Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE, by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: One by one, the scholars come to learn the puritan tongue
Last Line: The thirteen parallel pioneer stripes, justified and multiplied.
Subject(s): Language; New England; Puritans; Words; Vocabulary


One by one, the scholars come to learn the Puritan tongue.
Sit down on hard benches manufactured by right-minded people.
The right angles of the benches, sculptured self-portraits of right-angled
wills.
Whose chins sway forty-odd states and who knows how many territories.
Whose jaws rule round backs straight.
Backs that might have grown thoughtless from too much sitting under trees.
Once crooked, aimless trees that have themselves been hewn down and planed
level.
Elms of New England, oaks of the middle west, eucalypti of California.
Their heads prone to escape rooted grooves at the whim of a breeze or two.
One by one, professors rise to lines as rigid as pencils.
Knock down school walls, you will find all the pencils vertical parallels.
All the scholars right-angle-triangle parallels.
All the tongues, gliding out of and back into mouths, horizontal parallels.
Everybody, everything, right-angle Puritan parallels.
Acute, if there be any such, and obtuse, firmly converted.
Acute minds blunted, obtuse minds sharpened.
Lowered or raised to the balance of the ideal equal.
The right mind triumphant.
The thirteen parallel pioneer stripes, justified and multiplied.





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