Poetry Responses – February and March



10 pts.
literary elements- tone and attitude; diction such as colloquial, slang, formal, action packed with verbs,
repetition; figurative language such as simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, imagery, symbolism, irony,
paradox, allusion; form such as villanelle, sonnet, sestina, haiku, tanka, free verse; sound devices such as
assonance, alliteration, consonance, onomatopoeia, euphony, cacophony, rhyme, rhythm; organization
including idea development, line and/or stanza use (1 pt. each underlined element)
Topic and Idea – identify the topic; explain an idea you derived from the poem (2 pts.)
Relevance – this poem makes you think about . . . (relevance, connections) (1 pt.)
A:
B:
You’re late
I know
I couldn’t help it
A:
B.
I understand
I knew you would
A:
B:
I have something for you
Really
What
A:
This
1. Perhaps because bats are nocturnal in habit, a wealth of thoroughly unreliable legend has grown up about them, and
men have made of the harmless, even beneficial little beasts a means of expressing their unreasoned fears. Bats
were the standard of paraphernalia for witches; the female half of humanity stood in terror that bats would become
entangled in their hair. Phrases crept into the language expressing man’s revulsion or ignorance -“bats in the
belfry,” “batty,” “blind as a bat.” Franklin Folsom, “Life in Caves”
Read the passage and underline the words that reveal the attitude of the speaker towards bats. Then underline the
words that reveal his feelings about humans. What inferences can you draw about the tone of the work as a whole?
2. In the annals of medical science, no virus has given doctors as much trouble as the Scholastic Adolescum, otherwise
known as school sickness. The Scholastic Adolescum has been known to attack children of all ages and on every
economic and social level. The symptoms are always the same. The child wakes up in the morning and says he has a
“pain in the stomach,” a “headache,” a “sore throat,” or he “just doesn’t feel well.” In rare cases he might also have
a “slight” fever. What has puzzled scientists for years is that the virus only attacks on weekdays and never on
weekends or during the summer vacations. It lasts only 24 hours, and while it has no serious side-effects; it keep
returning during the school year and even builds up in intensity just before test time. From Art Buchwald, Son of
the Great Society
At what point in the passage did you realize it was a humorous piece? What words contribute to the humor? What
is the attitude of the speaker? Close your eyes and visualize the speaker. What is the tone? Is the speaker angry?
What is his mood?
3.
What a thrill –
My thumb instead of an onion,
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of a hinge
O skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white,
Then a red plush
-Sylvia Plath, “Cut: For Susan O’Neill Roe”
4. “The Coming of Wisdom with Time”
William Butler Yeats
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
“Southern Cop”
Let us forgive Ty Kendricks.
The place was Darktown. He was young.
His nerves were jittery. The day was hot.
The Negro ran out of the alley.
And so Ty shot.
Let us understand Ty Kendricks.
The Negro must have been dangerous.
Because he ran;
And here was a rookie with a chance
To prove himself a man.
Let us condone Ty Kendricks
If we cannot decorate.
When he found what the Negro was running for,
It was too late;
And all we can say for the Negro is
It was unfortunate.
Let us pity Ty Kendricks.
He has been through enough,
Standing there, his big gun smoking,
Rabbit-scared, alone.
Having to hear the wenches wail
And the dying Negro moan.
Sterling A. Brown
Windchime
BY TONY HOAGLAND
She goes out to hang the windchime
in her nightie and her work boots.
It’s six-thirty in the morning
and she’s standing on the plastic ice chest
tiptoe to reach the crossbeam of the porch,
windchime in her left hand,
hammer in her right, the nail
gripped tight between her teeth
but nothing happens next because
she’s trying to figure out
how to switch #1 with #3.
She must have been standing in the kitchen,
coffee in her hand, asleep,
when she heard it—the wind blowing
through the sound the windchime
wasn’t making
because it wasn’t there.
No one, including me, especially anymore believes
till death do us part,
but I can see what I would miss in leaving—
the way her ankles go into the work boots
as she stands upon the ice chest;
the problem scrunched into her forehead;
the little kissable mouth
with the nail in it.
Flirtation
BY RITA DOVE
After all, there’s no need
to say anything
at first. An orange, peeled
and quartered, flares
like a tulip on a wedgewood plate
Anything can happen.
Outside the sun
has rolled up her rugs
and night strewn salt
across the sky. My heart
is humming a tune
I haven’t heard in years!
Quiet’s cool flesh—
let’s sniff and eat it.
There are ways
to make of the moment
a topiary
so the pleasure’s in
walking through.