Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Compromise

consensus

“Compromise is a stalling between two fools.” 

― Stephen Fry

"Politics and governing demand compromise.” 

― Barry M. Goldwater

“The body can endure compromise and the mind can be seduced by it. Only the heart protests. The heart. Carbon-based primitive in a silicon world. ” 

― Jeanette Winterson, 

The Powerbook

“I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.” 

― Ayn Rand

“Instead of either/or, I discovered a whole world of and.” 

― Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road

“Disagreement is part of being a person who has choices. One of those choices is to respect others and engage in intelligent conversation about differences of opinion without becoming enemies, eventually allowing us to move forward to compromise.” 

― Ben Carson, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future

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Midweek Motif ~ Compromise

Who can hold out the longest? and why?  

What determines whether 

a compromise feels 

right or wrong?

Your Challenge: Write a new narrative poem about a situation in which participants reach(ed) compromise.  

(Can you include dialogue?)

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The Death of the Hired Man

Related Poem Content Details

BY ROBERT FROST

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table 

Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step, 

She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage 

To meet him in the doorway with the news 

And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’

She pushed him outward with her through the door 

And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said. 

She took the market things from Warren’s arms 

And set them on the porch, then drew him down 

To sit beside her on the wooden steps. 

‘When was I ever anything but kind to him? 

But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said. 

‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I? 

If he left then, I said, that ended it. 

What good is he? Who else will harbor him 

At his age for the little he can do? 

What help he is there’s no depending on. 

Off he goes always when I need him most. 

He thinks he ought to earn a little pay, 

Enough at least to buy tobacco with, 

So he won’t have to beg and be beholden.

“All right,” I say, “I can’t afford to pay 

Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.”

“Someone else can.” “Then someone else will have to.”

I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself 

If that was what it was. You can be certain, 

When he begins like that, there’s someone at him 

Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,— 

In haying time, when any help is scarce. 

In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.’ 

‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said. 

. . . . 

Read the rest HERE.

Short Speech to My Friends

Related Poem Content Details

BY AMIRI BARAKA
(1)

A political art, let it be

tenderness, low strings the fingers

touch, or the width of autumn

climbing wider avenues, among the virtue

and dignity of knowing what city

you’re in, who to talk to, what clothes

—even what buttons—to wear. I address

                                                                        / the society

                                                                        the image, of

                                                                        common utopia.

                                                                        / The perversity

                                                                        of separation, isolation,

after so many years of trying to enter their kingdoms,

now they suffer in tears, these others, saxophones whining

through the wooden doors of their less than gracious homes.

The poor have become our creators. The black. The thoroughly

ignorant.

                  Let the combination of morality

and inhumanity

begin.

. . . . 

Read the rest HERE.

Please share your new poem with Mr. Linky below and visit others 

in the spirit of the community.

(Next week Sumana's Motif will be ~ Absence)