English 10Chu
The Legend
By Garret Hongo
In Chicago, it is snowing softly
and a man has just done his wash for the week.
He steps into the twilight of early evening,
carrying a wrinkled shopping bag
full of neatly folded clothes,
and, for a moment, enjoys
the feel of warm laundry and crinkled paper,
flannellike against his gloveless hands.
There a Rembrandt[1] glow on his face,
a triangle of orange in the hollow of his cheek
as a last flash of sunset
blazes the storefronts and lit windows of the street.
He is Asian, Thai or Vietnamese,
and very skinny, dressed as one of the poor
in rumpled suit pants and a plaid mackinaw,[2]
dingy and too large.
He negotiates the slick of ice
On the sidewalk by his car,
opens the Fairlane’s back door,
leans to place the laundry in,
and turns, for an instant,
toward the flurry of footsteps
and cries of pedestrians
as a boy – that’s all he was –
backs from the corner package store[3]
shooting a pistol, firing it,
once, at the dumbfounded man
who falls forward,
grabbing at his chest.
A few sounds escape from his mouth,
a babbling no one understands,
as people surround him
bewildered at his speech.
The noises he makes are nothing to them.
The boy has gone, lost
In the light array of foot traffic
dappling the snow with fresh prints.
Tonight, I read about Descartes’
grand courage to doubt everything
except his own miraculous existence[4]
and I feel so distinct
from the wounded man lying on the concrete
I am ashamed.
Let the night sky cover him as he dies,
Let the weaver girl cross the bridge of heaven
and take up his cold hands.
“The Legend”
Literary Response and Analysis Questions
Directions:
Read the questions carefully. Respond to each thoroughly, insightfully and correctly in complete sentences. Answers are worth two points each.
- Describe the poem’s setting, or time and place.
- In this poem an ordinary street scene is suddenly transformed by a tragic event. What happens?
- Why do you suppose the speaker in the poem says he feels ashamed? (Re-read lines 38-43)
- What images does Hongo use to help you feel as if you were an eyewitness to the setting, the characters, and the event (lines 1-37)?
- How would you describe the poem’s tone? In other words, what is the poet’s attitude toward the event he’s made into a poem? List some of the details and words the poet uses to create the tone.
ELA Content Standard 3.7 (Narrative Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text)
[1] Rembrandt: Dutch painter (1606-1669), famous for his dramatic use of color and of light and shadow.
[2] mackinaw: noun short, double-breasted coat made of heavy woolen cloth, usually plaid
[3] package store: retail store where alcohol is sold
[4] Descartes’ grand courage to doubt everything: Rene Descartes (1596-1650), a French philosopher and mathematician, attempted to explain the universe by reason alone. In his search for truth, he discarded all traditional ideas and doubted everything. The one thing he could not doubt was the fact that he was doubting, which led him to conclude, “I think; therefore I am” (in Latin, Cogito, ergo sum).