An Epilogue
I have seen flowers come in stony places,
And kind things done by men with ugly faces,
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
So I trust too.
John Masefield
Starter: Vocabulary Recap
Enjambment
Two or more words near one another
that start with the same letter
Alliteration
The mood of a poem
Stanza
Lines of a poem that run onto the next
line without punctuation
Onomatopoeia
Another word for a verse
Tone
Words that sound like the thing
they’re describing. E.g. splash.
Starter: Vocabulary Recap
Enjambment
Lines of a poem that run onto the next
line without punctuation
Alliteration
Two or more words near one another
that start with the same letter
Stanza
Another word for a verse
Onomatopoeia
Words that sound like the thing
they’re describing. E.g. splash.
Tone
The mood of a poem
Unseen Poetry
L.O.
To decipher the mood of a poem.
“Reading poetry is the same as
reading anything else – a leaflet, a
novel, a play.”
Do you agree with this statement?
Why, or why not?
Answer the following questions about the
stanza you have been given:
What is the tone of the poem?
Explain with evidence.
Hint: use a dictionary to look up words you don’t know.
Extension:
Find 3 language features in your stanza
and label them: what is their effect?
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labour in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Now that you
see the whole
poem, has
your opinion
of the tone
changed?
Explain why,
or why not.
Extension: find
two quotations to
back up your
opinion of the
poem’s tone.
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labour in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden
Those Winter Sundays
1. What images does
Hayden use in the
poem? Make a list.
2. Why do you think he
chose these
particular images?
How do they affect
the tone of the
poem?
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
We’ve looked at imagery.
Now annotate the poem
with any other language
features that you notice.
Ext: explain the
effect of these
language features.
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Quick Analysis
• What story do you think is behind this poem?
• What was the speaker’s childhood like? (PEEL)
• What relationship does the speaker have with
his father? (PEEL)
Ext: how does the poet create a sense of
atmosphere in the house? (PEEL)
Point
Evidence
Explain
Language Feature
Plenary
• Write one more verse to add into the middle
of ‘Those Winter Sundays’.
• You could think about what other things the
speaker experienced during childhood, either
happy or sad.