Name ________________________________
Love Poem
By Frederick Nims
Section
10.1
10.2
10.3
HW Directions:
1) Read each poem multiple times.
2) Complete an accurate paraphrase for each in the
margin to the right of each poem.
3) Complete the theme box in each FIRSTT table. You
don’t have to do the rest for now.
My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china,1 burs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing
2
4
6
Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.
8
10
Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers' terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before apopleptic streetcars—
Misfit in any space. And never on time.
12
14
16
A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease;
In traffic of wit2 expertly maneuver
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.
18
20
Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstick grinning on our coat,
So gaily3 in love's unbreakable heaven
Our souls on glory of spilt bourbon float.
22
24
26
Be with me, darling, early and late. Smash glasses—
I will study wry4 music for your sake.
For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.
28
“bulls in china”  a reference to the idea of how destructive a bull would be in a shop of fancy but delicate
porcelain chinaware (like teapots, plates, etc)
2 “traffic in wit”  clever speaking
3 gaily (adv)  happily
4 wry (adj)  mocking, humorous
1
1
Poem:
My Name:
Examples
How It Supports the Theme
Form (pay attention to title, line
breaks, ending)
Imagery (positive vs. negative
connotations; symbols;
figurative language like similes,
metaphors, personification,
hyperbole)
Rhymes and Rhythms
(patterns and breaks in the
pattern)
Sound Devices (alliteration,
consonance, assonance,
onomatopoeia)
Tone (attitudes + shifts in
attitudes)
*Theme* (overall what the poet
is trying to suggest)
2
Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
2
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;5
4
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
6
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
8
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
10
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
12
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
14
As any she belied6 with false compare.
5
6
dun (adj): a dullish, gray-brown
belie (v): to contradict; to be at odds with
3
Poem:
My Name:
Examples
How It Supports the Theme
Form (pay attention to title, line
breaks, ending)
Imagery (positive vs. negative
connotations; symbols;
figurative language like similes,
metaphors, personification,
hyperbole)
Rhymes and Rhythms
(patterns and breaks in the
pattern)
Sound Devices (alliteration,
consonance, assonance,
onomatopoeia)
Tone (attitudes + shifts in
attitudes)
*Theme* (overall what the poet
is trying to suggest)
4