1. Invictus BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

2. Independent Reading Poem
List Poem – create a list of things that help define your main character in his or her complexity. These can be real things (a broken pen) your character might carry but also abstract concepts (the whisper of his mother the day he skinned his knee). Try to get specific with these details and to describe them in compelling ways.
Lyrical poem from the perspective of one of the characters. What one of the characters wants to say to another or to us.
The story told in a condensed powerful way.
Question Poem

3. Woman Found In Wooded Area
She ran through the woods
to escape him.
He followed the path
knowing he would reach
the same place.
She wore stockings.
The thorns tore at them
and she bled.
When she came out,
her breath was visible
and he could smell her.
Like a deer, she stilled,
hoping he could not see her.
But he could.
SOLDIER MISSING ON DESERT MANEUVERS
Sun blinding down behind a lava cone.
Dark comes, but not cooling. 
How long till dawn, till he sees 
a distant scroll of dust - dancing-devil 
moving closer, becoming truck 
to take him back to camp. 
Another day of seeking shadow 
at his post, scanning all directions 
for that dust-devil that doesn't come. 
No truck to the lost horizon.
How far can a soldier walk or crawl
on two canteens of water?
Which blind star might guide him 
on the death-march home?
Taylor Graham

4. The grocer had his union; the butcher couldn’t
L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates Dead at 83
outrun his quarter of spoiled blood.
And the girls wore extra rings
and caked their skin with Vaseline.
And the men slept the afternoon,

—We were the finest.
So the parents blamed the children,
and the children marched barefoot
growing childishly morose as they dreamed.
through the alleys, spray-painting
And I think I thought we’d burn then, when the
their age. And the preacher introduced
refinery blew, and rust began
the word lascivious and accused
to bleed through the whitewashed fence,
the congregation of not tiding

when the daughter died.
And the deacon board smoked.
And the economists saluted Reagan.
And the police called it an economy of dust.
when the lawns were done, and the schoolyard darkened,
and the side streets began to split.
Amaud Jamaul Johnson
Our meteorologist predicted
a low-pressure system in the abdomen.

And the junkies swore perfume rung the air.

5. Newspaper Titles, Taken Literally or Not
The Trials of Jacob Mach
A Grandchild’s Love Quells the Demons of Addiction
Climbing a Ladder Safely
Couple transforms tour bus into a cozy home on wheels
Disappearing ink: Tattoo removal booming with new laser
Baby Angel: Spring Valley cops hoping DNA will ID mother
NYC man dies in paragliding crash

6. Create a poem that uses at least three tenses.
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 seize 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 water'd 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:
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
-William Blake
Create a poem that uses at least three tenses.
Present      I run (simple) - I am running (progressive)
Past           I ran - I was running
Future       I will run  - I will be running
Present Perfect    I have run - I have been running
Past Perfect    I had run - I had been running
Future Perfect   I will have run -  I will have been running

7. Rewinding the Universe
Bad People
BY MARK HALLIDAY
Jack and Kenny. (Or two other guys dark to me with wounds
The guys who drank quarts of Busch last night
oozing in Philadelphia ways less ready to narrate.)
here by the backstop of this baseball diamond
Last night at midnight they got cheesesteaks at Casseloni’s
had names given them by their mothers and fathers—
and bought four quarts at the Fireside Tavern
“Jack” and “Kenny” let us say.
and wandered into this park. After one quart of Busch
Jack said he was Lenny Dykstra
Jack might be
and found a stick for his bat. “Pitch to me asshole” he said
a skinny guy in a black fake-leather jacket,
so Kenny went to the mound and pitched his bottle
he’s twenty-five, his gray pants are too loose on his hips,
for want of anything better and Jack swung in the dark and missed;
his jaws always have these little black extra hairs,
Kenny’s bottle smashed on home plate and Jack heard in the sound
his mother won’t talk to him on the phone,
the absurdity of all his desiring since seventh grade,
she lives on french fries and ketchup,
absurdity of a skinny guy who blew everything since seventh
he hasn’t been able to send her any cash
when he hit home runs and chased Joan Rundle around the gym
in the last two years, ever since he lost
so Jack took his own empty bottle and smashed it down
his job unloading produce trucks at Pathmark;
amid the brown shards of Kenny’s bottle.
Jack’s father disappeared when he was ten.
Then they leaned on the backstop to drink the other two quarts
“No big deal,” Jack says, “he was a bastard anyway,
and they both grew glum and silent
he used to flatten beer cans on the top of my head.”
and when they smashed these bottles it was like
Kenny offers a laugh-noise. He’s heard all that before.
what else would they do? Next morning
Kenny is forty-eight, a flabby man with reddened skin,
he is employed at the Italian Market selling fish
Nick and I come to the park with a rubber ball
just four hours a day but his shirts hold the smell;
and a miniature bat. Nick is not quite three
his female companion Deena left him a note last month:
but he knows the names of all the Phillies starters
“You owe me $12 chocolate $31 wine $55 cable TV plus
and he knows the area around home plate is not supposed to be
donuts—I have had it—taking lamp and mirror
covered with jagged pieces of brown glass. Like a good dad
they are mine.” Kenny hasn’t seen her since.
I warn him not to touch it and we decide to establish
He hangs with Jack because Jack talks loud
a new home plate closer to the mound (there’s no trash can
as if the world of cops and people with full-time jobs
handy). “Who put that glass there?” Nick wants to know
could be kept at bay by talking, talking loud . . .
and to make a long story short I say “Bad People.”
Nick says “Bad? How come?”
(I’m talking gently and imaginatively here
as if the world of bums and jerks could be kept far off—)