Kyle Yamnitz
										598249
										3rd Ext.
										2/25/96


Occupations and Worldwide Occupations Unit


	This collection of poems are taken from several different poetry 
anthologies and all have to do with the topic of work and jobs, both 
locally and globally, past and present.  Collections such as this would 
be great for integrating poetry and language arts into other content 
areas or units.  This collection of poetry would be appropriate for 
second through fourth grades, although some of the poems may be slightly 
beyond the comprehension of those in some of the lower grades.  Some are 
nonsense poems and some are very serious, which allows a look at 
occupations from different perspectives.  In addition, there are poems 
from many different countries which will provide views of certain 
occupations from different cultures, as well as an insight into what 
things are like and the jobs that exist in these cultures.

I Hear America Singing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe 
	and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off
	work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
	singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing
	as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the 
	morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work,
	or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young
	fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Walt Whitman
From Saturday's Children; Poems of Work
Chosen by Helen Plotz




 Untitled; Traditional African Poem

You who cultivate fields,
Your merit is great,
Wealth flows from your fingers,
The sea gushes out in front of your house.
You share what you produce
With the begging orphan at your door:
For this you receive blessing.
And so ants will not eat your fingers;
After you die, your destiny will be paradise,
As long as you live, you will be blessed.

From A Crocodile Has Me by the Leg
Edited by Leonard W. Doob


Musical Career

She wanted to play the piano,
But her hands couldn't reach the keys.
When her hands could finally reach the keys,
Her feet couldn't reach the floor.
When her hands could finally reach the keys,
And her feet could reach the floor,
She didn't want to play that ol' piano anymore.

Shel Silverstein
From A Light in the Attic
By Shel Silverstein



I've Been Workin' on the Railroad

I've been workin' on the railroad
All the livelong day.
I've been workin' on the railroad
Just to pass the time away.
Don't you hear the whistle blowing?
Rise up so early in the morn.
Don't you hear the Captain shouting:
"Dinah, blow your horn."

No author given
From Saturday's Children; Poems of Work
Chosen by Helen Plotz







Deep Sea Diver

Diver go down
Down through the green
Inverted dawn
To the dark unseen
To the never day
The under night
Starless and steep
Deep beneath deep
Diver fall
And falling fight
Your weed-dense way
Until you crawl 
Until you touch
Weird water land
And stand.

Diver come up
Up through the green 
Into the light
The sun   the seen
But in the clutch
Of your dripping hand
Diver bring 
Some uncouth thing
That we could swear 
And would have sworn
Was never born
Or could ever be
Anywhere
Blaze on our sight
Make us see.

Robert Francis
From Go With The Poem
Chosen by Lilian Moore


Nursery Rhymes
Rich man			Tinker,					A laird, a lord
Poor man			Tailor,					A cooper, a thief,
Beggar man			Soldier,				A piper, a drummer,
Thief				Sailor,					A stealer of beef.
Doctor				Gentleman, 				
Lawyer				Apothecary,				
Indian Chief			Plough-boy,				Scottish Nursery 
				Thief.	
		 		Soldier brave, sailor true,		
American Nursery		Skilled physician, Oxford blue,
Rhyme				Learned lawyer, squire so hale,
				Dashing airman, curate pale.
				Army, Navy,
				Medicine, Law,
				Church, Nobility,
				Nothing at all.

				English Nursery Rhymes

All taken from Saturday's Children; Poems of Work
Chosen by Helen Plotz

Build Me A House (Old House)

Old house, tear it down.
Who's going to help me tear it down?
Bring me a hammer, tear it down.
Bring me a saw, tear it down.
The next thing you bring me, tear it down.
Is a wrecking machine, tear it down.

New house, build it up.
Who's gonna help me build it up?
Bring me a hammer, build it up.
Bring me a saw, build it up.
The next thing you bring me, build it up.
Is a carpenter man, build it up.
The next thing you bring me, build it up.
Is a carpenter man, build it up. 

Traditional African-American song
From Where I Come From!; Songs and Poems From Many Cultures
Selected and arranged by Victor Cockburn and Judith Steinbergh

Important People
Edward the Confessor
Slept under the dresser.
When that began to pall,
He slept in the hall.

Edward Plantagenet
(Can you imagine it!)
Had owls in his hair,
And didn't care.

The poet Byron
Was made of iron.
He bragged about it.
But I--I doubt it.

Andrew Jackson
Was Anglo-Saxon;
So, full of beans,
He took New Orleans.

Lord Alfred Tennyson
Lived upon venison --
Not cheap, I fear, 
Because venison's deer.

The composer Liszt
Banged the piano with his fist.
That was the way
He liked to play!

Thomas A. Edison
Never took medicine;
So nobody wondered 
That he lived to a hundred.

Sir Christopher Wren
Said "I'm having lunch with some men.
If anyone calls,
Say I'm designing St. Paul's."

Although the Borgias
Were rather gorgeous,
They liked the absurder
Kinds of murder.

Francesca da Rimini
Lived in a chimney
Full of bats in the gloam --
But still, home is home!

Louis Untermeyer and others
From Stars to Steer By, edited by Louis Untermeyer
Untitled, Traditional African Poem

We mold a pot as our mothers did.
The pot, where is the pot?
The pot, it is here.
We mold the pot as our mothers did.

First, the base of the pot.
Strip by strip, and layer by layer.
Supple fingers kneading the clay,
Long fingers molding the clay,
Stiff thumbs shaping the clay,
Layer by layer and strip by strip,
We build the pot as our mothers did.

We build the pot as our mothers did.
Strip by strip and layer by layer.
Its belly swells like the paunch of a hyena,
Of a hyena which has eaten a whole sheep.
Its belly swells like a mother of twins.
It is a beautiful pot,
It swells like a mother of twins.

From A Crocodile Has Me by the Leg
Edited by Leonard W. Doob


Old Florist

That hump of a man bunching chrysanthemums
Or pinching back asters, or planting azaleas,
Tamping and stamping dirt into pots,--
How he could flick and pick
Rotten leaves or yellowy petals,
Or scoop out a weed close to flourishing roots,
Or make the dust buzz with a light spray,
Or drown a bug in one spit of tobacco juice,
Or fan life into wilted sweet-peas with his hat,
Or stand all night watering roses, his feet blue in rubber boots.

Theodore Roethke
From Saturday's Children; Poems of Work
Chosen by Helen Plotz


The Acrobats

I'll swing
By my ankles,
She'll cling
To your knees
As you hang
By your nose 
From a high-up
Trapeze.
But just one thing, please,
As we float through the breeze--
Don't sneeze.

Shel Silverstein
From Go With the Poem
Chosen by Lilian Moore


How I Write Poems

I walk by a dandelion blowing in the breeze.
That gives me an idea for a poem,
my mind fills up to the top
with ideas and the ideas
even go down to my knees,
soon they will be down 
to my feet, and I will be 
so full I will pop.
I run to find paper,
I hop to find paper,
I jump to find paper,
I find paper,
my mind is empty,
my knees are empty,
my feet are empty,
and my paper is full.

Abigail Drescher
From Where I Come From!; Songs and Poems From Many Cultures
Selected and arranged by Victor Cockburn and Judith Steinbergh




Hazardous Occupations

Jugglers keep six bottles in the air.
Club swingers toss up six and eight.
The knife throwers miss each other's 
	ears by a hair and the steel quivers
	in the target wood.
The trapeze battlers do a back-and-forth
	high in the air with a girl's feet
	and ankles upside down.
So they earn a living--till they miss
	once, twice, even three times.
So they live on hate and love as gypsies
	live in satin skins and shiny eyes.
In their graves do the elbows jostle once
	in a blue moon--and wriggle to throw
	in a kiss answering a dreamed-of applause?
Do the bones repeat:  It's a good act--
	we got a good hand.....?

Carl Sandburg
From Saturday's Children; Poems of Work
Chosen by Helen Plotz


The Young Glass-Stainer

"These Gothic windows, how they wear me out
With cusp and foil, and nothing straight or square,
Crude colours, leaden borders roundabout,
And fitting in Peter here, and Matthew there!

"What a vocation!  Here do I draw now
The abnormal, loving the Hellenic norm;
Martha I paint, and dream of Hera's brow,
Mary, and think of Aphrodite's form."

Thomas Hardy
From Saturday's Children; Poems of Work
Chosen by Helen Plotz





Hunter's Song,
Traditional African Poem

In the bush, in the deep forest,
We do our work;
One hunter digs a hole,
The other sets a trap.
We divide the meat with our followers,
Another part we cut in pieces
And dry over the fire.
We all die in the same way;
And so, hunters, let us be good comrades.

From A Crocodile Has Me by the Leg
Edited by Leonard W. Doob


The Fishvendor

Where he stood in boots in water to his calves,
A kind of fisherman, dispensing with a dip-net
Sullen carp into tubs of ice,
Was only in a tank on the back of a truck.
Blocks off, gulls rung and fell to investigate
What they took to be sardine cans 
On the river shiningly; but who contended
For his thick brown fish were rather wives
With boiling dishes in their eyes,
Women estranged by city from live water;
Where even the cats did not wait for the heads,
The scene was that strong.

While the mistaken sea-birds thrust the city away
With a salt vigor,
I heard the fisherman's feet shift in the brine,
The thick fish thrashing without resignation,
The shoppers, half tame at noon,
Naming the coins that routed all of the cats
And were for salt and instinct to a city.

William Meredith
From Saturday's Children; Poems of Work
Chosen by Helen Plotz


The Sitter

Mrs. McTwitter the baby-sitter,
I think she's a little bit crazy.
She thinks a baby-sitter's supposed
To sit upon the baby.

Shel Silverstein
From A Light in the Attic
By Shel Silverstein


The Chimney Sweeper

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep.
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head 
That curl'd like a lambs back, was shav'd, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.

And so he was quiet & that very night,
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight,
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe Ned & Jack
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open'd the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And was in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark 
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm,
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.  

William Blake (from Songs of Innocence)
From Saturday's Children; Poems of Work
Chosen by Helen Plotz