Course

Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 1

COURSE MODULE IN ENG 108

CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR AND EMERGENT LITERATURE

Course Number : ENG 108

Course Title : Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature
Course Facilitator : JOEY B. BALATAYO, EdD
Course Credit : 3 units
Course Prerequisite : Children and Adolescent Literature

Course Description:
This course focuses on the analysis of various contemporary and popular literature and
their relevance to critical issues in the society.

Most Essential Learning Outcomes:

1. Read and analyze various contemporary literary pieces and relate these to present critical
issues in the society
2. Read and analyze various popular literary pieces and relate these to present critical issues
in the society
3. Read and analyze various emergent literary pieces and relate these to present critical
issues in the society

Indicative Content:
This module contains a selection of literary texts (both prose and poetry) from
contemporary literature, popular literature, and emergent literature.
Each topic/lesson is divided into several parts: the background of the author, the copy of
the literary text, assessment task, and the references.

Class Organization:
This course will be taught using alternate delivery of instruction. It will be facilitated
through production of course module and the creation of a Facebook group that will serve as a
platform for classroom discussion, dissemination of assignments, online forum, and other
academic requirements.
The course module, assignments, and reading materials will be disseminated online and/or
in a printed copy. Students are responsible for reading the assigned weekly topics and literary
texts.
Virtual classes will be scheduled to ensure that students are expected to be online for at
least one hour per week.
Considering not only the geographical locations of students but also their financial
capabilities that could hinder them from being connected online, attendance will not be required.

Assessment Tasks:
At the end of each topic/lesson, questions will be asked to determine whether the students
have understood the lesson. Graded recitation will assess students’ comprehension of the literary
text.
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 2

In addition, the Course Facilitator may give additional output to the students. Output from
students can be any of, but not limited to, the following: written discourse analysis, reflective
essay, recorded video or audio files, PDF or soft copies of required materials.
The Course Facilitator will give specific instructions with regard to submission of output.
Separate guidelines will be made for the conduct of Midterm and Final Examinations.

Academic Honesty
As future teachers, students are expected to be diligent, self-reliant, and academically
honest. Any semblance of plagiarism and unscholarly performance in answering the assessment
tasks and/or outputs may be taken as grounds for failure.
Provisions stipulated in the University Code and Student Handbook shall be followed in
dealing with such incidents.

Modified Grading System:

Considering the nature and circumstances of the alternate mode of instruction, a modified
grading system shall be used, to wit:

a. Presentation/Report - 25%
b. Oral Recitation - 25%
b. Major Examination - 50%
Total =100%

In computing the Final Grade, the system established by the University shall be followed.
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 3

Topic 1
Category: Popular Literature

IF
By Rudyard Kipling

About the Author:

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born December 30, 1865, in Bombay, India, to a British
family. When he was five years old, he was taken to England to begin his education, where he
suffered deep feelings of abandonment and confusion after living a pampered lifestyle as a
colonial. He returned to India at the age of seventeen to work as a journalist and editor for the
Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore. Kipling published his first collection of verse,
Departmental Ditties and Other Verses, in 1886 and his first collection of stories, Plain Tales
from the Hills, in 1888.
In the early 1890s some of his poems were published in William Ernest Henley's National
Observer and later collected in to Barrack-Room Ballads (1892), an immensely popular
collection which contained "Gunga Din" and "Mandalay." In 1892 Kipling married and moved to
Vermont, where he published the two Jungle Books and began work on Kim. He returned to
England with his family in 1896 and published another novel, Captains Courageous. Kipling
visited South Africa during the Boer War, editing a newspaper there and writing the Just-So
Stories. Kim, Kipling's most successful novel (and his last), appeared in 1901. The Kipling
family moved to Sussex permanently in 1902, and he devoted the rest of his life to writing poetry
and short stories, including his most famous poem, "If". He died on January 18, 1936; his ashes
are buried in Westminster Abbey.

The Literary Text:

If

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 4

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

References:
• https://poets.org/poet/rudyard-kipling
• https://poets.org/poem/if
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 5

Topic 2
Category: Popular Literature

LOVE IS NOT ALL (SONNET XXX)

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

About the Author:

Poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine, on February
22, 1892. In 1912, Millay entered her poem "Renascence" to The Lyric Year's poetry contest,
where she won fourth place and publication in the anthology. This brought her immediate
acclaim and a scholarship to Vassar College, where she continued to write poetry and became
involved in the theater. In 1917, the year of her graduation, Millay published her first book,
Renascence and Other Poems (Harper, 1917). At the request of Vassar's drama department, she
also wrote her first verse play, The Lamp and the Bell (1921), a work about love between
women.
After graduating from Vassar, Millay moved to New York City's Greenwich Village,
where she lived with her sister Norma in a nine-foot-wide attic. Millay published poems in
Vanity Fair, the Forum, and others while writing short stories and satire under the pen name
Nancy Boyd. She and Norma acted with the Provincetown Players in the group's early days,
befriending writers such as poet Witter Bynner, critic Edmund Wilson, playwright and actress
Susan Glaspell, and journalist Floyd Dell. Millay published A Few Figs from Thistles (Harper &
Brothers, 1920), a volume of poetry which drew much attention for its controversial descriptions
of female sexuality and feminism. In 1923, Millay was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Ballad
of the Harp-Weaver (Flying Cloud Press, 1922). In addition to publishing three plays in verse,
Millay also wrote the libretto of one of the few American grand operas, The King's Henchman
(Harper & Brothers, 1927).
Millay married Eugen Boissevain in 1923, and the two were together for twenty-six years.
Boissevain gave up his own pursuits to manage Millay's literary career, setting up the readings
and public appearances for which Millay grew famous. Edna St. Vincent Millay died at the age
of fifty-eight on October 18, 1950, in Austerlitz, New York.

The Literary Text:

Love is Not All (Sonnet XXX)

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 6

Or nagged by want past resolution's power,

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

References:
• https://poets.org/poet/edna-st-vincent-millay
• https://poets.org/poem/love-not-all-sonnet-xxx
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 7

Topic 3
Category: Emergent Literature

STILL I RISE
By Maya Angelou

About the Author:

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. She
grew up in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. She was an author, poet, historian, songwriter,
playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights
activist. She was best known for her seven autobiographical books: Mom & Me & Mom
(Random House, 2013); Letter to My Daughter (Random House, 2008); All God's Children Need
Traveling Shoes (Random House, 1986); The Heart of a Woman (Random House, 1981); Singin'
and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (Random House, 1976); Gather Together in My
Name (Random House, 1974); and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Random House, 1969),
which was nominated for the National Book Award.
Among her volumes of poetry are A Brave and Startling Truth (Random House, 1995);
The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House, 1994); Wouldn't Take
Nothing for My Journey Now (Random House, 1993); I Shall Not Be Moved (Random House,
1990); Shaker, Why Don't You Sing? (Random House, 1983); Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit
Me Well (Random House, 1975); and Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (Random
House, 1971), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1959, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Angelou became the northern
coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From 1961 to 1962 she was
associate editor of The Arab Observer in Cairo, Egypt, the only English-language news weekly
in the Middle East, and from 1964 to 1966 she was feature editor of the African Review in
Accra, Ghana. She returned to the United States in 1974 and was appointed by Gerald Ford to
the Bicentennial Commission and later by Jimmy Carter to the Commission for International
Woman of the Year. She accepted a lifetime appointment in 1982 as Reynolds Professor of
American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1993,
Angelou wrote and delivered a poem, "On The Pulse of the Morning," at the inauguration for
President Bill Clinton at his request. In 2000, she received the National Medal of Arts, and in
2010 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
The first black woman director in Hollywood, Angelou wrote, produced, directed, and
starred in productions for stage, film, and television. In 1971, she wrote the original screenplay
and musical score for the film Georgia, Georgia, and was both author and executive producer of
a five-part television miniseries "Three Way Choice." She also wrote and produced several prize-
winning documentaries, including "Afro-Americans in the Arts," a PBS special for which she
received the Golden Eagle Award. Angelou was twice nominated for a Tony award for acting:
once for her Broadway debut in Look Away (1973), and again for her performance in Roots
(1977).
Angelou died on May 28, 2014, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she had served
as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University since 1982. She was
eighty-six.
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 8

The Literary Text:

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 9

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

References:
• https://poets.org/poet/maya-angelou
• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 10

Topic 4
Category: Emergent Literature

THE THREE LETTERS FROM TEDDY

By Elizabeth Silance Ballard

About the Author:

Elizabeth Silance Ballard's short stories and articles have appeared in many magazines
since she wrote this story in 1974 including Our State, The Australian Women's Weekly, Home
Life, Mature Living, Mature Years, The Organist, The Church Musician, The Organ Portfolio,
The Music Leader, The Gospel Choir, The Lutheran Woman, The Lutheran Scope, The
Mennonite, Quaker Life and many others. Her articles have also appeared in The News and
Observer Raleigh, NC and the Jacksonville Daily News (NC) and her devotionals have appeared
on Open Windows and The Church Musician.
Several anthologies have included her work including A Second Helping of Chicken Soup
for the Soul (credit was omitted in the 1st printing but corrected in the 2nd printing), Stories for a
Woman's Heart, More Stories for a Woman's Heart, Stories for a Teacher's Heart, Stories for a
Teen's Heart, School Bells and Ink Wells, Kisses of Sunshine, and others. Her work has also
been included in other works such as Divergent Views on the Control of Schools: An Iowa
Dialogue, Discipline for Life and others.
Her short story, "Three Letters from Teddy," first appeared in 1974 and has been almost
continuously in print every year since that time in various publications. Marian Wright Edelman
selected it to appear in her 1994 Annual Report of the National Children's Defense Fund.
Congressman Dan Burton, Indiana, requested permission to have the story reprinted and
distributed to every educator in his district. It has also been selected for the course packs of the
schools of education in several universities including the University of South Florida, UNC-
Greensboro, University of Northern Iowa and others.
She has also co-authored a book, Whoopin' and Hollerin,' a collection of humorous,
nostalgic pieces by Elizabeth and her sister, Hilda Silance Corey, and their mother, Estel Stanley
Silance about growing up in the south and spans a time from the early 1900s through the Sixties.
Elizabeth is a retired social worker, a church organist, a pianist, and is the mother of two
and grandmother of three. She has traveled extensively in the U.S. and abroad and enjoys
reading, writing, needlework and line dancing. She is active in her church and the Order of the
Eastern Star.

The Literary Text:

The Three Letters from Teddy

I have not seen Teddy Stallard since he was a student in my 5th grade class, 15 years ago.
It was early in my career, and I had only been teaching two years. From the first day he stepped
into my classroom, I disliked Teddy. Teachers (although everyone knows differently) are not
supposed to have favorites in a class, but most especially are not supposed to show dislike for a
child, any child. Nevertheless, every year there are one or two children that one cannot help but
be attached to, for teachers are human, and it is human nature to like bright, pretty, intelligent
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 11

people, whether they are 10 years old or 25. And sometimes, not too often, fortunately, there will
be one or two students to whom the teacher just can't seem to relate.
I had thought myself quite capable of handling my personal feelings along that line until
Teddy walked into my life. There wasn't a child I particularly liked that year, but Teddy was
most assuredly one I disliked. He was dirty. Not just occasionally, but all the time. His hair hung
low over his ears, and he actually had to hold it out of his eyes as he wrote his papers in class.
(And this was before it was fashionable to do so!) Too, he had a peculiar odor about him which I
could never identify. His physical faults were many, and his intellect left a lot to be desired, also.
By the end of the first week I knew he was hopelessly behind the others. Not only was he behind;
he was just plain slow! I began to withdraw from him immediately.
Any teacher will tell you that it's more of a pleasure to teach a bright child. It is definitely
more rewarding for one's ego. But any teacher worth her credentials can channel work to the
bright child, keeping him challenged and learning, while she puts her major effort on the slower
ones. Any teacher can do this. Most teachers do it, but I didn't, not that year. In fact, I
concentrated on my best students and let the others follow along as best they could. Ashamed as
I am to admit it, I took perverse pleasure in using my red pen; and each time I came to Teddy's
papers, the cross marks (and they were many) were always a little larger and a little redder than
necessary. "Poor work!" I would write with a flourish.
While I did not actually ridicule the boy, my attitude was obviously quite apparent to the
class, for he quickly became the class "goat", the outcast the unlovable and the unloved. He knew
I didn't like him, but he didn't know why. Nor did I know then or now why I felt such an intense
dislike for him. All I know is that he was a little boy no one cared about, and I made no effort in
his behalf.
The days rolled by. We made it through the Fall Festival and the Thanksgiving holidays,
and I continued marking happily with my red pen. As the Christmas holidays approached, I knew
that Teddy would never catch up in time to be promoted to the sixth grade level. He would be a
repeater. To justify myself, I went to his cumulative folder from time to time. He had very low
grades for the first four years, but not grade failure. How he had made it, I didn't know. I closed
my mind to personal remarks.

First grade: Teddy shows promise by work and attitude, but has poor home
situation.

Second grade: Teddy could do better. Mother terminally ill. He receives little help
at home.

Third grade: Teddy is a pleasant boy. Helpful, but too serious. Slow learner.
Mother passed away at end of year.

Fourth grade: Very slow, but well-behaved. Father shows no interest.

Well, they passed him four times, but he will certainly repeat fifth grade! "Do him good!" I
said to myself.
And then the last day before the holiday arrived. Our little tree on the reading table sported
paper and popcorn chains. Many gifts were heaped underneath, waiting for the big moment.
Teachers always get several gifts at Christmas, but mine that year seemed bigger and more
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 12

elaborate than ever. There was not a student who had not brought me one. Each unwrapping
brought squeals of delight, and the proud giver would receive effusive thank-you's.
His gift wasn't the last one I picked up; in fact it was in the middle of the pile. Its wrapping
was a brown paper bag, and he had colored Christmas trees and red bells all over it. It was stuck
together with masking tape. "For Miss Thompson From Teddy" it read. The group was
completely silent, and for the first time, I felt conspicuous, embarrassed because they all stood
watching me unwrap that gift. As I removed the last bit of masking tape, two items fell to my
desk; a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with several stones missing and a small bottle of dimestore
cologne half empty. I could hear the snickers and whispers, and I wasn't sure I could look at
Teddy. "Isn't this lovely?" I asked, placing the bracelet on my wrist. "Teddy, would you help me
fasten it?" He smiled shyly as he fixed the clasp, and I held up my wrist for all of them to admire.
There were a few hesitant oohs and aahs, but as I dabbed the cologne behind my ears, all the
little girls lined up for a dab behind their ears. I continued to open the gifts until I reached the
bottom of the pile. We ate our refreshments and the bell rang. The children filed out with shouts
of "See you next year!" and "Merry Christmas!" but Teddy waited at his desk.
When they had all left, he walked toward me, clutching his gift and books to his chest.
"You smell just like Mom," he said softly. "Her bracelet looks real pretty on you, too. I'm glad
you liked it." He left quickly. I locked the door, sat down at my desk, and wept, resolving to
make up to Teddy what I had deliberately deprived him of a teacher who cared.
I stayed every afternoon with Teddy from the end of the Christmas holidays until the last
day of school. Sometimes we worked together. Sometimes he worked alone while I drew up
lesson plans or graded papers. Slowly but surely he caught up with the rest of the class.
Gradually, there was a definite upward curve in his grades. He did not have to repeat the fifth
grade. In fact, his final averages were among the highest in the class, and although I knew he
would be moving out of the state when school was out, I was not worried for him. Teddy had
reached a level that would stand him in good stead the following year, no matter where he went.
He enjoyed a measure of success, and as we were taught in our teacher training courses,
"Success builds success."
I did not hear from Teddy until seven years later, when his first letter appeared in my
mailbox:

Dear Miss Thompson,

I just wanted you to be the first to know, I will be graduating second in my class
next month.

Very Truly Yours,

Teddy Stallard

I sent him a card of congratulations and a small package, a pen and pencil gift set. I
wondered what he would do after graduation.
Four years later, Teddy’s second letter came.
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 13

Dear Miss Thompson,

I wanted you to be the first to know. I was just informed that Ill be graduating first
in my class. The university has not been easy, but I like it.

Very Truly Yours,

Teddy Stallard

I sent him a good pair of sterling silver monogrammed cuff links and a card, so proud of
him I could burst!
And now today Teddy’s third letter.

Dear Miss Thompson,

I wanted you to be the first to know. As of today I am Theodore Stallard, M.D.

How about that!!??

I’m going to be married in July the 27th, to be exact. I wanted to ask if you could
come and sit where Mom would sit if she were here. Ill have no family there as
Dad died last year.

Very Truly Yours,

Teddy Stallard

I’m not sure what kind of a gift one sends to a doctor on completion of medical school and
state boards. Maybe I’ll just wait and take a wedding gift, but a note cant wait.

Dear Ted,

Congratulations! You made it, and you did it yourself! In spite of those like me
and not because of us, this day has come for you.

God bless you.

I’ll be at the wedding with bells on!

References:
• https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/faith-and-character/faith-and-character/three-
letters-from-teddy.html
• https://www.makeadifference.com/TYG/BK20.htm
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 14

Topic 5
Category: Contemporary Literature

IF YOU FORGET ME
By Pablo Neruda

About the Author:

Born Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in the town of Parral in southern Chile on
July 12, 1904, Pablo Neruda led a life charged with poetic and political activity. In 1923 he sold
all of his possessions to finance the publication of his first book, Crepusculario ("Twilight"). He
published the volume under the pseudonym "Pablo Neruda" to avoid conflict with his family,
who disapproved of his occupation. The following year, he found a publisher for Veinte poemas
de amor y una cancion desesperada ("Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair"). The book
made a celebrity of Neruda, who gave up his studies at the age of twenty to devote himself to his
craft.
In 1927, Neruda began his long career as a diplomat in the Latin American tradition of
honoring poets with diplomatic assignments. After serving as honorary consul in Burma, Neruda
was named Chilean consul in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1933. While there, he began a
friendship with the visiting Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. After transferring to Madrid
later that year, Neruda also met Spanish writer Manuel Altolaguirre. Together the two men
founded a literary review called Caballo verde para la poesîa in 1935. The outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War in 1936 interrupted Neruda's poetic and political development. He chronicled
the horrendous years which included the execution of García Lorca in Espana en el corazon
(1937), published from the war front. Neruda's outspoken sympathy for the loyalist cause during
the Spanish Civil War led to his recall from Madrid in 1937. He then moved to Paris and helped
settle Spanish republican refugees in Chile.
Neruda returned to Chile in 1938 where he renewed his political activity and wrote
prolifically. Named Chilean Consul to Mexico in 1939, Neruda left Chile again for four years.
Upon returning to Chile in 1943, he was elected to the Senate and joined the Communist Party.
When the Chilean government moved to the right, they declared communism illegal and expelled
Neruda from the Senate. He went into hiding. During those years he wrote and published Canto
general (1950).
In 1952 the government withdrew the order to arrest leftist writers and political figures,
and Neruda returned to Chile and married Matilde Urrutia, his third wife (his first two marriages,
to Maria Antonieta Haagenar Vogelzang and Delia del Carril, both ended in divorce). For the
next twenty-one years, he continued a career that integrated private and public concerns and
became known as the people's poet. During this time, Neruda received numerous prestigious
awards, including the International Peace Prize in 1950, the Lenin Peace Prize and the Stalin
Peace Prize in 1953, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.
Diagnosed with cancer while serving a two-year term as ambassador to France, Neruda
resigned his position, ending his diplomatic career. On September 23, 1973, just twelve days
after the defeat of Chile's democratic regime, the man widely regarded as the greatest Latin
American poet since Darío died in Santiago, Chile.
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 15

The Literary Text:

If You Forget Me

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 16

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

References:
• https://poets.org/poet/pablo-neruda
• https://allpoetry.com/If-You-Forget-Me
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 17

Topic 6
Category: Emergent Literature

THE COOKIE THIEF

By Valerie Cox

About the Author:

In a long career as a reporter working in newspapers, radio and television, Valerie Cox has
interviewed people from every county in Ireland. Over eleven years working on the Today
program on RTE Radio she travelled around the country covering stories as diverse as the
closure of schools, Garda stations and post offices. She was out with the rescue services in floods
and snow and covered the events that make rural Ireland special, including the ploughing.
She is the author of three previous books, Searching, which tells the story of Ireland's
missing people, The Family Courts, and A Ploughing People (Hachette).
Valerie Cox lives in rural County Wicklow with her husband Brian and the couple have
five children and four grandchildren.

The Literary Text:

The Cookie Thief

A woman was waiting at an airport one night

With several long hours before her flight
She hunted for a book in the airport shops
Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book but happened to see

That the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be
Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between
Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

So she munched the cookies and watched the clock

As the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by
Thinking, "If I wasn't so nice, I would blacken his eye."

With each cookie she took, he took one too

When only one was left, she wondered what he would do
With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh
He took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half, as he ate the other

She snatched it from him and thought... oh, brother
This guy has some nerve and he's also rude
Why he didn't even show any gratitude!
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 18

She had never known when she had been so galled

And sighed with relief when her flight was called
She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate
Refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.

She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat

Then she sought her book, which was almost complete
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise
There was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.

If mine are here, she moaned in despair

The others were his, and he tried to share
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.

References:
• https://www.hachette.com.au/valerie-cox/
• https://chatsworthconsulting.com/ChatsworthConsultingGroup_The_Cookie_Thief.pdf
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 19

Topic 7
Category: Popular Literature

DESIDERATA
By Max Ehrmann

About the Author:

Max Ehrmann (1872-1945) was a scholar and poet, born in Terre Haute, Indiana on
September 16, 1872. He was the youngest of five children of German immigrants. He graduated
from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana in 1894, and then studied law and philosophy at
Harvard University.
After being a lawyer for several years, Ehrmann went to work in his family’s business.
After 10 years in the business world, Ehrmann retired so he could devote all his time to literary
work. Toward the end of his life, during an interview, he told a writer, “At DePauw, I contracted
a disease which I have never shaken off. The disease was Idealism. I took it to Harvard with me
where I studied philosophy. Because of it I did the thing in life I wanted to do—writing.”
During his life, Max Ehrmann contributed great thoughts to our literary lexicons, blending
the magic of words and wisdom with his worthy observations. 1
His deep and abiding concern over social issues are reflected throughout his many works.
Such poems as Complacent Women, written in 1918, and Washington, D.C., written in 1924
about the oil scandals, are as relevant today as they were then. He searched endlessly for spiritual
contentment, often turning to nature as in his poem, The Noise of the City and Away. His
philosophical writings are a search for social truth and peace—messages that never age.
Max Ehrmann wrote many poems, although none were well known until after his death.
They have been collected into several books including the Desiderata of Happiness, and the
Desiderata of Faith. His two most famous poems are Desiderata (1927) and A Prayer (1906). He
died on September 9, 1945.

The Literary Text:

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,

they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 20

for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;

it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

References:
• https://www.desiderata.com/max-ehrmann.html
• https://mwkworks.com/desiderata.html
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 21

Topic 8:
Category: Contemporary Literature

THANK YOU, MA’AM

By Langston Hughes

About the Author:

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His
parents divorced when he was a young child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by
his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his
mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in
Lincoln that Hughes began writing poetry. After graduating from high school, he spent a year in
Mexico followed by a year at Columbia University in New York City. During this time, he
worked as an assistant cook, launderer, and busboy. He also travelled to Africa and Europe
working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D. C. Hughes's first book of
poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college
education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not
Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.
Hughes is particularly known for his insightful portrayals of black life in America from the
twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories, plays, and poetry, and is also known
for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his book-
length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously
important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Hughes
refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black
America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture,
including their love of music, laughter, and language itself alongside their suffering.
In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and
countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind;
Simple Stakes a Claim; Simple Takes a Wife; and Simple's Uncle Sam. He edited the
anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed
autobiography, The Big Sea, and cowrote the play Mule Bone.
Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer on May 22, 1967, in New
York City. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem has been given
landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been
renamed “Langston Hughes Place.”

The Literary Text:

Thank You, Ma’am

She was a large woman with a large purse that had everything in it but hammer and nails. It
had a long strap, and she carried it slung across her shoulder. It was about eleven o’clock at
night, and she was walking alone, when a boy ran up behind her and tried to snatch her purse.
The strap broke with the single tug the boy gave it from behind. But the boy’s weight and the
weight of the purse combined caused him to lose his balance so, instead of taking off full blast as
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 22

he had hoped, the boy fell on his back on the sidewalk, and his legs flew up. The large woman
simply turned around and kicked him right square in his blue-jeaned sitter. Then she reached
down, picked the boy up by his shirt front, and shook him until his teeth rattled.
After that the woman said, “Pick up my pocketbook, boy, and give it here.” She still held
him. But she bent down enough to permit him to stoop and pick up her purse. Then she said,
“Now ain’t you ashamed of yourself?”
Firmly gripped by his shirt front, the boy said, “Yes, Ma’am.”
The woman said, “What did you want to do it for?”
The boy said, “I didn’t aim to.”
She said, “You a lie!”
By that time two or three people passed, stopped, turned to look, and some stood watching.
“If I turn you loose, will you run?” asked the woman.
“Yes, Ma’am,” said the boy.
“Then I won’t turn you loose,” said the woman. She did not release him.
“I’m very sorry, lady, I’m sorry,” whispered the boy.
“Um-hum! And your face is dirty. I got a great mind to wash your face for you. Ain’t you
got nobody home to tell you to wash your face?”
“No, Ma’am,” said the boy.
“Then it will get washed this evening,” said the large woman starting up the street,
dragging the frightened boy behind her.
He looked as if he were fourteen or fifteen, frail and willow-wild, in tennis shoes and blue
jeans.
The woman said, “You ought to be my son. I would teach you right from wrong. Least I
can do right now is to wash your face. Are you hungry?”
“No, Ma’am,” said the being dragged boy. “I just want you to turn me loose.”
“Was I bothering you when I turned that corner?” asked the woman.
“No, Ma’am.”
“But you put yourself in contact with me,” said the woman. “If you think that that contact
is not going to last awhile, you got another thought coming. When I get through with you, sir,
you are going to remember Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones.”
Sweat popped out on the boy’s face and he began to struggle. Mrs. Jones stopped, jerked
him around in front of her, put a half-nelson about his neck, and continued to drag him up the
street.
When she got to her door, she dragged the boy inside, down a hall, and into a large
kitchenette furnished room at the rear of the house. She switched on the light and left the door
open. The boy could hear other roomers laughing and talking in the large house. Some of their
doors were open, too, so he knew he and the woman were not alone. The woman still had him by
the neck in the middle of her room.
She said, “What is your name?”
“Roger,” answered the boy.
“Then, Roger, you go to that sink and wash your face,” said the woman, whereupon she
turned him loose—at last. Roger looked at the door—looked at the woman—looked at the
door—and went to the sink.
“Let the water run until it gets warm,” she said. “Here’s a clean towel.”
“You gonna take me to jail?” asked the boy, bending over the sink.
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 23

“Not with that face, I would not take you nowhere,” said the woman. “Here I am trying to
get home to cook me a bite to eat and you snatch my pocketbook! Maybe, you ain’t been to your
supper either, late as it be. Have you?”
“There’s nobody home at my house,” said the boy.
“Then we’ll eat,” said the woman, “I believe you’re hungry—or been hungry—to try to
snatch my pocketbook.”
“I wanted a pair of blue suede shoes,” said the boy.
“Well, you didn’t have to snatch my pocketbook to get some suede shoes,” said Mrs.
Luella Bates Washington Jones. “You could asked me.”
“Ma’am?”
The water dripping from his face, the boy looked at her. There was a long pause. A very
long pause. After he had dried his face and not knowing what else to do dried it again, the boy
turned around, wondering what next. The door was open. He could make a dash for it down the
hall. He could run, run, run, run, run!
The woman was sitting on the day-bed. After a while she said, “I were young once and I
wanted things I could not get.”
There was another long pause. The boy’s mouth opened. Then he frowned, but not
knowing he frowned.
The woman said, “Um-hum! You thought I was going to say but, didn’t you? You thought
I was going to say, but I didn’t snatch people’s pocketbooks. Well, I wasn’t going to say that.”
Pause.
Silence. “I have done things, too, which I would not tell you, son—neither tell God, if he
didn’t already know. So you set down while I fix us something to eat. You might run that comb
through your hair so you will look presentable.”
In another corner of the room behind a screen was a gas plate and an icebox. Mrs. Jones
got up and went behind the screen. The woman did not watch the boy to see if he was going to
run now, nor did she watch her purse which she left behind her on the day-bed. But the boy took
care to sit on the far side of the room where he thought she could easily see him out of the corner
of her eye, if she wanted to. He did not trust the woman not to trust him. And he did not want to
be mistrusted now.
“Do you need somebody to go to the store,” asked the boy, “maybe to get some milk or
something?”
“Don’t believe I do,” said the woman, “unless you just want sweet milk yourself. I was
going to make cocoa out of this canned milk I got here.”
“That will be fine,” said the boy.
She heated some lima beans and ham she had in the icebox, made the cocoa, and set the
table.
The woman did not ask the boy anything about where he lived, or his folks, or anything
else that would embarrass him. Instead, as they ate, she told him about her job in a hotel beauty-
shop that stayed open late, what the work was like, and how all kinds of women came in and out,
blondes, red-heads, and Spanish. Then she cut him a half of her ten-cent cake.
“Eat some more, son,” she said.
When they were finished eating she got up and said, “Now, here, take this ten dollars and
buy yourself some blue suede shoes. And next time, do not make the mistake of latching onto my
pocketbook nor nobody else’s—because shoes come by devilish like that will burn your feet. I
got to get my rest now. But I wish you would behave yourself, son, from here on in.”
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 24

She led him down the hall to the front door and opened it. “Good-night! Behave yourself,
boy!” she said, looking out into the street.
The boy wanted to say something else other than “Thank you, Ma’am” to Mrs. Luella
Bates Washington Jones, but he couldn’t do so as he turned at the barren stoop and looked back
at the large woman in the door. He barely managed to say “Thank you” before she shut the door.
And he never saw her again.

References:
• https://poets.org/poet/langston-hughes
• https://www.chino.k12.ca.us/cms/lib/CA01902308/Centricity/Domain/1689/Thank%20Y
ou%20%20Ma%20am.pdf
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 25

Topic 9
Category: Emergent Literature

TULIPS
By Sylvia Plath

About the Author:

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother, Aurelia
Schober, was a master’s student at Boston University when she met Plath’s father, Otto Plath,
who was her professor. They were married in January of 1932. Otto taught both German and
biology, with a focus on apiology, the study of bees.
In 1940, when Plath was eight years old, her father died as a result of complications from
diabetes. He had been a strict father, and both his authoritarian attitudes and his death drastically
defined Plath's relationships and her poems—most notably in her elegiac and infamous poem
"Daddy."
Plath kept a journal from the age of eleven and published her poems in regional magazines
and newspapers. Her first national publication was in the Christian Science Monitor in 1950, just
after graduating from high school.
In 1950, Plath matriculated at Smith College, where she graduated summa cum laude in
1955.
After graduation, Plath moved to Cambridge, England, on a Fulbright Scholarship. In early
1956, she attended a party and met the English poet Ted Hughes. Shortly thereafter, Plath and
Hughes were married, on June 16, 1956.
Plath returned to Massachusetts in 1957 and began studying with Robert Lowell. Her first
collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960 in England, and two years later in the
United States. She returned to England, where she gave birth to her children Frieda and Nicholas,
in 1960 and 1962, respectively.
In 1962, Ted Hughes left Plath for Assia Gutmann Wevill. That winter, Plath wrote most
of the poems that would comprise her most famous book, Ariel.
In 1963, Plath published a semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym
Victoria Lucas. She died on February 11 of that year.
Although only Colossus was published while she was alive, Plath was a prolific poet, and
in addition to Ariel, Hughes published three other volumes of her work posthumously, including
The Collected Poems, which was the recipient of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize. She was the first poet
to posthumously win a Pulitzer Prize.

The Literary Text:

Tulips

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.

Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 26

I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.

I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.

They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.

My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water

Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage——
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.

I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat

stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.

I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted

To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free——
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.

Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.

The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 27

Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.

Before they came the air was calm enough,

Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.

The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.

The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.

References:
• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49013/tulips-56d22ab68fdd0
• https://poets.org/poet/sylvia-plath
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 28

Topic 10
Category: Contemporary Literature

ON JOY AND SORROW

By Kahlil Gibran

About the Author:

Kahlil Gibran was born January 6, 1883, in Bsharri, Lebanon. He was the youngest son of
Khalil Sa’d Jubran, a tax collector eventually imprisoned for embezzlement, and Kamila Jubran,
whose father was a clergyman in the Maronite Christian Church.
In 1885 Gibran emigrated with his mother and siblings to the United States, where they
settled in the large Syrian and Lebanese community in Boston, Massachusetts. It was there that
Gibran learned English and enrolled in art classes. His mother supported the family as a
seamstress and by peddling linens.
At the age of 15, Gibran was sent by his mother to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend a Maronite
school. He returned to Boston in 1902. In that year and the one that followed, Gibran’s sister
Sultana, half-brother Bhutros, and mother died of tuberculosis and cancer, respectively. His
remaining living sister Marianna supported herself and Gibran as a dressmaker.
In 1904 Gibran began publishing articles in an Arabic-language newspaper and also had
his first public exhibit of his drawings, which were championed by the Boston photographer Fred
Holland Day. Gibran modeled for Day, who was known for his photographs of boys and young
men. It was through Day that Gibran’s artwork attracted the attention of a woman nine years his
senior named Mary Haskell, who ran an all-girls school. Haskell became Gibran’s lifelong
patron, paying for him to study art at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1908. There Gibran met the
sculptor August Rodin, who reportedly once called him “the William Blake of the twentieth
century.” Gibran's hundreds of drawings and paintings remain highly regarded.
Haskell also enabled Gibran’s move to New York City in 1911, where he settled in a one-
room apartment in bohemian Greenwich Village. In 1918, Gibran’s book of poems and parables
The Madman was published. In 1923 Knopf published what would become Gibran’s most
famous work, The Prophet. Though not met with critical praise or early success—the book was
never reviewed by the New York Times, for example, and sold only 1,200 copies in its first
year—the book became a phenomenon. The Prophet has now sold more than ten million copies,
making Gibran one of the best-selling poets in the world.
Gibran was active in a New York-based Arab-American literary group called the Pen
League, whose members promoted writing in Arabic and English. Throughout his life he would
publish nine books in Arabic and eight in English, which ruminate on love, longing, and death,
and explore religious themes.
He died of cirrhosis of the liver on April 10, 1931, in New York City.
 Course Module in ENG. 108 - Contemporary, Popular and Emergent Literature 29

The Literary Text:

On Joy and Sorrow

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow

And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises
was often times filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup
that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes you spirit,
the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous,
look deep into your heart and you shall find
it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful
look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth,
you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow,"

and others say, "Nay sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at you board,
remember that the other is asleep upon you bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between you sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weight his gold and his silver,
needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

References:
• https://journeyofhearts.org/kirstimd/gibran4.htm
• https://poets.org/poem/joy-and-sorrow