Miscellaneous Poetry Discussion

Answer ALL of the following questions with a well-developed paragraph each.  Please use a quotation from the poem in question to support your answer.  As always, you are encouraged to leave thoughtful feedback on the posts of your peers for possible extra credit.

1) Most people think of poetry as being kind of “decorative” or pretty, but Julia Alvarez clearly believes it can change lives.  Do you agree or disagree?  How does it change the lives of the individual people in the poem?

2) In Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, what has the relationship between the woman and men been like when she was young?  What is it like now?  How does she feel about this change?

3) In lines 9 -14, the poem uses a metaphor – it equates the woman with a tree.  Explain this connection and what the metaphor means in terms of the woman’s feelings/relationships/age.a

4)  Write out the rhyme scheme of “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed.”  Review the “Introduction to Poetry” Power Point if you need help.

5) Etheridge Knight, who wrote “Hard Rock Returns,” really did spend time in prison and wrote most of his poems, this one included, while incarcerated.  Do you think that lends his poem more credibility?  How is the tone/content/diction of this poem different from “traditional” poetry?

6) In the last three lines of “Hard Rock Returns…,” Knight uses the following simile:
“The fears of years, like a biting whip,
Had cut deep bloody grooves
Across our backs.”
What image is Knight trying to evoke with this simile, and how does the story of Hard Rock relate to it?

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