We Are Here Because We Want to Learn About Poetry: By The Bears

Hello everyone! We are the bears. Some of you have noticed that we have recently been spending a lot of time around Hanover. You may have been hearing some rumors about why we came here in the first place, so we want to clear things up. The answer is that we, the bears, are here because we hope to learn a thing or two about poetry.

Yes, you heard us correctly. We bears love poetry and just can’t get enough of it. Sonnets, epics, free verse, anything. As long as it’s not prose, we want it.

Here’s the thing — there are not too many poems in the woods, which is where we live because we are bears. We heard that Dartmouth has poems and so we decided to stop by. Our plan is to read as much poetry as we can find, which, if our understanding of Dartmouth is correct, is a lot of poetry. We can start with Chaucer and go from there.

You folks at Dartmouth might be wondering what we bears have to offer in exchange for learning about your poetry. Good question. In fact, we had quite a long walk down here from the Canadian border, and so we used that time to memorize the entirety of “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. This is our favorite poem and we are prepared to recite it to you.

After that, we can recite “The Waste Land,” because we have memorized that poem too.

We have not been here very long, but so far it seems like there is one issue that will make it difficult for us to read poetry every day from dawn to dusk. The issue is that bears are not allowed inside most buildings, and we are bears. We are working on a solution to this problem, but until then, trees will be a suitable place to learn about poetry.

Speaking of trees, it looks like it is time for us to go to Mink Brook and discuss the works of Elizabeth Bishop. We will be halfway up an Eastern White Pine near the river bend, if you would like to join.

By the way, would you be so kind as to let us know if any Classics courses are open to bears? We would like to learn about ancient Rome, too.

– LT ’19