TEXTS FOR YOUR INDEPENDENT READING, TRANSLATION & ANALYSIS 2 страница

platter of full moon, fellow ships

on the Hudson, the landscape

and the fact that something was

actually happening in my life.

Exercise 4. Read the poem, continue the dialogue with your neighbour. Remember that you are not in competition with anyone, and that you will progress at your own rate:

- - Hello, please have a seat. What would you like to eat?

- - I think, I’ll have a stake, and then for desert some cake.

- - Would you like it on a bun, with some springs, perhaps well done?

- -Yes, I like it on a bun, Yes; I’d like my stake well done.

- And I’d like some ketchup too.

- - Oh, I think it’s right for you!

- With the baked potatoes please,

- Lots of cream and lots of cheese,

- And some salad would be nice,

- And bring me some water with ice.

Exercise 5. Sing the following old cowboy song[1], translate and transcribe every line. Write down the unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own:

Eyes like the morning sun,

Cheeks like a rose,

Laura was a pretty girl,

God Almighty knows,

Weep all you little rains

Wail winds wail,

All alone, alone, along

The Colorado trail.

Exercise 6. Make up a list of mushrooms according to the model in exercise 2, Unit 1Read, translate and transcribe each word on the list. Use the terms in sentences of your own.

Exercise 7. Read the following dialogue. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Give three forms of irregular verbs, continue the dialogue:

- You did it again.

- What did I do?

- I told you not to do it and you did it again!

- -I’m sorry! I’m sorry!

- You broke it.

- What did I break?

- You took it.

- -What did I take?

- You lost it.

- What did I lose?

- -You chose it.

- What did I choose?

- - I told you not to do it and you did it again!

- -You wore it.

- -What did I wear?

- - You tore it?

- What did I tear?

- - I told you not to do it and you did it again!

- -I’m sorry! I’m sorry!

Exercise 8. Repeat for clarity of articulation. Add the lists below to continue the dialog; use more store names and adjectives to describe your favourite cuisine:

- I need salad, Pete! I need salad, Pete!

-There’s a little grocery store right across the street!

- I need lamb chop, Pete! I need lamb chop, Pete!

-There’s a little butcher store right across the street!

- I need pastry, Pete! I need pastry, Pete!

-There’s a little butcher store right across the street!

- I need flowers, Pete! I need flowers, Pete!

-There’s a little florist shop right across the street!

a) a lemon, an apple, grapes, a plum, a water-melon, an egg….

b) a frying-pan, a tea-pot, a sause-pan, sugar-basin, a fork, a spoon, a cup, a plate, a stove, a bucket, a knife, an oven, a towel…

- Exercise 9. You have lost your shoe (glove, cap, sweater). Ask your friend (sister) to help you. Mind the usage of possessive pronouns. Repeat for clarity of articulation:

- Where is mine? Is this mine?

- No, that’s hers.

- Where is mine? Is this mine?

- No that’s his.

- Where are mine? Are this mine?

- No, those are theirs.

- Where are mine? Where are mine?

- Yours are there on the chair on the chair.

- Where?

- On the chair.

Exercise 10. Describe the house where you live. Tell about your “folks”. Give Russian equivalents for the colloquial phrase “Are your folks home?”. Continue the story. Use the animals’ names in sentences of your own:

- I bought a dog for my cat.

- The cat did’t like the dog.

- I bought a bird for my cat.

- The cat did’t like the bird.

- I bought a house for the dog.

- The dog did’t like the house.

- I bought a cage for my bird.

- The bird did’t like the cage.

- The cat did’t like the dog.

- Nobody liked the bird.

Exercise 11.Read, translate, and transcribe the poem by C. Levin. Write down all the unknown words into your dictionary. Comment on the text, define Grammar Tenses:

The Lighter Than Air Piano Drop

Duval, Washington

Twelve hours off a transatlantic flight catapulted into the altered world of our hometown joggled by jetlag we followed friends to the country.

Fired up rented generators tents and too few portable toilets transformed Betty Nelson’s pasture into a rain and music drenched ritual where twenty thousand camped some even paid most danced naked in mud at noon after The Grateful Dead and dozens more bands arrived on the stage hopping eighteen hours a day for three days above campfires and lanterns and ember ends of lit joints moving hand to hand generating magic passing the instant end of the free-spirit ‘68 summer at the earth oozing event organized to answer the musical question “What sound does a piano make when it’s dropped from a helicopter?”

Unit four

Exercise 1. Listen and decode a poem by American poet Carol Levin from the audio collection. Read, translate and transcribe it. Write down all unknown words into your dictionary. Give your title to the poem. Use the new words in sentences of your own.

Exercise 2. Make up a list of dog breeds according to the model in exercise 2, Unit 1.Read, translate and transcribe each word on the list. Repeat for clarity of articulation. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Use the terms in sentences of your own. Continue the Russian list below according to your English text:

служебные: доберман, дог, ньюфаундленд, овчарка (немецкая, кавказская, среднеазиатская, южнорусская, шотландская), ротвейлер, эрдель-терьер, ризеншнауцер, водолаз, московская сторожевая, чёрный терьер, бобтейл или старо-английская овчарка, до 1973 г. и боксёр, большой пудель, сенбернар; охотничьи: афган, бедлингтон терьер, английский кокер-спаниекль, легавая, немецкая жесткошерстная легавая (дратхаар), жесткошерстный фокстерьер, гончая, борзая, русская псовая борзая, спаниель, русский спаниель, такса, охотничий терьер, западно-сибирская лайка, шотландский сеттер, ирландский сеттер; комнатно-декоративные: бедлингтон терьер и т.д.(всего более 400 пород)

Exercise 3. Read, translate and transcribe the following poem by Carol Levin. Explain the usage of The Part Indefinite Tense. Use the participles in sentences of your own. Repeat all proper names over and over. Accuracy first, the speed!

No Prizes For Art Draped In Black

We were gawkiers. The little girl

cried and cowered in my skirt as the crowd

of hooters and whistlers pitched ear-

piercing Italian curses facing a cadre of stoic

fully armed police ready behind elegant

wrought iron gates of the Venice Biennale.

Artists and government, not for the first time,

violently engaged. But it was the artists

with big banners, El Morté Biennale,

and revolution-minded students and thrill seekers landing in Venice from Great Britain, Madrid or Paris in scanty skirts and macho pony tails who, this 1968 summer shut down the show’s champagne gaiety on opening day, designating it "a capitalist institution”, dethroning the past 73 years of the creme de-la-creme of art at art’s world shrine.

I looked left toward the little bridge,

flags of the Communist Party parading

toward us topped the rise,

incredibly enough, being led

oh my god

by my very own, dancing ten year old son living

his first Andy Warholish fifteen famous minutes.

Exercise 4. Discuss the poem with your neighbour. Remember that you are not in competition with anyone, and that you will progress at your own rate. Make a recording of the way you sound as you begin your studies, and then make a comparison, recording every six to twelve months.

Exercise 5. Sing the song, translate and transcribe every line. Write down the unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own:

Sing my love song

When I’m far away from you.

Sing my love song

Just like I return

Sing my song when you feel blue.

When I’m away then the days will be longer,

Nights will be dark and you will be alone,

Try to remember my song to feel stronger

Sing it my love, when I’m gone.

Sing my love song

When I’m far away from you.

Sing my love song

Just like I return

Sing my song when you feel blue.

So many hours we’re spending together

Telling each other how great love can be,

Now I must go. I will write you some letters.

Someday you’re waiting for me.

Sing my love song

When I’m far away from you.

Sing my love song

Just like I return

Sing my song when you feel blue.

Exercise 6. Listen and decode an English folk song. Read, translate and transcribe the text. Give three forms of irregular verbs. Use them in sentences of your own. Listen the song over and over. Sing together with the singer.

Exercise 7. Pronounce the English sayings below. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Give three forms of irregular verbs. Use the proverbs in the situations of your own:

Men learn while they teach.

All cats are grey in the dark.

Christmas comes but once a year.

Exercise 8. Imagine you and your friend are at the café. Continue the dialog; add more words to describe your favourite cuisine, use more store names. Repeat for clarity of articulation:

Goodbye Boss Bye-Bye Boredom

In servizio sulla Linea Mediterraneo - Nord America sailing 1968

radiant white with red trim

tourist class three decks below

ninety foot beam

seven hundred feet long

twenty-nine thousand one-hundred-ninety-one gross tons

simultaneously animate and inanimate

steam turbines power two propellers

a vessel of decks, boilers and a captain's bridge above

one thousand fifty five persons eating

bread baked fresh

traveling at twenty-three knots

these days at sea

we've gone all wobbly

think in all directions

three meals

antipasto

four varieties olives greens and blacks

fish eggs

medley of paper-thin Genoa salamis

prosciutto

lunch noodles

supper soup

meat

potatoes

green salad

fancy cake

sorbet

fresh fruit

cheese on a platter

retsina

red and white table wines in glass pitchers

we drink red like water

w ev e gone all wobbly flail our arms

set time ahead an hour each night

getting harder to get to breakfast

at this pace.

past and future events of human affairs in the spray of upheaval are irrelevant

Exercise 9. Make a list of footgear. Transcribe every word. Use the nouns in sentences of your own. Repeat for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 10. Read the poem. Write down, translate and transcribe every unknown word. Describe the house where you live. Tell about your family holiday:

June Eighth Five Years After June Eighth Nineteen Sixty Eight

For Ruth. Through many blue moons, best friends.

Five

red roses.

Fresh pressed

white linen cloth

white candles wick

white light two

chairs weighted

cool champagned

fingers love glistening glasses

toy with the chill

right arms raise eyes

meet

Best friends stood

bridenmaid and best

man

before the fireplace

living room

walls candied with

Parker Paint pink.

afternoon sun streamed

well wishes

and a minister

blessed.

Toast fifth anniversary

of arguments,

the alcohol the hang-

overs the where-

were-you-last-

night’s slugfests

sudden understanding

the diamonds

swirling on her hand died

mismatched, a mistake.

Cheers.

Exercise 11.Read, translate, and transcribe the poem by C. Levin. Give comparative and superlative of adjectives:

The Journey To Change Our Lives

Our last day on Chios Ted caught an octopus

near the little village of Langados where we found

a lame old sailor in a rough beard who beat it

for us against the dusty rocks while we watched,

eviscerated it and cooked it in a firepit in its ink

in exchange for ouzo. Over an hour

it boiled in a dented pot long used

for this purpose. Ugly raw skin becoming

gelatinous, exuding dark juice. The silent

old man nodding cut hunks of hard bread,

sliced cucumbers to mix with smelly feta. And

we watched sitting on short painted stools,

village life going

quietly. No person came to cheer

our journey tomorrow. Leaving,

probably forever. It was hard

to chew and dry but we praised it

eloquently over and over

making it into

what we had trusted

it was all going to be.

Unit five

Exercise 1. Read, translate and transcribe the following poem by American poet Carol Levin from the collection “Place one foot here”. Write down all unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own:

Bumbling

Before dawn and for the last time

I scampered to the foredeck

to watch our arrival and stood

confounded: where

was Venice?

I saw only a series of little islands

floating in the coolest time of day.

I grimaced ignorance

of geography as we disembarked

struggling luggage, tingling

in confusion

of water taxis and emblems

of Byzantine origins on pale

salmon colored palaces.

Poled in a gondola under

the Rialto Bridge

on the Grand Canal

to some hotel gasses of decomposing

islands of garbage floating

alongside assulted us.

Orange peels, sandwiches,

fishheads, cheezy,

sickening, rank smelling

chemically engaged

in transforming into

something else,

woke up

our olfactory senses,

explained why thirteenth

century Venice had led

the trade to fetch spices

to mask rot with fragrance.

The kids puckered

faces, pinched nostrils,

grinning, we faced each other

at the onset

of our odyssey wideyed.

Exercise 2. Make up a list of tree species according to the model in exercise 2, Unit 1.Read, translate and transcribe each word on the list. Repeat for clarity of articulation. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition: Use the terms in sentences of your own.

Exercise 3. Repeat the following poem by Carol Levin over and over, speak on the nouns in the text. Accuracy first, the speed! Make a recording of the way you sound as you begin your studies, and then make a comparison, recording every six to twelve months:

Shrouds and Other Obstructions

I don’t understand, oh wizard of art, how you can’t

remember the mountain village

after the tedious drive. Don’t

you recall dark snuck through

trees and we were nervous about the road?

Children chased us as we joined

the evening stroll in the merciful cool

they fidgeted practicing decrypted

English vying for attention.

Centered in the old village square

was a ghostly object, only

the polished pedestal visible.

I don’t know what compelled

you suddenly to stride to it,

lift the canvas cover, read

the plaque in Greek. How can’t you

remember the uproar:

the men, fear and anger

in their eyes and the women

calling in boys and girls early?

You remember, you saw?

Then you said it was a poet carved

in white stone. I can’t recall

his name but you knew.

Explained small details

of his words, politics

of his sympathies against

the reigning coup.

You are looking at me as if

to suggest it never happened.

The stone must have been long since

liberated by reversals of power

and I struggle to remember what you whispered:

was it Titos Patrikios,

or Manolis Anagnostakis?

See, I’m practicing words

draping our recalcitrant forgetfulness

in a white robe of forgiveness.

Exercise 4. Read the poem by James Joyce; transcribe and learn the new words. Use them in a dialogue with your neighbour. Remember that you are not in competition with anyone, and that you will progress at your own rate:

Flood

Goldbrown upon the sated flood

The rockvine clusters lift and sway;

Vast wings above the lambent waters brood

Of sullen day.

A waste of waters ruthlessly

Sways and uplifts its weedy mane

Where brooding day stares down upon the sea

In dull disdain.

Uplift and sway, O golden vine,

Your clustered fruits to love's full flood,

Lambent and vast and ruthless as is thine

Incertitude!

Exercise 5. Read the old Canadian song, translate and transcribe every line. Give three forms of the verbs. Use them in sentences of your own:

Sleep, baby, sleep!

Your father guards the sheep,

Your mother shakes the dreamland tree,

And from it fall sweet dreams for you,

Sleep, baby, sleep!

So, Sleep, baby, sleep!

Exercise 6. Pronounce the tongue-twister below. Repeat it over and over. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition:

Little lady Lily lost her lovely locket.

Lucky little Lucy found the lovely locket.

Lovely little locket lay in Lucy’s pocket.

Lazy little Lucy lost the lovely locket.

Exercise 7. Read the question below. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Make up a dialogue as if you were at the café. Add more words to describe your favourite cuisine:

Have you ever had a hot dog with mustard and mayonnaise, with ketchup and pickles, with garlic and onion, with pepper and salt?

Exercise 8. Continue the list of professions and occupations. Transcribe and translate every word. Repeat for clarity of articulation:

artist, art therapist, butcher, book-keeper, cashier, confectioner, dancer, dentist, dendrologist, dermatologist, doctor, economist, electrician, florist, phonetician, geologist, graphologist, guitar player, hairdresser, historian, linguist, make-up artist, mathematician, musician, musicologist, oboist, obstetrician, pediatrician, politician, psychologist, psychiatrist, sailor, speech therapist, stage hand, stylist, teacher, technician, translator, trend maker, violinist, ventriloquist, worker, yachtsman.

Exercise 9. You have lost your way. Ask the passer-by to help you. Begin your dialogue with the phrase “How can I get to…Use English street names and numbers. Repeat them for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 10. Read the poem. Continue the story. Describe the party you have recently visited or organized. Use more sentences in The Present Perfect Tense:

Asking About 1968 At Parties

The adrenaline clench of her fair maiden hands was Sadie’s answer,

a gesture across the kitchen counter as she crisply clicked off

King,: April 4th, dead, shot in the neck. Death: June 6th,

young Kennedy. She said she watched him on the TV

crumple in the pantry of the imposing Hotel Ambassador minutes past midnight.

She motioned, “Of course, the Chicago Democrats rampaged--”.

“Hard” Sadie said, “hard year that year ”. “How can you ask,

how can you imagine writing the deaths?”

Arranging platters of sushi, salmon spread, crackers and cheese

lighting candles, softening lamps: she continued to speak

taking a new tack all of the sudden, blurting

facts. Married a man she “didn’t love”. She said

it was “about breeding.”. Breeding yes, I flashed the thought of all the deaths

and the need to renew, replenish hope in the coming generation.

Sadie said, “yes, good breeding: understood art,

elegant food, fine clothes, a master of savoir faire”

then the doorbell, hands extended

greetings, gossipy groups assembled sipping

wine, telling secrets

and music began. Symbolically crossing my fingers I was left to myself

to embroider the dangling threads of her tale, thresh out the gothic novel

romance writing the tearjerker of Sadie’s year that year.

Exercise 11.Read, translate, and transcribe the poem by C. Levin. Underline all proper names. Pronounce them over and over:

Beholders Eye the Pageant

(1921)

First, Queen Margaret followed by look alikes: Mary, Fay, Rose, Bette, Jean, Bess, Venus and Nevea, Lee, and the famous BeBe. A Suzette and a Kayleen, several Susans and later, Kellye Cash and Kay Lani Rae Rafko. Sovereigns of “Beauty”.

(1948)

The year she was crowned in a gown rather than a swimsuit raised news reporter’s hackles so the un-comely runners-up, (“in good health and of the white race”) gave in, posed in silhouette suits. Tapered high heels contracted their calves, their smiles obliged while the song composed in an hour played on for years. “Here She Comes Miss America”.

(1968)

A vast boardwalk lies between the Atlantic City Convention Center and the incandescent beauty of the Atlantic ocean strutting its tides accompanied by “women libbers” singing “Ain’t she sweet: making profits off her meat”. A manifesto announces “No More degrading mindless-boob-girlie symbols” and Feminists argue for: abortion, minimum pay and self-defense. All eyes rise to the pedestal of beauty for the kickoff event, an orchestrated ruckus around receptacles in which to toss copies of The Ladies Home Journal, Playboy, false eyelashes, dish detergent, wigs, curlers, girdles and high heels. “Ludicrous beauty standards we ourselves are conditioned to take seriously” and the media eats it up.

(1978,88,2008)

The nineteen seventy-eight perfectly named Perkins

was a Susan. In eighty-eight,

Social Relevance appeared

in the birdcage

of women facing faces

in the face of “what counts

for commerce counts

it’s pennies”. In O-eight

at Planet Hollywood, a gambling

casino, perfectly placed in man’s

tinsel invention of illusion

are perishable artworks

and mophead hydrangeas,

parrot tulips with roses

arranged loosely and naturally

to show everything off.

(rule number seven in the Miss America Rule book stated that "contestants must be of good health and of the white race."). entrants needed to prove their biological history changed in 1970

Unit six

Future Artist in Athens 1968

I want to go back.

At the Acropolis hot summer

is suspended forever

above marble reflecting the sun.

With my prominent sculptor

I trudged convoluted roads

from Syntagma Square, past the Plaka

to stand in awe on that dry

crumbly crest.

He greeted

the nine Muses, his chiseled,

poised, confidants, as I

shifted my gaze to evade

their time-worn fixed eyes.

Who?

You know, the Muses he elbowed.

Unenlightened

I put up a false front.

I want to go back

to those nine graceful

figures, faces partially crumbled

by time. But time

is suspended

between us, I can barely

envision them there.

Daily, now, I want to go back

because I am burning to know:

What?

Which one is mine?

Exercise 2. Make up a list of fish species according to the model in exercise 2, Unit 1.Read, translate and transcribe each word on the list. Repeat for clarity of articulation. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Use the terms in sentences of your own.

Exercise 3. Listen, read, translate, and transcribe the following poem by Carol Levin. Repeat the nouns over and over. Accuracy first, the speed!

Parthenon at the Acropolis Above Athens

By its dynamics

it was going to entice us

to the top

stumbling

on loose

rocks losing ourselves

in a field of ancient stars.

It was going to be missing

its roof

because of the September 1687

explosion of the Ottoman Empire’s

gun powder.

It was going

to compel us to stand

inside cooling

our fingertips:

again and again

on worn smooth

white marble.

From inside it was going

to feel like we were

ants looking out at

some other world.

Below the doric

columns on winding

backstreets as well as boulevards

past universities and offices

of power,

it was going to be a year

we were touched by

an explosion in culture

here and everywhere

It was going to be routine

for students to burn

draft cards, flags,

old family ties,

some would take off

their clothes, let down

their hair, sing songs of revolution.

Parthenon at the Acropolis Above Athens

moon authority.

It was going to change

Everything

and forty years later

people diverse

as George, Glenna, Ann,

Beth and Rob

were going to be able

to instantly recount

where they were that

summer:

death, divorce, despair

and love

on planet earth

in nineteen-sixty-eight.

For any of us it’s true

we don’t know,

but what we would tell you

now is, before you stumble

when some oracle is

crystal-gazing

a rose-colored future,

watch closely

to augur the flap

of the butterfly’s

wings, as it’s been said, it’s their wind

changes the global order.

Exercise 4. Discuss the poem with your neighbour. Cite the author’s lines. Remember that you are not in competition with anyone, and that you will progress at your own rate. Make a recording of the way you sound as you begin your studies, and then make a comparison, recording every six to twelve months.