Poetry Section-20 Pts
Poetry Section-20 pts
Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)
If—
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run--
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
Questions for “If” (1 point per question):
1. How many stanzas are there?__________ How many lines per stanza? ____________
2. What is the rhyming scheme? _______________________
3. Summarize the messages in the poem in a few sentences:
4. Who is the speaker in this poem? Who is the speaker speaking to?
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
-- Maya Angelou
Questions for “Still I Rise” (1 point per question):
1. What is the rhyming scheme? ____________________________
2. Who is the poet talking to? __________________________________
3. What is the impact of the repetition of the words “I’ll rise”?
4. Why does the poet use naturally negative words such as “sassiness” or “haughtiness” (among others)? How do these words enforce the message?
The Lesson
I keep on dying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live.
Maya Angelou
Questions for “The Lesson” (1 point per question):
1. What poetic device is the poet applying the concept of “Death” to?
2. The poet is an African American woman who has struggled for the rights of her people, therefore what would death mean to a person like her?
3. This is an optimistic poem. What lines tell you so?
4. This poem uses a lot of imagery, find all the lines of imagery:
.
Part Four: Time and Eternity
XXVII
--Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924
BECAUSE I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’t is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
**cornice: a horizontal molded projection that crowns or completes a building or wall.
Questions for “Because I could not stop for Death…” (1 point per question):
1. What two things are being personified in this poem? What are they being personified as?
2. What does the drive symbolize? How do the children and the journey relate to the poet’s own life?
3. What does the house represent? What is the effect of describing it as a house?
4. The imagery of the poem is very concrete until the last stanza, why has the language suddenly become abstract?
Liberty Needs Glasses
excuse me but lady liberty needs glasses
and so does mrs justice by her side
both the broads r blind as bats
stumbling thru the system
justice bumbed into mutulu and
trippin on geronimo pratt
but stepped right over oliver
and his crooked partner ronnie
justice stubbed her big toe on mandela
and liberty was misquoted by the indians
slavery was a learning phase
forgotten with out a verdict
while justice is on a rampage
4 endangered surviving black males
i mean really if anyone really valued life
and cared about the masses
theyd take em both 2 pen optical
and get 2 pair of glasses
-- Tupac
Questions for “Liberty Needs Glasses” (1 point per question):
1. Find:
A simile (1 point):
Two objects personified (1 point):
People Tupac is alluding to (at least two-1 point):
2. What do the glasses symbolize?