jo-online.vsb.bc.cajo-online.vsb.bc.ca/.../aulakh/files/2008/12/Poems-for-Chrysalids.docx · Web viewof any words you don’t know; every word counts in poetry and it will help you

Eng 9 POETRY & The Chyrsalids H. Aulakh

Name: __________________

INSTRUCTIONS:

For each of the poems follow the basic “How to read a poem” steps. In addition to those directions I have

included specific instructions that will help you analyze the poems.

1. Read the title & note down any thoughts. After reading the poem over 2-3 times, note down any first

impressions, thoughts, and reactions: mood, images, voice, theme, etc.

2. Listen to the poem and mark the sound devices: alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia,

rhyme, rhythm, rhyme scheme, etc. What effect is created by the sound devices? Ex. Creates a soft,

soothing mood.

3. Go line by line to find & mark the examples of figurative language: simile, metaphor, hyperbole,

personification, symbolism, imagery, irony, etc. Try to figure out what the figurative meaning is for

each example. Ex. What is the metaphor comparing & what does it mean. Ex. What does it

symbolize & what does it mean. Find the definition of any words you don’t know; every word counts

in poetry and it will help you understand the poem.

4. Go line by line (couple of lines at a time) and summarize what’s being said.

5. Piece together the summaries you have and connect it to the info you gathered about the sound

devices. Consider what the poem is saying. What’s the theme? What’s the mood? How do you

know this?

6. By now you should be able to explain the poem in a few lines.

7. Connect the poem to the novel The Chyrsalids. Write down your connections.


If You Could Read My Mind

If you could read my mind, love,

What a tale my thoughts could tell.

Just like an old time movie,

'Bout a ghost from a wishing well.

In a castle dark or a fortress strong,

With chains upon my feet.

You know that ghost is me.

And I will never be set free

As long as I'm a ghost that you can't see.

If I could read your mind, love,

What a tale your thoughts could tell.

Just like a paperback novel,

The kind the drugstores sell.

Then you reached the part where the heartaches

come,

The hero would be me.

But heroes often fail,

And you won't read that book again

Because the ending's just too hard to take!

I'd walk away like a movie star

Who gets burned in a three way script.

Enter number two:

A movie queen to play the scene

Of bringing all the good things out in me.

But for now, love, let's be real;

I never thought I could feel this way

And I've got to say that I just don't get it.

I don't know where we went wrong,

But the feeling's gone

And I just can't get it back.

If you could read my mind, love,

What a tale my thoughts could tell.

Just like an old time movie,

'Bout a ghost from a wishing well.

In a castle dark or a fortress strong.

With chains upon my feet.

But stories always end,

And if you read between the lines,

You'd know that I'm just tryin' to understand

The feelin's that you lack.

I never thought I could feel this way

And I've got to say that I just don't get it.

I don't know where we went wrong,

But the feelin's gone

And I just can't get it back!

--Gordon Lightfoot


Earth

"A planet doesn't explode of itself," said drily

The Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air --

"That they were able to do it is proof that highly

Intelligent beings must have been living there."

-- John Hall Wheelock

War

Dawn came slowly,

almost not at all.

The sun crept over the hill

cautiously

fearful of being hit

by mortar fire.

-- Dan Roth

The Grey Squirrel

Like a small grey

coffee-pot,

sits the squirrel.

He is not

all he should be,

kills by dozens

trees, and eats

his red-brown cousins.

The keeper on the

other hand,

who shot him, is

a Christian, and

loves his enemies,

which shows

the squirrel was not

one of those.

-- Humbert Wolfe


Your Attention Please

The Polar DEW has just warned that

A nuclear rocket strike of

At least one thousand megatons

Has been launched by the enemy

Directly at our major cities.

This announcement will take

Two and a quarter minutes to make,

You therefore have a further

Eight and a quarter minutes

To comply with the shelter

Requirements published in the Civil

Defence Code - section Atomic Attack.

A specially shortened Mass

Will be broadcast at the end

Of this announcement -

Protestant and Jewish services

Will begin simultaneously -

Select your wavelength immediately

According to instructions

In the Defence Code. Do not

Take well-loved pets (including birds)

Into your shelter - they will consume

Fresh air. Leave the old and bed-

ridden, you can do nothing for them.

Remember to press the sealing

Switch when everyone is in

The shelter. Set the radiation

Aerial, turn on the geiger barometer.

Turn off your Television now.

Turn off your radio immediately

The Services end. At the same time

Secure explosion plugs in the ears

Of each member of your family. Take

Down your plasma flasks. Give your children

The pills marked one and two

In the C.D green container, then put

Them to bed. Do not break

The inside airlock seals until

The radiation All Clear shows

(Watch for the cuckoo in your

perspex panel), or your District

Touring Doctor rings your bell.

If before this, your air becomes

Exhousted or if any of your family

In critically injured, administer

The capsules marked 'Valley Forge'

(Red Pocket in No. 1 Survival Kit)

For painless death. (Catholics

Will have been instructed by their priests

What to do in this eventuality).

This announcement is ending. Our President

Has already given orders for

Massive retaliation - it will be

Decisive. Some of us may die.

Remember, statistically

It is not likely to be you.

All flags are flying fully dressed

On Government buildings - the sun is shining.

Death is the least we have to fear.

We are all in the hands of God,

Whatever happens happens by His Will.

Now go quickly to your shelters.

-- Peter Porter


Sonnet -- To Science

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or deem thee wise?

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jeweled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Has thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

-- Edgar Allan Poe

V.B. Nimble, V.B. Quick

V.B. Wigglesworth wakes at noon,

Washes, shaves and very soon

Is at the lab; he reads his mail,

Swings a tadpole by the tail,

Undoes his coat, removes his hat,

Dips a spider in a vat

Of alkaline, phones the press,

Tells them he is F.R.S.,

Subdivides six protocells,

Kills a rat by ringing bells,

Writes a treatise, edits two

Symposia on "Will man do?,"

Gives a lecture, audits three,

Has the sperm club in for tea,

Pensions off an ageing spore,

Cracks a test tube, takes some pure

Science and applies it, finds,

His hat, adjusts it, pulls the blinds,

Instructs the jellyfish to spawn,

And, by one o'clock, is gone.

-- John Updike


O sweet spontaneous

O sweet spontaneous

earth how often have

the

doting

fingers of

purient philosophers pinched

and

poked

thee

,has the naughty thumb

of science prodded

thy

beauty .how

oftn have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees

squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive

gods

(but

true

to the incomparable

couch of death thy

rhythmic

lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

-- e e cummings

There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the

ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering

sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

-- Sara Teasdale


The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

-- Robert Frost

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

-- Robert Frost

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost


The World is Too Much With Us

The World is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

The winds that will be howling at all hours

And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be

A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,-

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

-- William Wordsworth Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert ... Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless

things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works ye mighty and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley


Die Gedanken Sind Frei (Our Thoughts Are Free)

Die Gedanken sind frei

My thoughts freely flower,

Die Gedanken sind frei

My thoughts give me power.

No scholar can map them,

No hunter can trap them,

No man can deny:

Die Gedanken sind frei!

I think as I please

And this gives me pleasure,

My conscience decrees,

This right I must treasure;

My thoughts will not cater

To duke or dictator,

No man can deny--


And if tyrants take me

And throw me in prison

My thoughts will burst free,

Like blossoms in season.

Foundations will crumble,

The structure will tumble,

And free men will cry:


Neither trouble or pain

Will ever touch me again.

No good comes of fretting,

My hope's in forgetting.

Within myself still

I can think as I will,

But I laugh, do not cry:


-- Traditional

(German song sung esp. during WWII vs Nazis)

Where The Mind is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is

held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into

fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards

perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its

way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-

widening thought and action--

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my

country awake.

-- Rabindranath Tagore


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


Born This Way

It doesn't matter if you love him or capital H-I-M

Just put your paws up

'Cause you were born this way, baby

My mama told me when I was young

We are all born superstars

She rolled my hair and put my lipstick on

In the glass of her boudoir

There's nothin' wrong with lovin' who you are

She said, 'cause He made you perfect, babe

So hold your head up, girl and you you'll go far

Listen to me when I say

I'm beautiful in my way

'Cause God makes no mistakes

I'm on the right track, baby

I was born this way

Don't hide yourself in regret

Just love yourself and you're set


I was born this way, born this way

[chorus]

Ooh, there ain't no other way, baby, I was born this

way

Baby, I was born this way


way

I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way

Don't be a drag, just be a queen



Don't be

Give yourself prudence and love your friends

Subway kid, rejoice of truth

In the religion of the insecure

I must be myself, respect my youth

A different lover is not a sin

Believe capital H-I-M

I love my life, I love this record and

Mi amore vole fe yah

(translation: my love needs faith)

I'm beautiful in my way,



I was born this way

Don't hide yourself in regret,



I was born this way


way




way


Don't be drag, just be a queen

Whether you're broke or evergreen

You're black, white, beige, chola descent

You're Lebanese, you're orient

Whether life's disabilities

Left you outcast, bullied or teased

Rejoice and love yourself today

'Cause baby, you were born this way

No matter gay, straight or bi

Lesbian, transgendered life


I was born to survive

No matter black, white or beige

Chola or orient made


I was born to be brave

I'm beautiful in my way



I was born this way

Don't hide yourself in regret,



I was born this way, yeah


way



way


I was born this way, hey


I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way,

hey



I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way,

hey

-- Lady Gaga

Documents

jo-online.vsb.bc.cajo-online.vsb.bc.ca/.../aulakh/files/2008/12/Poems-for-Chrysalids.docx · Web viewof any words you don’t know; every word counts in poetry and it will help you