciaron en la fiesta de las formas. Sólo después fue la circunferencia. la primera mujer y la primera luna.
¿Dónde estuviste, soledad, que non te conocí hasta los veinte años? En los trenes, los espejos y las fotografías siempre estás a mi lado.
Los campesinos se hallan menos solos porque forman una misma cosa con la tierra. Los árboles son hijos suyos, los cambios de tiempo observan en su propia carne y les sirve de ejemplo la santoral de los animalitos.
La soledad está nutrida de libros, de paseos, de pianos y pedazos de muchedumbre, de ciudades y cielos conquistados por la máquina, de pliegos de espuma desenrollándose hasta el límite de mar. Todo se ha inventado, mas no hay nada que pueda libraros de la soledad.
Los naipes guardan el secreto de los desvanes. Los sollozos están hechos para ser fumados en pipa. Se ha tratado de enterrar la soledad en una guitarra. Se sabe que anda por los pisos desalquilados, que comercia con los trajes de los suicidas Y que enreda los mensajes en los hilos telegráficos.
Andrade, Jorge Carrera.“Century of the Death of the Rose: Selected Poems. Translated by Steven Ford Brown. NewSouth Books: Montgomery, 2002. 58-61.
Sea Surrounded by Dulce María Loynaz (Cuba)
The sea is a blue garden of crystal flowers but the beach is always the scene of death. You are my beach to die on . . . It is your eyes that surround me, that break the waves for me. And with the sea in my arms and an open horizon, I will perish in you, grey beach of your eyes, the power of one grain joined to another, moss-covered wall, shield made of wind.
Marjorie Agosin, ed. These are not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women. White Pine Press, Buffalo, New York, 2001. 46.
Rocking by Gabriela Mistral (Chile)
The divine sea rocks its
myriad waves.
Listening to the loving seas,
I rock my child.
At night, the vagabond wind
rocks the wheat.
Listening to the loving winds,
I rock my child.
The heavenly Father silently rocks
thousands of worlds.
Sensing his hand in the shadow,
I rock my child.
Marjorie Agosin, ed. These are not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women. White Pine Press, Buffalo, New York, 2001. 148.
Pointless Journey by Yolanda Bedregal (Bolivia)
Marjorie Agosin, ed. These are not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women. White Pine Press, Buffalo, New York, 2001. 317-318.
Why the sea?
Why the sun!
Why the sky?
I’m on a journey today, on a journey of return toward that world without a shore which is the sea of myself and of forgetting you.
After I had given you sea and sky, I remain with the earth of my life which is sweet as clay drenched in blood and milk.
Now all that I had is excess because I am like an aquarium and like a rock. Agile fish sail through my blood, and in my body the roots of violet and yellow plants are entangled.
I have on my wounded shoulder scars of useless wings, and in my eyes still there is a little pointless measure of recollections.
But what does all this matter now? When I stretch out my arms there is nothing that is not myself repeated. Am I not perchance the sea, am I not rock?
Mysteries of colors in my life rise and fall in high tidal surges, and strange animals and demons pretend to be angels and ferns in my caverns.
They’re all too much, the sea, the sun, the earth.
Now that I have returned from an unbounded love, I have already in the world without a shore what once could fit into his hands.
The World is Bitter by Alfonsina Storni (Argentina)
trans. by Mark McCaffrey
The world is bitter, unripe, stalled’ its forests filled with steel points. Old tombs climb to the surface; the seawaters cradle God-awful houses.
The sun is bitter over the world choked in the vapors rising from the stalled unripe place.
The moon is bitter over the world, green, pallid; on her damp skates she hunts specters.
The wind is bitter over the world; it huffs up clouds of dead insects, ties its broken self to towers,
knots up in crepes of weeping; weighs on the roofs.
Man is bitter over the world, balanced on his legs . . . At his back
the all, stone desert; before him, all a desert of suns blind . . .
Marjorie Agosin, ed. These are not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women. White Pine Press, Buffalo, New York, 2001. 166.
Useful Classroom Sites
Arsenault, Natalie. “Conservation in Ecuador and the Galapagpos.” LANIC E-Text Collection. http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/etext/llilas/outreach/fulbright05/ Accessed October 12, 2008. Lessons on flora, fauna, biodiversity, and sustainability.
Charles Darwin Foundation. “The Gayle Davis-Merlen Online Library.” http://darwinfoundation.org/en/library Accessed October 12, 2008. PDF files on many topics, including information and photos of flora and fauna.
Epler, Bruce. “Tourism, the Economy, Population Growth, and Conservation in the Galapagos Islands.” http://www.darwinfoundation.org/files/library/pdf/2008/Epler_Tourism_Report-en_5-08.pdf Charles Darwin Foundation. Revised and Updated, 2007. Accessed October 12, 2008. Study of impact of tourism over time.