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SECTION B — POETRY
2.
Read the following poem carefully and answer ALL the questions that follow.
To A Daughter
He never hoped for you, he never not:
It was you who gave birth to a father.
A baby, you often wanted to play
with the only friend you had all day long
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but the drug of Work would pull him away
to a desk, piano, easel or stove.
If he felt you were keeping him from other
life like salt running out, he might bark
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Leave me alone, in the anger of fear
and he would feel his voice quiver your spine.
But you never stopped running to embrace
him, teaching how gratuitous is love.
Your father’s love for you, shadowed by pain,
clouded by duty, was never as free.
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Yet though you’re now ‘tall as a lantern post’,
you still sit on his knee and hug his neck;
but that he once frightened you still frightens him
should he snap Leave me alone, meaning now Don’t.
Brian Chang, “To A Daughter.”
In The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse,
Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 246.
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(a)
State TWO qualities of the father. Support your answer with evidence from the poem.
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(4 marks)
(b)
Explain the meaning of line 2, “It was you who gave birth to a father.”
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(3 marks)
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(c)
Identify ONE simile OR metaphor used in the poem and comment on its effectiveness.
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(3 marks)
(d)
Suggest ONE instance in the poem when the mood changes and give ONE reason for this
change.
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(3 marks)
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(e)
Who is the speaker in the poem? Provide ONE reason for your answer.
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(3 marks)
(f)
Suggest how the structure of the poem reinforces the meaning.
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(4 marks)
Total 20 marks
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