Modern Poetry – 45 Questions Total – Submit responses to turnitin.com on ______________
Robert Frost (From the textbook): For these analyze all of the questions (with a few exceptions noted below) in the textbook.
Read the biography on Robert Frost in the textbook and/or online.
“Design” (Page 718) – skip question 1, 9, 10, 11 (7 Questions total)
“Mending Wall” (Page 727) – skip questions 1, 3, 5, and 13 (9 Questions total)
Robert Frost “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening”
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
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10
1. What images does the poem create and what
connotations do words like “woods,” “snow,”
“dark,” and “miles” have?
2. When the speaker says he has miles to go
before he sleeps what is he probably thinking of?
What metaphorical sleep might he refer to?
3. The big question set up the by the poem is what
those lovely, dark, and deep woods symbolize
to the traveler. What do you think? What has
the speaker said no to in passing them by?
4. Whatever the woods stand for, what has the
speaker said yes to in deciding to go on? How
has he resolved his conflict?
5. How do the structure/style of the poem
and also the mood function?
15
Read the biography of William Carlos Williams, his poems “The Red Wheelbarrow”, “The Great Figure”,
and “This is Just to Say” (pages 591-595) and answer questions 1-7 on page 596
Read the biography of Langston Hughes on page 749 in the textbook and/or one online.
Read the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” on page 759 and answer questions 1-7 that follow it.
Langston Hughes “A Dream Deferred”
Harlem
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?
5
10
1. Analyze the similes in the poem, the words and
images of the similes, and their overall effect.
2. What do you make of the structure of the text?
3. What is the tone of the poem and why?
E.E. Cummings (Biography on page 601)
“[in Just-]”
1. What images are present and what mood does
the imagery create?
2. How are diction and structure used effectively
in the poem?
3. What is the tone of the poem and why?
in Justspring
when the world is mudluscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles
far
and wee
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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
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from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
15
it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed1
balloonMan
far
and
wee
1
20
whistles
Reference to Pan, lustful Greek god depicted as half human and half goat. Though ugly, Pan chased after nymphs and was a
wonderful musician.
Gary Soto
“Practicing Eulogies”
Momma cat died in the weeds,
A stink swirling in my nostrils
Until the flat hand of slapping rain
Leveled its odor. Then a neighbor died, The one who said, Look, I got my wife's cancer–
His bony hands transparent as paper.
5
1. What imagery stands out in the poem
and what effect and meaning does it
create?
2. What is the tone of the poem and why?
3. Where is the irony in the poem?
4. What is the poem’s theme
and use
That was more than I needed
–mortal cat and mortal, old man–
And walked to the courthouse to sit by a pond,
Sickly fish gasping, their gills like razor slits.
Turd-coiled toads lay on the bottom, not daring to come up.
I was stirring the surface with a finger
When a suicidal cricket leaped into the pond.
Honest-to-God, I tried to save that armored insect–
My hand scooped and scooped
Like a pelican. The fish,
Sick as they were, ate antenna and spindly legs. On the way home, I petted a stray dog, Stared at a bird's egg cracked like a crown, And wondered about death, That flea-juice under my fingernail. I grew scared. In the kitchen, The neighbor's rooster was on the stove,
Boiling among diced celery and coins of carrots.
Do saints ever sleep? I asked my mom,
And she said, Put out the big spoons.
We ate that rooster, Tastier than store-bought chicken.
After dinner I got Frankie's left claw
And my brother got the right claw. We worked the tendons like pulleys
As the claws opened and closed on things–
My laughing brother picked up pencils and erasers. Sensitive me, I went for the box of Kleenex, Tendons closing and tissues jerking up like ghosts.
textual evidence to back it up.
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