Grade 11

Poetry Pack
2017

English Home
Language
A Far Cry from Africa: Derek Walcott
A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: 5
‘Waste no compassion on these separate dead!’
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy,
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews? 10
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilization’s dawn A Far Cry from Africa by
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain. Derek Walcott deals with
the theme of split identity
The violence of beast on beast is read 15
and anxiety caused by it in
As natural law, but upright man
the face of the struggle in
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain. which the poet could side
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars with neither party. It is, in
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum, short, about the poet’s
While he calls courage still that native dread 20 ambivalent feelings
Of the white peace contracted by the dead. towards the Kenyan
terrorists and the counter-
Again brutish necessity wipes its hands terrorist white colonial
Upon the napkins of a dirty cause, again government, both of
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain, which were 'inhuman',
The gorilla wrestles with the superman. 25 during the independence
I who am poisoned with the blood of both, struggle of the country in
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein? the 1950s. The persona,
I who have cursed probably the poet himself,
can take favour of none of
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
them since both bloods
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love? 30
circulate along his veins.
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?

Questions:

1. Discuss the theme of the poem.

2. What does the idiom ‘a far cry’ mean?
3. Discuss how imagery is used in the poem.
4. Discuss how violence and cruelty is brought out in the poem.
5. Explain in detail what the subject of the poem is.
Eating Poetry
By Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. 1

There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.

Her eyes are sad 5
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone. “Eating Poetry” is a short

The light is dim. poem in free verse, its
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up. eighteen lines divided
into six stanzas. The title
Their eyeballs roll, 10
their blond legs burn like brush. suggests either comedy
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep. or surrealism, and the
poem contains elements
She does not understand. of both. Mark Strand uses
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
the first person to create
she screams. 15
a persona whose voice is
I am a new man. Strand’s but whose
I snarl at her and bark. experience is imaginary;
I romp with joy in the bookish dark. indeed, the fact that the
poem is a work of
imagination is the main
point.

Questions:
1. Explain the metaphor in the title. (2)

2. Refer to stanzas 1 and 2. What has happened to the speaker? Quote in

support of your answer. (2)

3. In terms of the extended metaphor, what happened to the poems that

they ‘are gone’ in line 7? (1)

4. Account for the change in the librarian’s behaviour. (2)

5. The first and last stanzas support the same idea. Explain fully. (2)

5. Identify the tone of the poem. (1)

[10]
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
John Donne, 1572 – 1631

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
“The breath goes now," and some say, “No,"

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,

Men reckon what it did and meant; 10
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent. John Donne (22 January
1573 – 31 March 1631)
Dull sublunary lovers’ love was an English poet
and cleric in the Church of
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit England.
Absence, because it doth remove 15
Those things which elemented it.

But we, by a love so much refined

That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion.
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so 25

As stiff twin compasses are two:
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do;

And though it in the center sit,

Yet when the other far doth roam, 30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35
And makes me end where I begun.
 "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"
The poet begins by comparing the love between his beloved and himself with
the passing away of virtuous men. Such men expire so peacefully that their friends
cannot determine when they are truly dead. Likewise, his beloved should let the
two of them depart in peace, not revealing their love to “the laity.”

Earthquakes bring harm and fear about the meaning of the rupture, but such
fears should not affect his beloved because of the firm nature of their love. Other
lovers become fearful when distance separates them—a much greater distance
than the cracks in the earth after a quake—since for them, love is based on the
physical presence or attractiveness of each other. Yet for the poet and his
beloved, such a split is “innocent,” like the movements of the heavenly spheres,
because their love transcends mere physicality.

Indeed, the separation merely adds to the distance covered by their love, like a
sheet of gold, hammered so thin that it covers a huge area and gilds so much
more than a love concentrated in one place ever could.

He finishes the poem with a longer comparison of himself and his wife to the two
legs of a compass. They are joined at the top, and she is perfectly grounded at
the centre point. As he travels farther from the centre, she leans toward him, and
as he travels in his circles, she remains firm in the centre, making his circles perfect.

Metaphysical poetry, a term coined by Samuel Johnson, has its roots in 17th-century England.
This type of poetry is witty, ingenious, and highly philosophical. Its topics included love, life and
existence. It used literary elements of similes, metaphors, imagery, paradoxes, conceit, and far-
fetched views of reality.

Questions:
1. What is a valediction?
2. Identify and discuss the theme of the poem.
3. The first two stanzas contain a simile beginning with “as” in line 1 and
continuing to “so” in line 5.
4. What kind of scene or situation is he describing in the first stanza?
5. Explain what the difference is between “Dull sublunary lovers’ love” and
the love of the speaker and his woman as described in stanzas 4 and 5.
6. What is he comparing their united souls to in the sixth stanza?
7. Discuss the metaphor used in the last three stanzas.
8. What is "metaphysical" about this poem? What parts of the poem lead you
to your answer?
9. The poem makes a lot of arguments—list all the reasons Donne gives why
he and his wife should not mourn. Do they seem believable to you? Why or
why not?
10. In a paragraph, briefly explain what the point of this poem is.
 Anthem for Doomed Youth
Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 5
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes 10
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk11 a drawing-down of blinds.

1. Anthem: perhaps best known in the expression "The National Anthem;" also, an important religious
song (often expressing joy); here, perhaps, a solemn song of celebration
2. passing-bells: a bell tolled after someone's death to announce the death to the world
3. patter out: rapidly speak.
4. orisons: prayers, here funeral prayers
5. mockeries: ceremonies which are insults. Here Owen seems to be suggesting that the Christian
religion, with its loving God, can have nothing to do with the deaths of so many thousands of men.
6. demented: raving mad
7. bugles: a bugle is played at military funerals (sounding the last post)
8. shires: English counties and countryside from which so many of the soldiers came
9. candles: church candles, or the candles lit in the room where a body lies in a coffin
10. pallor: paleness
11. dusk: a symbolic significance
12. drawing-down of blinds: normally a preparation for night, but also, here, the tradition of drawing the
blinds in a room where a dead person lies, as a sign to the world and as a mark of respect. The coming
of night is like the drawing down of blinds.

Questions:
1. Discuss why the poem is called an “anthem”?
2. Explain why the youth are “doomed”?
3. What are “passing bells”? Why do we not hear traditional “passing bells” for those
who “die as cattle”?
4. What is heard as a replacement for “passing bells”?
5. Why is the anger of the guns “monstrous”?
6. Explain why the rifles “stutter”? What is their speed?
7. What are “hasty orisons”? Who is “pattering” out “hasty orisons” and why?
8. Discuss what “mockeries” could there be for the soldiers? Why are there no
“mockeries”, no “prayers” or “bells”?
9. What “choirs” are there? Why are they “shrill” and “demented”? What do these
adjectives mean?
10. Why will the “pallor girls’ brows be their pall”? What is a pall?
DA SAME DA SAME
By Sipho Sepamla

I doesn't care of you black

I doesn't care of you white
I doesn't care of you India
I doesn't care of you clearlink
if sometimes you Saus Afrika 5
you gotta big terrible, terrible
somewheres in yourselves

I mean for sure now

all da peoples is make like God
an' da God I knows for sure 10
He make avarybudy wit' one heart

for sure now dis heart go-go da same

dats for meaning to say
one man no diflent to anader

so now 15
you see a big terrible terrible stand here
how one man make anader man feel
da pain he doesn't feel hisself
for sure no dats da whole point

sometime you wanna know how I meaning for 20

is simple
when da nail of say da t'orn tree
scratch little bit little bit of da skin

I doesn't care of you black

I doesn't care of you white 25
I doesn't care of you India
I doesn't care of you clearlink
I mean for sure da skin
only one t'ing come for sure
an' da one t'ing for sure is red blood 30
dats for sure da same, da same for avarybudy

so for sure now

you doesn't look anader man in de eye

Questions:

1. What effect is the poet trying to achieve by writing the poem the way he has?
2. What message is he trying to convey through the poem?
3. Do you think his use of language is effective or offensive? Why?
4. On what basis does he say that all people are equal?
5. The last two lines seem to contradict the message of the poem. How do you
interpret them?
London, 1802
By William Wordsworth

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower 5
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: 10
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

This is a typical example of an Italian Sonnet. The poet describes

the English people as stagnant and selfish in this poem.
Questions:

1. Who is Milton?
2. Why does Wordsworth feel that England needs Milton? Refer specifically to
the problems mentioned in the poem.
3. Would it be accurate to label this poem a sonnet? Motivate fully.
4. How does the interjection 'Oh!' add to the mood of the sonnet?
5. Describe Wordsworth's tone and quote to support your answer.
6. What evidence is there in the poem that Wordsworth's sentiments are
uniquely Romantic?
7. Why is 'cheerful godliness' an admirable quality to Wordsworth?
8. Wordsworth mourns certain qualities in society during 1802. Does modern
day society have any of these same qualities? Answer thoroughly and
justify your views.

Summary

The speaker addresses the soul of the dead poet John Milton, saying that he
should be alive at this moment in history, for England needs him. England, the
speaker says, is stagnant and selfish, and Milton could raise her up again. The
speaker says that Milton could give England “manners, virtue, freedom, power,”
for his soul was like a star, his voice had a sound as pure as the sea, and he
moved through the world with “cheerful godliness,” laying upon himself the
“lowest duties.”

This poem is one of the many excellent sonnets Wordsworth wrote in the
early 180 0s. Sonnets are fourteen-line poetic inventions written in iambic
pentameter. There are several varieties of sonnets; “The world is too much with
us” takes the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, modelled after the work of Petrarch,
an Italian poet of the early Renaissance. A Petrarchan sonnet is divided into
two parts, an octave (the first eight lines of the poem) and a sestet (the final six
lines). The Petrarchan sonnet can take a number of variable rhyme schemes; in
this case, the octave (which typically proposes a question or an idea), follows
a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, and the sestet (which typically answers the
question or comments upon the idea) follows a rhyme scheme of BCCDBD.
Random Notes to my Son
Keorapetse Kgositsile

Beware, my son, words

that carry the loudnesses
of blind desire also carry
the slime of illusion
dripping like pus from the slave's battered back 5
e.g. they speak of black power whose eyes
will not threaten the quick whitening of their own intent
what days will you inherit?
what shadows inhabit your silences?

I have aspired to expression, all these years, 10

elegant past the most eloquent word. But here now
our tongue dries into maggots as we continue our slimy
death and grin. Except today it is fashionable to scream
of pride and beauty as though it were not known that
'slaves and dead people have no beauty' 15

Confusion
in me and around me
confusion. This pain was
not from the past. This pain was
not because we had failed 20
to understand:
this land is mine
confusion and borrowed fears
it was. We stood like shrubs
shrivelled on this piece of earth 25
the ground parched and cracked
through the cracks my cry: Keorapetse William Kgositsile,
also known as "Bra Willie" (born
And what shapes 19 September 1938), is a South
in assent and ascent African poet and political activist.
must people the eye of newborn 30 He was inaugurated as South
determined desire know
Africa's National Poet Laureate in
no frightened tear ever rolls on
2006 . Keorapetse was one of the
to the elegance of fire. I have
first to bridge the gap between
fallen with all the names I am
African poetry and Black poetry in
but the newborn eye, old as 35
the United States. He is the father
childbirth, must touch the day
of hip-hop recording artist Earl
that, speaking my language, will
Sweatshirt.
say, today we move, we move ?

Questions

1. From reading the title of the poem, how can the reader assume that the
poem is meant to be a personal one?
2. Discuss what is meant in line 4.
3. Refer to line 15, discuss what is meant by 'slaves and dead people have no
beauty'.
4. Refer to stanza 3. Explain what the confusion is that the poet refers to.
5. Discuss the theme of the poem.
6. Summarise the subject matter of the poem in a short paragraph.
Those Winter Sundays
Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with his cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. 5
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking,
When the rooms were warm, he'd call
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him 10
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden’s poetry, which explored

his concerns about race and African-
American history, gained international
recognition in the 1960s, and Hayden
eventually became the first black
American to be appointed as consultant
in poetry to the Library of Congress.

Questions
1. What does the first stanza reveal about the speaker’s father's dedication to his
family?
2. What does the speaker mean when he says that he could "hear the cold
splintering, breaking"?
3. What does the speaker mean by the "chronic angers" of his house?
4. How does the speaker eventually learn about "love's austere and lonely offices"?
5. Why are some young people unable to appreciate the sacrifices their parents
make for them?
6. Why do young people sometimes have a difficult time communicating with their
parents?
7. How has the speaker’s attitude toward his father changed since his childhood?
8. How does he make it clear that he now regrets the way he reacted to his father?
9. What is his message to readers?
10. Discuss the theme of the poem.
In Detention
Chris van Wyk

He fell from the ninth floor

He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing 5
He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself while washing
He slipped from the ninth floor
He hung from the ninth floor
He slipped on the ninth floor while washing 10
He fell from a piece of soap while slipping
He hung from the ninth floor
He washed from the ninth floor while slipping
He hung from a piece of soap while washing.

The title immediately places the poem in apartheid South Africa, and
comments indirectly on the number of deaths in detention of political
activists during these years (at least 67 people died in detention).

In order to expose and attack a horrifying practice, Van Wyk uses the
kind of explanations typically offered by the security police for deaths in
detention in South Africa. During the apartheid era, laws were passed
which allowed the security police to detain people indefinitely without
having to give any reason. Many people were tortured, some committed
suicide, and some (like Steve Biko) died at the hands of their
interrogators (those who were questioning them).

Questions

1. The poem has a satirical element.

a) In what way is it satirical? (1) b)
Why do you think humour was used, rather than direct criticism (2)
2. The first line is clearly a lie. How do we know this? (2)
3. a) Was the prisoner’s death a suicide, an accident or neither? (1) b)
Why do you think this? (2)
4. What do you think this poem is saying other than recounting possible
statements from a prison? (2)
 Mid-Term Break
Seamus Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay

Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying—

He had always taken funerals in his stride— 5
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram

When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'. 10

Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.

At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. 15

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops

And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,

He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot. 20
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four-foot box, a foot for every year.

The subject of this poem is the death of Seamus Heaney’s younger brother, Christopher
who was killed by a car at the age of four. It is a tremendously poignant poem and its
emotional power derives in large measure form the fact that Heaney is very muted and
understated with respect to his own emotional response. He chooses to focus more upon
the reaction of his parents in order to convey the shocking impact of the death of their little
boy. Usually, we must careful not to assume the “I” in a poem is, in fact, the poet. In this
case, though, we may be sure that Mid-Term Break is purely and intensely
autobiographical.
Questions
1. Discuss what the reader’s first impressions may be of the poem when
reading the title of the poem.
2. What time did the neighbours pick the boy up?
3. When he arrived home what was the boy’s father doing?
4. When was the last time the boy had seen his little brother?
5. What two items where beside the bed?
6. What age was his little brother when he died?
7. Discuss the theme of the poem.
8. In a short paragraph, discuss the subject of the poem.
My Name During apartheid,
Magoleng Wa Selepe many black South
Africans had two
Nomgqibelo Ncamisile Mnqhibisa names. One was
the name that they
Look what they have done to my name. . . were given by their
the wonderful name of my great-great-grandmothers parents and was in
Nomgqibelo Ncamisile Mnqhibisa their own language.
The other was a
The burly bureaucrat was surprised.
European name
What he heard was music to his ears 5
that their employers
‘Wat is daai, sé nou weer?’
would refer to them
‘I am from Chief Daluxolo Velayigodle of emaMpodweni
by. In the poem, My
And my name is Nomgqibelo Ncamisile Mnqhibisa.’
Messia, help me! Name, Magoleng
My name is so simple 10 wa Selepe writes
and yet so meaningful, about the effects of
but to this man it is trash. . . this.

He gives me a name
Convenient enough to answer his whim:
I end up being 15
Maria. . .
I. . .
Nomgqibelo Ncamisile Mnqhibisa.

Questions
1. State TWO reasons why the speaker is very proud of her name.
2. Refer to line 2 ('Look what they have done to my name ...'). What feeling
does the speaker express in this line?
3. What does the word 'burly' (line 5) suggest about the bureaucrat?

4. Refer to line 6 ('What he heard was music to his ears'). Does the reference
to music suggest that the bureaucrat appreciates the speaker's name?
Give a reason for your answer.
5. Where does the speaker come from?
6. Refer to line 10 ('Messiah, help me'). What does the use of the word

'Messiah' suggest about the speaker?

7. Identify the figure of speech used in line 13, ('but to this man it is trash ...').
8. Explain why the bureaucrat changes the speaker's name to Maria.

9. Choose ONE word that emphasises how the speaker feels about her name.

10. What does this poem suggest about the bureaucrat's political beliefs?

11. Refer to lines 16 – 18 (I end up being Maria ... I ...). Discuss the effect

created by the use of very short lines at this point in the poem.
 Song of Hope
Cecil Rajendra

At that hour
when the sun
slinks off
behind hills
and night 5
- a panther - Cecil Rajendra (born 1941) is
crouches a Malaysian poet and lawyer. His
ready to spring poems have been published in
upon our un- more than 50 countries and
suspecting city. 10 translated into several languages.

Rajendra, nicknamed 'The Lawyer-

i want to sing
Poet', writes controversial poems
the coiled desires
that address human rights and
of this land environmental problems. As an
the caged dreams attorney, his work has focused on
of forgotten men. 15 helping poorer people who are in
need of legal aid. He is a co-
i want to sing founder of Penang Legal Aid
of all that was Centre (PLAC).
but no longer is
of all that never was
but 20
could have been.

i want to sing
the obsidian
unspelled hopes
of our children 25
i want to sing
to remind us
never to despair
that every hour
every minute 30
somewhere on the face
of this earth
it is glorious morning

Questions

1. Discuss what the reader may assume what the tone is after reading the title.
Explain fully.
2. Comment on the short sentences used and explain its effectiveness.
3. Refer to lines 9 and 10. Discuss why the poet uses the word ‘unsuspecting’.
4. Quote a line from stanza two that deals with regret.
5. Discuss the theme of the poem.