To the western world

To the western world By: Louis Simpson Interpreted by: David Parker

“To The Western World” – Louis Simpson A siren sang, and Europe turned away From the high castle and the shepherd’s crook. Three caravels went sailing to Cathay On the strange ocean, and the captains shook Their banners out across the Mexique Bay. And in our early days we did the same. Remembering our fathers in their wreck We crossed the sea from Palos where they came And saw, enormous to the little deck, A shore in silence waiting for a name. The treasures of Cathay were never found. In this America, this wilderness Where the axe echoes with a lonely sound, The generations labor to possess And grave by grave we civilize the ground. 1 3 Stanzas 5 lines each 15 lines 2 The speaker is one of the travelers that was aboard first hand to arrive in America 3

“To The Western World” – Louis Simpson A B A B A A siren sang, and Europe turned away From the high castle and the shepherd’s crook. Three caravels went sailing to Cathay On the strange ocean, and the captains shook Their banners out across the Mexique Bay. And in our early days we did the same. Remembering our fathers in their wreck We crossed the sea from Palos where they came And saw, enormous to the little deck, A shore in silence waiting for a name. The treasures of Cathay were never found. In this America, this wilderness Where the axe echoes with a lonely sound, The generations labor to possess And grave by grave we civilize the ground. A, B, A, B, A – Rhyme Scheme Lyric Poem Rhythm C D C D C Author’s Purpose: Louis Simpson was born in Jamaica, he traveled to America when he was 17, and enjoyed the freedom of the land, that’s what he writes about in this poem. E F E F E

“To The Western World” – Louis Simpson A siren sang, and Europe turned away From the high castle and the shepherd’s crook. Three caravels went sailing to Cathay On the strange ocean, and the captains shook Their banners out across the Mexique Bay. And in our early days we did the same. Remembering our fathers in their wreck We crossed the sea from Palos where they came And saw, enormous to the little deck, A shore in silence waiting for a name. The treasures of Cathay were never found. In this America, this wilderness Where the axe echoes with a lonely sound, The generations labor to possess And grave by grave we civilize the ground. Imagery: Clear imagery is portrayed in this poem, to start when it says “A siren sang” it refers to a mythical creature, a mermaid, that sang wonderful songs to attract people, especially sailors. You can picture a fleet, of many people looking for settlement, which the poem represents.

“To The Western World” – Louis Simpson Imagery From the high castleshepherd’s crook. On the strange ocean fathers in their wreck The treasures of Cathay In this America, this wilderness

“To The Western World” – Louis Simpson * A siren sang, and Europe turned away From the high castle and the shepherd’s crook. Three caravels went sailing to Cathay On the strange ocean, and the captains shook Their banners out across the Mexique Bay. Literal: In a literal sense, a call was reached to Europe, which they ignored, and all the people of Britain went sailing to look for Cathay. Figurative: The siren that sang, represents America, a new place open for exploration that Europe ignored, the sentence “From the high castle and the shepherd’s crook” represents the rich & the poor, both setting out to discover the new land. Background: Cathay is a place in China, they originally set out looking for this place, and ended up discovering America.

“To The Western World” – Louis Simpson And in our early days we did the same. Remembering our fathers in their wreck We crossed the sea from Palos where they came And saw, enormous to the little deck, A shore in silence waiting for a name. Literal: They think to where earlier, the ones before them ship wrecked on the way to the land in that everyone was looking for the treasures. Then they find a huge unsettled land. Figurative: They think back to earlier, when all the people were out to find the treasure and they were ship wrecked, they take the same route, and find America, shown by the line “A shore in silence waiting for a name.” The ship wreck helps show the struggle to create a massive civilization from the start.

“To The Western World” – Louis Simpson Literal: They never go to find what they were looking for but arrived in America, where they work in the unsettled land to create civilization. The people of the time worked to eventually civilize. The treasures of Cathay were never found. In this America, this wilderness Where the axe echoes with a lonely sound, The generations labor to possess And grave by grave we civilize the ground. Figurative: The treasures of Cathay are undiscovered land that they were led astray from then they arrived in America. The axe echoing with a lonely sound is people working to create the land but the there are few people around the new area. The generations labor to possess is the work that will be put into creating the land in the future to come, and grave by grave is representing the people dying to make America what it is today. Key Points: “The treasures of Cathay were never found” Shows they were misled from Cathay, where they wanted to go, to America. “Grave by grave we civilize the ground” is the people that died to create the civilization.

The Author – Louis Simpson Louis Simpson Louis Aston Marantz Simpson was born March 27, 1923, he was a Jamaican poet. The son of Rosalind and Aston Simpson, he traveled to America when he was 17 years old. Simpson started studying in Columbia University, then enrolled in the military and fought in World War II. After the war he attended the University of Paris, soon to return back to America. He attained his M.A. and his Ph. D at Columbia University. Simpson’s first book “The Arrivistes” was published in 1949, in which he soon shied away from and started to do more free verse style poems. He lived on the north shore of long island and died on September 14, 2012. • Accomplishments: • won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry • 1962 Guggenheim Fellowship • 1998 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award • 2004 Finalist, Griffin Poetry Prize (International)

The Author – Louis Simpson Louis’s Literary Works : Poems • A Dream of Governors • At the End of the Open Road • Adventures of the Letter I • Searching for the Ox • Armidale • Caviare at the Funeral • The Best Hour of the Night • In the Room We Share • There You Are: Poems • Struggling Times • Voices in the Distance: Selected Poems • The Arrivistes: Poems

Citations • http://www.nndb.com/people/644/000099347/ • Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Simpson • www.poetryfoundation.org › Poems & Poets

To the western world