Related to Lord of the Flies - New Rochelle High School

 
Poetry Related to Lord of the Flies 

 

Crane + Wright + Dobyns + Etters + Cohen + Milosz + Gunn + H.D. + Yevtushenko 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In groups of three or four: choose a poem, read it and explain in writing what the poem means and how 
it relates to Lord of the Flies. Then, create an artistic representation of the poem and explain your 
creation in a paragraph. Lastly, present your poem to class by reading it aloud, showing your creation, 
and facilitating a thoughtful discussion.  
 

“I Stood upon a High Place” by Stephen Crane

I stood upon a high place,
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping,
and carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,
And said, "Comrade! Brother!"

“Autumn Begins in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio” by James Wright

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like starved pullets,
Dying for love.

Therefore,
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October,
And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.

“Bleeder” by Stephen Dobyns 

  Then, after a week, they sent him home. Too much 
responsibility, the director said. 
By now I bet he’s dead which suits me fine,  Hell, I bet the kid had skin like leather. 
but twenty‐five years ago when we were both  Even so, I’d lie in bed at night and think 
fifteen and he was camper and I counselor  of busting into his room with a sharp stick, lash 
in a straight‐laced Pennsylvania summer camp   
for crippled and retarded kids, I’d watch  and break the space around his rose petal flesh, 
  while campers in bunks around me tossed and dreamt 
him sit all day by himself on a hill. No trees  of poking and bashing the bleeder until he 
or sharp stones: he wasn’t safe to be around.  was left as flat as a punctured water balloon, 
The slightest bruise and all his blood would simply  which is why the director sent him home. For what 
drain away. It drove us crazy—first   
to protect him, then to see it happen. I  is virtue but the lack of strong temptation: 
  better to leave us with our lie of being good. 
would hang around him, picturing a knife  Did he know this? Sitting on his private hill, 
or pointed stick, wondering how small a cut  watching us smash each other with crutches and canes, 
you’d have to make, then see the expectant face  was this his pleasure: to make us cringe beneath 
of another boy watching me, and we each knew   
how much the other would like to see him bleed.  our wish to do him damage? But then who cared? 
  We were the living children, he the ghost 
He made us want to hurt him so much we hurt  and what he gave us was a sense of being bad 
ourselves instead: sliced fingers in craft class,  together. He took us from our private spite 
busted noses in baseball, then joined at last  and offered our bullying a common cause: 
into mass wrestling matches beneath his hill,   
a tangle of crutches and braces, hammering at  which is why we missed him, even though we wished 
  him harm. When he went, we lost our shared meanness 
each other to keep from harming him. I’d look up  and each of us was left to snarl his way 
from slamming a kid in the gut and see him watching  into a separate future, eager to discover 
with the empty blue eyes of children in sentimental  some new loser to link us in frailty again. 
paintings, and hope to see him frown or grin,   
but there was nothing: as if he had already died. 
 
Then, after a week, they sent him home. Too much 

responsibility, the director said. 

Hell, I bet the kid had skin like leather. 

Even so, I’d lie in bed at night and think 

of busting into his room with a sharp stick, lash 

 

and break the space around his rose petal flesh, 

while campers in bunks around me tossed and dreamt 

of poking and bashing the bleeder until he 

was left as flat as a punctured water balloon, 

which is why the director sent him home. For what 

 

is virtue but the lack of strong temptation: 

better to leave us with our lie of being good. 

Did he know this? Sitting on his private hill, 

watching us smash each other with crutches and canes, 

was this his pleasure: to make us cringe beneath 

“All There Is to Know About Adolph Eichmann” by Leonard Cohen

EYES - Medium
HAIR - Medium
WEIGHT - Medium
HEIGHT - Medium
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES - None
NUMBER OF FINGERS - Ten
NUMBER OF TOES - Ten
INTELLIGENCE – Medium

What did you expect?
Talons?
Oversize incisors?
Green saliva?
Madness?

“A Song at the End of the World” by Czeslaw Milosz

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world will there be,
No other end of the world will there be.

 

“Innocence” by Thom Gunn The finitude of virtues that were there
Bodied within the swarthy uniform
  A compact innocence, childlike and clear,
He ran the course and as he ran he grew, No doubt could penetrate, no act could harm. 
And smelt his fragrance in the field. Already,  
Running he knew the most he ever knew, When he stood near the Russian partisan
The egotism of a healthy body.  Being burned alive, he therefore could behold
  The ribs wear gently through the darkening skin
Ran into manhood, ignorant of the past: And sicken only at the Northern cold, 
Culture of guilt and guilt's vague heritage,  
Self-pity and the soul; what he possessed Could watch the fat burn with a violet flame
Was rich, potential, like the bud's tipped rage.  And feel disgusted only at the smell,
  And judge that all pain finishes the same
The Corps developed, it was plain to see, As melting quietly by his boots it fell. 
Courage, endurance, loyalty and skill
To a morale firm as morality,
Hardening him to an instrument, until 
 

“Huntress” by H.D. We climbed the ploughed land,
dragged the seed from the clefts,
Come, blunt your spear with us, broke the clods with our heels,
our pace is hot whirled with a parched cry
and our bare heels into the woods:
in the heel-prints--
we stand tense--do you see-- _Can you come,
are you already beaten can you come,
by the chase? can you follow the hound trail,
can you trample the hot froth?_
We lead the pace
for the wind on the hills, Spring up--sway forward--
the low hill is spattered follow the quickest one,
with loose earth-- aye, though you leave the trail
our feet cut into the crust and drop exhausted at our feet.
as with spears.
 

“Picture of Childhood” by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Elbowing our way, we run.
Someone is being beaten up in the market.
You wouldn’t want to miss it!
We pick up speed, racing to the uproar,
scooping up water in our felt boots
and forgetting to wipe our sniffles.

And stood stock-still. In our little hearts something tightened,
when we saw how the ring of sheepskin coats,
fur coats, hooded coats, was contracting,
how he stood up near the green vegetable stall
with his head pulled into his shoulders from the hail
of jabs, kicks, spitting, slaps in the face.

Suddenly someone from the right by the handcart
pushed his teeth in,
Suddenly someone from the left bashed his forehead with a
chunk of ice.
Blood appeared-and then they started in, in earnest.
All piled up in a heap they began to scream together,
pounding with sticks, reins,
and linchpins out of wheels.

In vain he wheezed to them: 'Mates,
you’re my mates-what’s the matter? '
The mob wanted to settle accounts fully.
The mob was deaf with rage.
The mob grumbled at those who weren’t putting their boots in,
and they trampled something that looked like a body
into the spring snow that was turning into mud.

They beat him up with relish. With ingenuity. Juicy.
I saw how skillfully and precisely
one man kept putting the boots in,
boots with greasy flaps on them,
right under the belt of the man who was down,
smothered in mud and dungy water.

Their owner, a guy with an honest enough mug,
very proud of his high principles,
was saying with each kick: 'Don’t try your tricks with us! '
booting him deliberately, with the utmost conviction,
and, sweat pouring, with a red face, he jovially called to me:
'Come on, youngster, get in it! '

I can’t remember-how many there were, making a din,
beating him up.
It may have been a hundred, it may have been more,
but I, just a boy, wept for shame.
And if a hundred are beating somebody up,
howling in a frenzy-even if for a good cause-
I will never make one hundred and one!

“Brother” by Dave Etter