"A Barred Owl"
By Richard Wilbur
The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”
Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.
Richard Wilbur, "A Barred Owl" from Mayflies: New Poems and Translations. Copyright © 2000 by Richard Wilbur.
"The History Teacher"
By Billy Collins
Trying to protect his student’s innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.
And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,
named after the long driveways of the time.
The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
“How far is it from here to Madrid?”
“What do you call the matador’s hat?”
than an outbreak of questions such as
“How far is it from here to Madrid?”
“What do you call the matador’s hat?”
The War of the Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom
and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom
on Japan.
The children would leave his classroom
for the playground and torment the weak
and the smart,
mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,
while he gathered his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.
“The History Teacher” from Questions About Angels Copyright ©1991 by Billy Collins
The children would leave his classroom
for the playground and torment the weak
and the smart,
mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,
while he gathered his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.
“The History Teacher” from Questions About Angels Copyright ©1991 by Billy Collins
I didn’t realize this at first, but the two poems are talking about the exact same thing. The poets are writing about hiding the truth from children, in order to make them feel secure in their lives. In the first poem, “Barred Owl” by Richard Wilbur, sets the scene with a young child being afraid at night because of an owl hooting outside her window. The child is told that the sound outside her window (Barred owls have a call that sounds like “hooo-hoo-hoo-hooo”, and usually do it twice) is not a wild animal but just the question: who cooks for you? You cooks for you? (which is remarkable what they sound like). Since the child probably has someone who cooks for them, they are not scared anymore, and go back to bed, not “dreaming of some small thing in a claw/ Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.” Basically, the child was told a lie, so they wouldn’t think about a predator outside their window.
ReplyDeleteThe second poem is less complex in my opinion (although that might be because I didn’t have to look up a barred owl’s call for this one). “The History Teacher” describes a teacher downplaying history to “protect his student’s innocence.” He describes the ice age as the chilly age, and the spanish inquisition as just a series of questions.
Both poets seem to be pointing out the ridiculousness in these endeavors. A child should be able to sleep through the night knowing their are wild animals outside, children should learn about the bad parts of history. In the end of “The History Teacher”, the poet writes, “The children would leave his classroom/ for the playground and torment the weak/and the smart,/ mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses.” These kids are brats. “Protecting their innocence” is not doing any good, they still beat up their smaller classmates. But maybe if they learned about the bad in the world they would learn from it.
Although in a different context, the two poems share the same meaning of protecting the innocence of a child by concealing the truth. In “A Barred Owl,” a young child is scared of an owl outside their window, whereas, in “The History Teacher,” a teacher euphemizes history to hide the truth from their students. I like how Susan pointed out how the noises of an owl, “hooo-hoo-hoo-hooo,” sounds strikingly similar to “Who cooks for you?” Ultimately, in both poems, children are told lies in order to withhold their innocence and create a false sense of protection. While “A Barred Owl,” uses a rhyme scheme, “The History Teacher” does not. As a result, and because of the explicit meaning of the poem, I find that “The History Teacher” lacks the complexity as the other. Much different than the majority of the shakespeare and petrarch sonnets we have been studying, these modern poems have tremendous meaning, both highlighting the innocence of children. However, as in “The History Teacher,” is the teacher really doing his students a favor by hiding the truth? This idea raises the debate about white-washing history. Should confederate monuments be taken down? Is it really better to forget and start over as a society?
ReplyDeleteInitially, I was slightly disappointed to see my boy Billy Collins to use such a cliche trope as innocence, but after thinking about it that isn’t what either poem is doing at all. It’s interesting how both of these poems have hidden elements of doubt, where innocence is under this assumed beautiful thing. One often sees a child as something like untouched snow, beautiful, but these authors hint at it differently. In The Barred Owl, it ends on a dark note of a small thing, like a child, being eaten raw, almost as to say an unsuspecting child is lulled to sleep just to be awoken by the cruelty of the world. In The History Teacher, after explaining the method of deceit the teacher uses, there's this imagery of children bullying those who are smart-- breaking their glasses. Again there's this idea of innocence yet to be lost, just hanging on for something to break it. While those who are smart know that the history teacher is lying, perhaps using the glasses as a symbol of wisdom or greater understanding, those who bully the smart kids are innocent and unknowing that it may, one day, be the smart kids that their realities rely on. In both pieces they use a fairly traditional form, using stanzas and rhyme plus the fairly average topic of innocence, but in both pieces, they manipulate their expository positions as appearing traditional to allow the reader to miss the underlying lie that they are telling.
ReplyDeleteThe first poem centers around the idea of fear. It first describes a child’s fear of “the boom of an owl’s voice into her darkened room.” The parents, (“we”), comfort her and soothe her fears, explaining to her that there is no need to be scared. As the poem progresses, it is understood that the owl and child was used to symbolize how we deal with fear/issues in our world and how using words “can make our terrors bravely clear” and “can also thus domesticate a fear.” The way we use our words to explain things is highlighted here. This idea is also evident in the second poem, as it showcases a teacher explaining important world events, but in a simplistic manner. It is clear that the teacher is trying to protect the children from the true horrors of reality by downplaying major world events that have occurred. If we focus on the idea of the first poem, the use/context of words, is an essential idea in the second poem as well. The first poem ends in a way where the child is no longer frightened, but still understands essentially what the owl is. The second poem follows the same idea of protecting their innocence and easing their fears, but it makes the child unaware of reality. It leaves them ignorant and vulnerable, something that the first poem does not do. Both these poems follow the same type of theme/message, but have two different endings.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read these poems, I realized they were both talking about keeping children happy and content by protecting their innocence, calling an owl’s voice an “odd question from a forest bird” and the Spanish Inquisition “an outbreak of questions.” As I reread the poems, I noticed more details like how in “A Barred Owl” “who cooks for you” sounds like the hoot of an owl and how the lines have a rhyme scheme, reminding me of Shakespearean sonnets. I feel the rhyme scheme made the poem easier to read and more melodic, even though the topic is quite heavy when given thought. “The History Teacher” feels more serious than “A Barred Owl” to me since it lacks a rhyme scheme and uses more historical events, including some which I learned about in history class, making it feel more realistic. It reminded me about how when we first learned about Christopher Columbus for Columbus Day , we were taught about how brave and smart he was, not about how poorly he treated natives. As the closing lines talked about “flower beds and white picket fences” it made me wonder what other inaccuracies I have been taught in Andover’s world of flower beds and white picket fences. By losing innocence we gain knowledge, but by gaining knowledge we also gain emotions like fear and anger. There is almost never a perfect balance between the two and never a perfect time to lose one in order to gain the other.
ReplyDeleteMy initial reaction to A Barred Owl was a cute story about an owl in nature. I simply read through it picking up only the main details of the poem. However, after reading it through a few more times, I quickly noticed the precise language that Wilbur was using which created beautiful imagery in my imagination. In fact, I was so infatuated by how vivid the scenario in the poem was that I had to read through it again knowing I was distracted. Analyzing it once more, I was able to understand the message that Wilbur was trying to deliver: Ignorance can be a bliss. The young child is told that the owl is saying, “Who cooks for you?” and left to return to bed. The true details, or words, of the owl are kept a secret so the child is not afraid. These words can “domesticate a fear,” keeping the child awake and dreaming unpleasantly about the owls habits, “Bone up to some dark branch and eaten raw.” Here, the difference in Wilbur's language changes the tone of the poem which acts in parallel to the feelings of what knowledge can sometimes bring.
ReplyDeleteReading The History Teacher right after was a great transition from A Barred Owl. These two works are very similar in theme and share an essence of innocence in the story. Truthfully, reading The History Teacher made me kind of upset. Although the teacher means well and wants for his students to see rainbows and butterflies, that’s not history. Proper intellect of our Nation’s past is necessary for education and improvement to move in the right direction. It is critical that young students build a solid foundation as they mature, and important that their teachers prepare them for important decisions they may have to make in the future. Halfway through the poem, the story shifts from inside the classroom to outside the classroom— where children would “torment the weak and the smart, mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses.” The pivotal point demonstrates the duality (and irony) of what the history teacher is aiming for: innocence. Collins conveys a strong message of reality through this playful yet truthful poem, and leaves the audience with motivation and a feeling of realness from within brought to light.
Both of these poems deal with adults lying to protect children, but the first one talks about it as a good thing while the second satirizes it. In the first poem, a girl is afraid of owl hoots, and so the adult tells her a story about how the owl is asking "who cooks for you," in order to calm her fears of the owl. In the second poem, a history teacher tries to protect his students' innocence by completely watering down all the bad parts of history, to the point where there is no point to the children learning this at all. Collins unexpectedly turns this into a satire in the last stanza by saying "The children would leave his classroom for the playground and torment the weak and the smart, mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,while he gathered his notes and walked home". By mentioning this, Collins destroys the idea of protecting childrens' innocence by pointing out that they aren't really innocent to begin with. I think this is a satire on how current schools tiptoe around the more depressing aspects of history, such as native american genocide and slavery. In addition, the parallel images of the kids being wicked on the playground with the image of the history teacher walking home thinking of other ways to shield children from history, makes me wonder if Collins is saying that teaching the bad parts of history more accurately could educate the children into being nicer.
ReplyDeleteOf the two poems, I liked The History Teacher better, because it seemed more profound than A Barred Owl. However, I liked the structure of A Barred Owl better. This poem had a rhyme scheme (AABBCCDDEEFF) where the other one didn't. In addition, every line on this poem contains a separate idea, whereas in the other poem the sentences carry over into more than one line. When taken into context with the meaning however, each of their structures make sense. The first poem is more pleasant in its ideas, and so it also sounds neater and more orderly, while the second one is much more complex, and talks about things that are wrong with how we teach kids, so it makes sense that the structure is more messy than the first, and makes it sound like there is something missing.
When reading these poems, I immediately saw a striking similarity between the two. Both of these poems are talking about shielding a child from potential harm. In the poem “A Barred Owl”, it seems that someone is calming a child about a frightful noise that they hear. They tell the child that “all she heard/Was an odd question from a forest bird”. They are protecting this child from fearing whatever she heard with words that can “send a small child back to sleep at night. The second poem called “The History Teacher” also talks about protecting children from the true occurrences in history. Instead of teaching the actualities of every event, the teacher leaves out the details that would be potentially frightening. For example, when the teacher taught about the Spanish Inquisition, irrelevant questions such as “what do you call the matador’s hat” would be asked. By doing so, the teacher does not tell the truth to the children and leaves them in the dark about the historical events. Both of these poems are talking about deceptive ways in which children are shielded from possibly harmful things in the world. I think our work with sonnets has helped me to better understand the meaning behind modern poetry because I was able to quickly understand what these poems were about. The first poem had a rhyme scheme, but the second one did not. Although they are formatted differently, both of their meanings were clear and conveyed in a way that left an impression on the readers.
ReplyDeleteThough the poems are definitely similar, revolving around the innocence of a child, I do not feel that they were the the same. A first read shows two situations in which adults try to protect children from things that could cause them uneasiness. However, after several more reads I feel that the two poems show different methods of doing so. In The History Teacher, the teacher’s alternative explanations for various historical events are obviously straight-up lies. The Spanish Inquisition was definitely not “an outbreak of questions such as ‘How far is it from here to Madrid?” The Ice Age was in no way a time “when everyone had to wear sweatshirts.” The two versions of history are irreconcilable. In A Barred Owl, a parent comforts their child at night, afraid of the call of an owl. The parent tries to familiarize the call by pairing it to English words, “who cooks for you?” This method of comforting is not the same as The History Teacher’s fundamental deception. The parent is not lying about the source of the noise, only playing to the child’s imagination in order to show another way to look at something that might make it feel less scary. Though the two poems have similar subject matter, they describe two very different approaches. While one tries to completely shield the children from facts, the other tries to make the facts less frightening through a bit of imaginative manipulation.
ReplyDeleteMy immediate reactions after reading these two poem was how similar in theme they both appear to be. On the surface both sonnets appear to be about ignoring the world around us. The barnyard owl is neglected because of a small child trying to sleep, while a history teacher tries to stop his students from knowing how life really used to be. That alone, however, is not enough insight to properly analyze and understand the sonnets. After re-reading them both a couple times over, I noticed words and descriptions that I glossed over originally, new thoughts and meanings took space as to the true meanings. The tale of the barnyard owl shares some similarities, thematically, to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”. The idea of fear, manifested from a talking bird, is present in both poems. Also present in both poems is the idea that the bird itself is not what one should be afraid of but what it represents. The barnyard owl simply asks “who cooks for you”, a question which instills fear and terror, highlighting the unknowns of life, while the Owl knows exactly how its next meal will come about. The child, oblivious to the reality of where its food comes from, does not realize the disturbing nature in which the Owl eats its meals, which is not too far from the way one could look at a human’s own eating habits.
ReplyDeleteOne can assume that the History teacher is older than his students, old enough to be educated on the events he is teaching to them. In an attempt to try and preserve their childhood innocence, he sugarcoats the severity of said events. His efforts to do so do not come from being a bad teacher but rather he is trying to avoid instilling the fear that is associated with the events that he must teach. The social commentary in this piece is very glaring and very well woven, the use of children as a birthplace for misinformation is perfect because that scenario is one which is sadly true to life. Even if one is to find out something they learned in their youth is incorrect, their brain will still challenge the idea that what they believed to be fact is actually not so. Many adults suffer from the same problem, believing in one idea or sticking to one mindset simply because that was what they had presented to them first. Perhaps Collins use children as the victims in this sonnet to mock the child-like behaviors that adults can exhibit? This raises the question as to the History Teacher’s true intentions, are his lies made out of fear for his students, or fear for himself? Does he feel the need to protect their innocence because he no longer can remember the time when he himself was innocent, blind to the true problems of the world? This sonnet is my favorite of the two, because it leaves the reader with a moral dilemma. Are the actions of the History Teacher morally justifiable? If not, how does one determine when one is ready to lose their innocence? What scenario, if any, is a proper time for the truth to be revealed?
The first poem deals with the idea of ignorance either turning into fear or conformt. The parents attempt to comfort her by claiming that all there was in the room was a forest bird which briefly gives the child comfort. The child believes that is truly in his room just because that is what his parents tell him. What we tell our children in the attempt to provide comfort can at times be detrimental to their thoughts. The second poems repeats the idea of protecting innocence in the classroom. Instead of teaching true facts of history to his students, he tells them comforting facts in an attempt to foster the innocence of his students. The second poem though actually shows the consequences of ignorance compared to the first poem. Although they both execute the same actions, the effects of it is distinct.
ReplyDeleteI agree sometimes protecting the innocence of a child can be dangerous and limiting, but when we were so young would we want to be exposed to these truths or are we glad that it took time so that we were mature enough to understand.
DeleteAfter my first reading of the poems I was in a way confused. The first poem, took the fear of the child and turned it into something less scary, in order to lull the child back to sleep. While the second, never let the children experience fear at all. The truth was coated in sugar, and the children easily took it as that. However, after reading it a few more times I noticed that the sonnets where even more similar than I originally thought. The "Barred Owl" poem capitalized on the fear the child was facing, and turned it on it's side in order to protect the child. Or rather the innocence of the child. In “The History Teacher” poem is also protecting the children. In lieu of giving the students real facts, the teacher opts to explain history in a way that would not scare the children. It would not strip them of their innocence. This sort of reminded me of how teachers in elementary school, glorify Columbus and his 'exploration' of 'The New World'. We were all taught that he was so great, and did many things for the new world. Yet when we get to middle school or high school we are taught the truth. But there is a great irony in this notion too. In the poem the teacher then thinks about if the children will believe what they will tell them next. But they walk away knowing that these things aren't true, but hoping to keep the children ignorant to protect them, in a way they are no longer. But is that really fair?
ReplyDeleteThe two poems share a very consistent theme about lying to protect someone from what is really out there and the truth. After reading both poems several times it became evident how fear was the biggest concern in these poems and how it controls people. In the poem, “A Barred Owl” by Richard Wilbur, my first reaction to this poem was about the power of words and how there are many things that seem very scary to people but there are also things that bring light and happiness to people. The line that stood out to me was “Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear, can also thus domesticate a fear,”. I think this line goes to show the purpose of the poem and also how powerful words can be. As I kept reading it kind of got more of a gloomy scary feel because the speaker talks about how they tell the child that what she heard was a forest bird but in reality it was the owl and they are lying to protect her from what is actually in the darkness. The talking bird was a fear and they told her it was something else so that she could sleep at night.
ReplyDeleteIn the poem“The History Teacher” by Billy Collins, when I first read it I saw how it was about a teacher who lied about the past to his students because he thought it was protecting him. However upon reading it again I start to question the things the teacher tells his students because when it talks about the strong tormenting the weak it reminds me that without history we wouldn’t be able to correct ourselves in the future and not make the same mistakes from the past. The teacher might think that he is protecting the students from the past by not telling them the truth but in reality he is only hurting them. Without history, we can not move forward because history is a reminder of everything that has happened before. Out of the two poems, Collins poem was my favorite because I felt like as a student today, I wouldn’t want my teachers to hide the truth from me
Oftentimes, when discussing poetry, themes of love and hardship come to mind. The eloquence of Shakespeare’s sonnets and the two roads of Robert Frost are forefront. Thus, poems about the seemingly normal and ordinary aspects of life are not given as much attention. However, the “Barred Owl” by Richard Wilbur and “The History Teacher” from Billy Collins demonstrate how the more typical parts in a day can be written just as well. Both of these pieces discuss the protection of children through lies, but the approach is different. In comparing these two pieces side-by-side, there is a clear difference in tone. While Wilbur’s is more ominous and threatening, “The History Teacher” is light and comical. This use of language, though different, both strive to show how much they are protecting the youth in the poems from. In the “Barred Owl”, the author uses many foreboding words. Phrases like “Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw”(12), or “darkened room”(2) build the owl up to be as terrifying as the animal seems to be for the child. It then becomes understandable why the child is scared in the first place and thus must be protected. On the other hand, Collins is light and cheerful. Within the first stanzas, the purpose of the teacher is clear: “protect his students’ innocence”(1). From this point onward, the teacher creates silly explanations to horrible events. The tone is easygoing to emphasize the contrast between his language and the low points in history the teacher is trying to hide from his students. Although these poets use very different writing styles, it is used for the same reason.
ReplyDeleteThrough the first reads of each poems, I noticed the theme of protecting young children. Both poems revolve around the innocence of and the need to protect a child. I found the two to be extremely similar in how both the adult in “A Barred Owl” and the teacher in “The History Teacher” take action to protect the innocence of the children in their respective scenarios. I found it interesting how the two different poems were in vastly different circumstances, yet the meaning behind it was the same. However, after a few more reads of each, I started to realize the difference in them. In “A Barred Owl,” the adult shows a lot more care towards the child. The adult comforts her from the hooting of the owl, telling her it was just “an odd question from a forest bird.” In “The History Teacher,” however, the teacher shows a lot less care in protecting the students. Instead of slowing teaching the students about what happened, maybe with a few euphemisms, the teacher straight-up lies to the students. He is simply only prolonging the inevitable, as the students will eventually have to learn about the truths in history. I think the adult in “A Barred Owl” is doing a far more effective job with the child, as she does not lie to her, only comforting her. In the end, these poems are two different ways of showing a similar theme in protecting the innocence of children. One adult comforts and the other one lies, but in the end, their common goal is still the same.
ReplyDeleteIn the poems, “A Barred Owl, ” by Richard Wilbur and “The History Teacher,” by Billy Collins, the authors discuss the relationship between adults, children and the lies we tell to protect them. By telling these stories of fiction to the children involved in these poems, the speakers are shielding them from the harmful truth of reality. Neglecting the world around them offers the reader to escape reality themselves and remember a time where there wasn’t bad swarming them. Wilbur and Collins write about the innocence of a child and how the lies we tell them can be protective. In the first poem, “A Barred Owl, ” the speaker is trying to comfort a child and convince them their fear is not present. The child hearing an owl is frightened of it, and the adult tries to change the child’s perspective and say that it is someone asking “Who cooks for you?” repeatedly. In line 7 of the poem, the speaker states that “words, which can make our terrors bravely clear, can also thus domesticate a fear...” amplifying the power that words bestow. This line also displays the speaker’s motivations for their actions, and shows that they are not doing this to be cruel, but to guard them from being in fear. While both poems deal with adults telling lies to children, their intentions are not the same. In the second poem, “The History Teacher,” the speaker is falsifying history events to his students. While his objection may be to guard the students from the harmfulness of our past, he is only hurting them in the long run. Without a knowledge of our history, we cannot truly understand where we came from and the long journey our ancestors had in order for us to be where we are today. While reading this poem, it may seem light hearted and sweet of him to tell these lies to the children, he is setting them up to be vulnerable in their futures. The tone remains optimistic and bright throughout, and Collins displays happy images of “flower beds and white picket fences.” The history teacher wants his students to believe in these lies, even though he does not understand the consequences of his actions. While both of the speakers may have had the same reasoning behind their lies, they had different outcomes. When telling lies to someone, people often times forget about the fallout their actions may have. These poems shed light on the fact that sometimes knowledge deteriorates the innocence we are born and grow up with, but in the end helps bring us closer to adulthood.
ReplyDeleteInnocence is at the heart of Billy Collins “The History Teacher” and Richard Wilbur’s “A Barred Owl”. One poem utilizes a traditional rhyming scheme and identical stanzas, while the other takes on a narrative style, varying the length of its four stanzas. However, with similar purposes for questions, and differing figures for the cruelness of our history, world, and society, both authors can convey how their explanations to children can wrongfully shield them from the truth and soaking them in ignorant innocence. Each author disrupts the flow of their poem to pose a question. Richard Wilbur repeats the question “Who cooks for you?” What is so dangerous about an owl? Has it attacked or screeched. There is simply no evidence that child is scared. Parents protect their child from danger yet limit a child’s curiosity and discovery with simple, innocent explanation. Billy Collins questions, “What do you call the matador’s hat?” when teaching the Spanish Inquisition. Focusing on the fashion of the Spanish Inquisition, ignores, slaughter, heresy, raging hahte, or the cruelty during the time
ReplyDeleteBilly Collins and Richard Wilbur use different figures to symbolize the ugly or wonderful truth that has persisted in the past and the present. Collins chose various periods or events in world history. We must own the horridness of our past, and Collins pokes at the fact that teachers prevent this ownership. Wilbur’s owl personifies, untouched wisdom, which is then barred and hidden. The hard truth and the elegance of nature, is concealed as it is believed that a child being eaten raw outweighs its potentials.