Background
Sea shanties will introduce this unit. Sea shanties were work songs from sailing ships. The first documented type of shanty that was really a type of chant or yell was established in the 1400s. The men yelled as they pulled rope. This is similar to an activity that students do while aboard the Quinnipiack. The Quinnipiack is a sailboat, or floating classroom, that the Sound School has access to during the school year. Students pull ropes while aboard the Quinnipiack and yell in unison as they do so. The Quinnipiack has its own curriculum, but I incorporate poetry and shanties while aboard the vessel. Shanties were songs for each type of work on the ship. For example, there were anchor, hauling and hoisting songs. The shanties from Europe, America and Scandinavia told a story or had a theme. In contrast, the African American shanty had a couple of repetitive verses and then there would be improvisation.
We begin with a shanty "A-Rovin'." This type of shanty should be sung slowly as a person would be making the downward motion of pumping a pump-wheel. The songs accompany arduous and often monotonous tasks. Because they are in part entertainment, they cover a variety of topics such as "A-Rovin'" which deals with the amorous encounter between a sailor and woman. "I took this fair maid after dark,/ An' took her to her favourite park." Apparently the shanties could even be vulgar at times.
Ezra Pound's "The Seafarer" and "Canto I", Richard Wilbur's "Junk", and May Swenson's "Come In Go Out" make up the second section of this unit. "The Seafarer" and "Canto I" address the Anglo-Saxon. We listen for the alliteration and the mid-line pause, caesura. "The Seafarer" even seems to sway with the sea water. After listening carefully to the sound of the poetry, we may delve into the meaning of the poems. "The Seafarer" explores the inner conflict of a man on a ship and a cold one at that. "Canto I" is a translation from the Odyssey, a theme that may carry through to the end of the unit with other poetry that deals with material from that epic. "Junk" is an excellent break from the sea theme to reinforce the sounds of the Anglo-Saxon accentual meter. Wilbur uses four accents on each line and links them with alliteration. Visually one can see how he split the poem up. There is a literal, visual break that makes one line flush left and the other spaced to the right. As a result the reader pauses between the spaces or lines of poetry. The poem can be interpreted to mean that Wilbur is referring to the Anglo-Saxon as junk or the modern reader may see it as junk. Nevertheless, Wilbur gives life to this junk, the Anglo-Saxon and the actual material junk of the poem's content, through his poetry. Finally, May Swenson's "Come In Go Out" plays with some of the same ideas. She uses the aquatic theme, the line split and a little alliteration to convey her ideas. The above poetry focuses on strong, easy-to-hear sounds, and a sense of poetry's ancient connection to the sea, and of how poetic form and motifs are carried across history.
The following poems are paired for a variety of reasons. Wallace Stevens' "The Idea of Order at Key West" and Elizabeth Bishop's "At the Fishhouses" are paired because they both take place at Key West, but have different messages. Adrienne Rich's "Diving into the Wreck" and Robert Hayden's "Diver" are both about diving, obviously, into the ocean and exploring a wreck beneath the water as well as exploring history. "Once By the Pacific" and "Neither Out Far Nor In Deep" are both by Frost so that's a nice pairing. Margaret Atwood's "Siren Song" and Louise Gluck's "Penelope's Song" are both songs that refer to the Odyssey. By readdressing the Odyssey in a different light while continuing to work with sound, students can make connections as well as make evaluations about perspective.
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