Collection 7: Poetry Unit 1
“A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 2
Reading Check & Thinking Critically
1. What does Hughes say will often happen when dreams are deferred/put on hold?
2. Identify all similes. What two things are being compared? What is the meaning behind each?
3. What is the metaphor in the last line? What deeper meaning is implied?
4. What images are portrayed in the comparisons? What theme can you deduce from the collection of
these images?
5. What is the tone of the poem? What diction (create a list) adds to the tone?
6. What are the two meanings of the word defer? How might the different meanings affect the meaning of
the poem?
7. Look up Langston Hughes on the internet and read about him and the time period in which he was
writing. How does this new knowledge add to your understanding of the poem?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 3
“The Cross of Snow” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face--the face of one long dead-Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died, and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 4
Reading Check & Thinking Critically
1. What is the significance of the title? What are different meanings of the word cross?
2. Who is the subject of the poem?
3. Where does the poem shift and why?
4. What Christian images are present in the poem? How do these images relate to the speaker? How do
these images relate to the subject?
5. What is the tone of the poem? How do you know? Identify the devices (diction, images, figurative
language, etc) that help create the tone.
6. Identify three objects that are used as symbols. What is the abstract meaning behind each?
7. Explore the sound devices used in the poem.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 5
“A Blessing” by James Wright page 148
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass,
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the
darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 6
Reading Check
1. What is the setting of the poem—where and when does it take place?
2. What were the ponies doing all day?
3. How do the ponies feel about the visit? How do they feel about each other?
4. Why does the speaker feel especially fond of one of the ponies?
Thinking Critically
5. What is different about the diction in the second line in comparison to the first?
6. What paradox is presented in lines 3-4? What effect does this contrast have?
7. What other paradoxes or contrasts are present?
8. Why does the poet use the qualifier “Indian” in describing the ponies? What image does this create for
the reader?
9. Most of the images in this poem appeal to the senses of sight and touch. List images that appeal to
either sense or both at once.
10. You may have read myths in which a character is fantastically changed from one form to another. This
change is called metamorphosis. What metamorphosis do you see in the last three lines of the poem?
What emotion do you think the speaker is expressing there?
11. What human qualities and feelings does the speaker give to the ponies?
12. What is the tone of the poem? What images in the poem help to create its tone?
13. How does the poet signal a shift for the reader?
14. What do you think of the title “A Blessing”? What does it have to do with the experience described in
the poem? What other titles can you suggest for the poem?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 7
“Once by the Pacific” by Robert Frost page 498
The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God’s last Put out the Light was spoken.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 8
Reading Check
1. Where is the speaker in “Once by the Pacific” standing as he observes the ocean? What are the waves
doing?
2. According to lines 10–11, what do the wild waves make the speaker think of?
3. Look at the last two lines of the sonnet, the concluding couplet. What dreadful thoughts is the speaker
sharing with us there?
Thinking Critically
4. What images in lines 1–4 help you picture the waves—and even hear them?
5. What images in lines 5–6 help you picture the clouds?
6. Whose “rage” is described in line 12? What could cause that rage?
7. Look back at Make the Connection on page 498. How does the last line of the sonnet differ from God’s
words of creation in the Bible?
8. What is the theme of the sonnet?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 9
“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” By Emily Dickinson page
511
"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—
I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 10
Reading Check
1. Dickinson uses a metaphor that compares hope to a bird. Where does the bird perch? Under what
conditions has the speaker heard it sing?
2. What does hope (or the bird) ask for in return for its song?
Thinking Critically
3. A gale is a strong wind. What do you think the “gale” symbolizes, or stands for, in this poem?
4. Think of all the ways Dickinson extends the metaphor. How is hope’s song endless? How does it keep
you warm?
5. How do you interpret what the speaker says about hope in the last stanza?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 11
“Women” by Alice Walker page 523
They were women then
My mama’s generation
Husky of voice—stout of
Step
With fists as well as
Hands
How they battered down
Doors
And ironed
Starched white
Shirts
How they led
Armies
Headragged generals
Across mined
Fields
Booby-trapped
Ditches
To discover books
Desks
A place for us
How they knew what we
Must know
Without knowing a page
Of it
Themselves.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 12
Reading Check
1. What generation of women does the speaker describe?
2. List three things that these women tried to obtain for their children.
3. How did they go about obtaining what they knew their children needed?
Thinking Critically
4. In lines 12–18, Walker uses an implied metaphor, suggesting rather than stating a comparison. What
does she compare the women to?
5. Think about the historical context of this poem. What “doors” did these women have to batter down?
What do you think the “mined fields” and “booby-trapped ditches” stand for?
6. What do you think these women knew their children had to know?
7. What is the speaker’s tone, her attitude toward these women? What words or phrases in the poem help
you identify the speaker’s tone?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 13
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth page
533
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 14
Reading Check
1. What is the speaker’s mood at the beginning of the poem?
2. As the speaker wanders, what does he see “all at once”?
3. How does the speaker’s mood change that day because of what he sees?
4. How does the memory of what he saw affect him later?
Thinking Critically
5. What simile does the speaker use to describe his loneliness?
6. In lines 11-14, what things are personified? What human qualities are given?
7. The word wealth can mean many different things. What kind of wealth is the speaker referring to in line
18?
8. How would you explain the “inward eye” in line 21 of the poem?
9. What idea is emphasized by the inverted word order in line 23?
10. Scan the first four lines of “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” to show the poem’s meter. Mark each
stressed syllable
and each unstressed syllable
. How does the meter affect the sound of the poem?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 15
“Legal Alien” by Pat Mora page 549
Bi-lingual, Bi-cultural,
able to slip from “How’s life?”
to “Me’stan volviendo loca,”
able to sit in a paneled office
drafting memos in smooth English,
able to order in fluent Spanish
at a Mexican restaurant,
American but hyphenated,
viewed by Anglos as perhaps exotic,
perhaps inferior, definitely different,
viewed by Mexicans as alien
(their eyes say, “You may speak
Spanish but you’re not like me”),
an American to Mexicans
a Mexican to Americans
a handy token
sliding back and forth
between the fringes of both worlds
by smiling
by masking the discomfort
of being pre-judged
Bi-laterally.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 16
Reading Check
1. According to the speaker, how do Americans view her?
2. Why does the speaker believe that Mexicans view her as “alien”?
3. What does her smile “mask,” or hide?
Thinking Critically
4. Who do you think the speaker of “Legal Alien” is? How do you know?
5. What does the speaker mean when she says, “American but hyphenated”? Who could say they are
unhyphenated Americans?
6. In line 16, the speaker uses a metaphor in which she compares herself to a token. However, token is a
word with multiple meanings. What different meanings of token is the poet suggesting?
7. Read the poem aloud, and listen carefully to how the speaker expresses her thoughts. How would you
describe the voice of the persona? To answer, consider her tone and her style of speaking.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 17
“American Hero” by Essex Hemphill page 552
I have nothing to lose tonight.
All my men surround me, panting,
as I spin the ball above our heads
on my middle finger.
It’s a shimmering club light
and I’m dancing, slick in my sweat.
Squinting, I aim at the hole
fifty feet away. I let the tension go.
Shoot for the net. Choke it.
I never hear the ball
slap the backboard. I slam it
through the net. The crowd goes wild
for our win. I scored
thirty-two points this game
and they love me for it.
Everyone hollering
is a friend tonight.
But there are towns,
certain neighborhoods
where I’d be hard pressed
to hear them cheer
if I move on the block.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 18
Thinking Critically
1. List at least three verbs that describe what the player in “American Hero” is doing before the crowd goes
wild in line 12.
2. Read “American Hero” aloud to hear how the short sentences re-create the tension of a basketball
game. Which part of speech—noun, verb, adjective, or adverb—is emphasized the most in these
sentences? Why?
3. What is the serious message/theme of the poem?
4. How does that poem’s title create a sense of irony—a sense that the title does not mean exactly what it
says?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 19
“Ballad of Birmingham” (On the bombing of a church in
Birmingham, Alabama, 1963) by Dudley Randall page 540
“Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?”
“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren’t good for a little child.”
“But, mother, I won’t be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free.”
“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children’s choir.”
She has combed and brushed her
night-dark hair,
And bathed rose-petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small
brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.
The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.
For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.
She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?”
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 20
Reading Check
1. Who are the two people who speak in this ballad?
2. What does the younger person ask permission to do? Why does the older person say no?
3. What happens that day in the church?
4. What does the older person find after clawing through glass and brick?
Thinking Critically
5. This ballad’s emotional effect is based in part on dramatic irony, which occurs when the reader knows
something that a character does not know. What does the reader know that the mother in the ballad
doesn’t know? Explain why the mother’s refusing to let her child join a demonstration and sending her
to church instead is a powerful example of dramatic irony.
6. Find and explain an example of irony (the contrast between what is expected or considered appropriate
and what actually happens) in “The History Behind the Ballad,” Taylor Branch’s historical account of the
church bombing (see the Connection on page 542).
7. This ballad does not have a refrain, but it does contain repetition. Which two lines are repeated? What
does the repetition of the words baby, child, and children add to the emotional effect of the poem?
8. Like many folk ballads this literary ballad is written in four-line stanzas with end rhymes. Which lines
rhyme in every stanza of this ballad?
9. Read the ballad aloud, paying special attention to its rhythm and end rhyme. How would you describe
the sound of the ballad?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 21
“Boy at the Window” by Richard Wilbur page 527
Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.
His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes
Returns him such a god-forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to Paradise.
The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,
Having no wish to go inside and die.
Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.
Though frozen water is his element,
He melts enough to drop from one soft eye
A trickle of the purest rain, a tear
For the child at the bright pane surrounded by
Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 22
Reading Check
1. The first stanza focuses on the boy. Where is he?
2. Why does the boy feel so sad that he weeps?
3. The second stanza focuses on the snowman. Why is the “man of snow” content?
4. What word in the last line reveals why the snowman feels so sad for the boy that he weeps?
Thinking Critically
5. Which words in line 4 personify the weather conditions as a threatening person or animal? What words
might a television weather reporter use to describe the same conditions?
6. What details in the poem personify, or give human qualities to, the snowman?
7. In line 8, the poet alludes, or refers, to the biblical account of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Paradise.
Why does the poet compare the snowman to Adam? What does the expression “god-forsaken” mean?
8. The boy and the snowman cry for each other. In the poem, who actually has more reason to feel sorry
for the other? In what ways is this ironic—just the opposite of what we might expect the situation to
be?
9. What do you think this poem is saying about fear, pity, and sympathy?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 23
“in Just - ” by E.E. Cummings page 490
in Justspring
when the world is mudluscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan
whistles
far
and
wee
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 24
Reading Check
1. What season of the year is the setting for this poem? What’s the weather like at that time of year?
2. List three activities that are mentioned in the poem.
3. Who is the central figure in this poem—the person who is mentioned three times?
4. What sound does this person make? Who is attracted to this sound?
Thinking Critically
5. What senses do the images “mud-luscious,” “whistles far and wee,” and “puddle–wonderful” appeal to?
What impact do these images have on the poem’s mood, or atmosphere?
6. Cummings is known for his unusual punctuation and arrangement of words. What are the children doing
in the poem that matches the leaps and jumps of the words? Why might Cummings have made single
words out of the names Eddie and Bill, Betty and Isbel?
7. Where does Pan, a famous goat–footed character from Greek mythology, enter this poem? Pan, who
has the cloven hooves and shaggy legs of a goat, is a god of the woodlands and of merrymaking. He is
usually shown playing a flute and leading shepherds in a dance. How is the balloon man like Pan?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 25
“Internment” by Juliet S. Kono page 513
Corralled, they are herded inland
from Santa Rosa.
After the long train ride
on the Santa Fe,
the physical exam,
the delousing with DDT,
the branding of her indignation,
she falls asleep.
Days later, she awakens
in an unfamiliar barracks—
Crystal City, Texas—
on land once a pasture.
Not wanting to,
not meaning to see beauty
in this stark landscape,
she sees, nonetheless,
through her tears—
on the double row
of barbed wire fencing
which holds them in
like stolid cattle—
dewdrops, impaled
and golden.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 26
Reading Check
1. In the first stanza, what events happen to the girl before she falls asleep?
2. Describe the place where she finds herself upon waking.
Thinking Critically
3. What words in the first stanza have connotations that suggest that Kono is comparing the imprisoned
travelers to cattle? Find the simile in the second stanza that restates this comparison. How do these
words help you to understand the girl’s feelings?
4. In Kono’s poem, what does the girl see that she considers beautiful? Why is she reluctant to find beauty
in her situation?
5. Look at the poet’s diction, or word choice, in line 22. What connotations, or associations, do you have
with the verb impaled? What other words could the poet have used to describe how the dewdrop is
fixed on the barbed wire?
6. What could the dewdrops in Kono’s poem symbolize, or stand for? (Consider the significance of the fact
that the fragile dewdrops are “impaled” on the barbed wire but are still “golden.”)
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 27
“The Gift” by Li-Young Lee page 545
To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.
I can’t remember the tale
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.
Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 28
Reading Check
1. What does the speaker of the poem remember about his father when he removed a splinter from the
speaker’s hand?
2. Later in the poem, whose splinter does the speaker remove?
3. What was the speaker given to keep? What did the speaker give his father in return?
Thinking Critically
4. In the first stanza, why do you think the father recited a story to his son?
5. Throughout the poem, Lee uses precise images. List at least four images that appeal to your senses of
sight, hearing, and touch and therefore help you imagine what happened to the little boy and to the
speaker’s wife.
6. In the second stanza, what metaphors does the speaker use to describe his father’s voice? What
metaphor describes his father’s hands? What do these figures of speech reveal about the speaker’s
feelings toward his father?
7. In the third stanza, whom do you think the speaker is talking to when he says “you”? What scene is
taking place in the present?
8. What does the speaker say he didn’t do with the shard, or piece of metal, in his hand? Why, instead, did
he kiss his father?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 29
9. How is the speaker’s behavior in the present, described in the third and fourth stanzas, similar to his
father’s behavior in the first two stanzas?
10. Read the poem aloud, and listen to the sounds it creates. The poet is so skillful that we hardly notice his
technique—but it is there. In line 1, what sounds are alliterated? What sentence pattern is repeated in
the third stanza? What pattern is repeated in the fourth stanza? What initial sound is alliterated in line
17?
11. In lines 26–32, the poem has a brief but intense change in tone. What is the tone, or the speaker’s
attitude, in these lines, and how does it differ from the tone in the rest of the poem? List words that
help create the tone in this section. Then, explain whether you find these lines distracting. Why might
the poet have included them?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 30
“The
Seven Ages of Man” from As You Like It by William Shakespeare page
520
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 31
Reading Check
1. In Shakespeare’s famous metaphor that compares the world to a stage, to what does he compare men
and women?
2. Shakespeare uses an extended metaphor when he has Jaques describe a person’s life as though it were
a play made up of seven acts. Name those seven acts.
Thinking Critically
3. In this monologue, what images help you picture childhood (the first two acts) as Jaques sees it? What
simile describes the schoolboy’s attitude toward school? How do you think Jaques feels about infants
and schoolboys?
4. If the justice’s belly is lined “with good capon,” what do we know about him? What details make the
judge seem like a ridiculous character?
5. According to Jaques, what physical and mental changes take place when a man reaches the sixth and
seventh ages? Does he make old age seem dignified or silly? What do you think of Jaques’s view of old
age?
6. Shakespeare’s famous lines were written more than four hundred years ago. Of the seven ages of man
that he characterizes, which do you think remain true to life today? Have any changed?
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 32
“Folding Won Tons In” by Abraham Chang page 509
I’ve seasoned the pork as I imagine my mother would—
sesame oil, ginger, pepper,
scallions chopped imperfectly.
Sheets of doughy skin,
I only have the skill
to buy.
Thumb and forefinger peel
each tender, white scrap of noodle
from the clinging stack.
I pat their centers pink
with fragrant spoonfuls
the color of the fat sun in October.
Mimicking from memory:
A twist, a tuck, a folding over—
a finger lick of water to seal
my misshapen flowers.
My hands powderdusted;
acquainted with each new blossom.
I line them up
like newborns huddled
together, waiting to be fed
to their distant fathers.
The soup bubbles to overflowing,
I slide the dumplings in
and stir them in their dizzy descent.
Drowned, swollen,
and glistening; steam hidden
for an instant—
I set them on the table
and decide how many
I will save
for one more day.
Collection 7: Poetry Unit 33
Reading Check
1. List all the steps the speaker follows as he makes the won tons.
2. What does the speaker do with the won tons after they’re made?
Thinking Critically
3. Imagine that you are the poet. Which image—a word or phrase that appeals to your senses—in this
poem would you feel most pleased with? Why does it especially please you?
4. This poem is full of figures of speech that create vivid images. List the figures of speech—all the things
that the won tons are compared to. How does the speaker feel about his won-ton soup?
5. Read the first stanza aloud, paying attention to the end-stopped lines and the run-on line. What is the
subject of the sentence that begins on line 4?