People and Places

Assignment #2

People and Places (10 marks)

Create a new blog post called  People and Places

Copy and paste the poem information and the six questions below into your blog.  Then, answer the questions in complete sentences on your blog:

“Warren Pryor” –Alden Nowlan  

When every pencil meant a sacrifice his parents boarded him at school in town, slaving to free him from the stony fields,

the meagre acreage that bore them down.

They blushed with pride when, at his graduation,

they watched him picking up the slender scroll, his passport from the years of brutal toil  and lonely patience in a barren hole. When he went in the Bank their cups ran over. 

They marvelled how he wore a milk­white shirt  work days and jeans on Sundays. 

He was saved  from their thistle­strewn farm and its red dirt.

And he said nothing. 

Hard and serious like a young bear inside his teller’s cage, his axe­hewn hands upon the paper bills aching with empty strength and throttled rage.

Read:  Warren Pryor – A. Nowlan (Theme & Image Book 1. Page 13)

Answer in complete sentences:

1. What work is done by Warren’s family? (1 mark)

Warren's family are farmers.

2. How did Warren represent their hopes and dreams? (1 mark)

Warren represented their hopes and dreams because they want him to succeed and not have to be trapped on the farm forever like them. He has potential to be what they wished they could have been.

ppp

3. Explain the allusion used in the third stanza (see p. 215). What is the poem’s setting? (2 marks)

4. Identify the metaphor in the second stanza and the simile in the fourth stanza. (2 marks)

5. Explain the situational irony of “Warren Pryor. “ (2 marks)

National Identity

The Lonely Land by A.J.M. Smith

Cedar and jagged fir

uplift sharp barbs 

against the gray

and cloud-piled sky; 

and in the bay 

blown spume and windrift by the wind

and thin, bitter spray

snap 

at the whirling sky;

and the pine trees

lean one way.

A wild duck calls 

to her mate,

and the ragged

and passionate tones

stagger and fall,

and recover,

and stagger and fall,

on these stones - 

are lost 

in the lapping of water

on smooth, flat stones.

This is a beauty 

of dissonance, 

this resonance 

of stony strand 

this smoky cry

curled over a black pine 

like a broken

and wind-battered branch

when the wind

bends the tops of the pines

and curdles the sky 

from the north

This is the beauty

of strength

broken by strength

and still strong.

1. What types of imagery can you identify in this poem? (2 marks)

In this poem, there a few types of imagery:

"Cedar and jagged fir

uplift sharp barbs

against the gray

and cloud-piled sky;"

There is also:

on these stones - 

are lost 

in the lapping of water

on smooth, flat stones.

2. What forms of life inhabit the lonely land? (2 marks)

There are trees and ducks on the island.

3. Which three adjectives used by Smith do you think best portray the strength and beauty of the land he describes? Give your reasons for selecting each one. (6 marks)

The three adjectives that best portray the strength and beauty of the land would be passionate, dissonance, and broken.  I picked these words because they are the most strong-looking words in the poem.  The author uses the word broken a lot so it must have meant something to him.

4. Embed two images on your blog that illustrate lines of the poem. Caption each image with the lines represented from the poem. (4 marks)

"on these stones -         

are lost 

in the lapping of water

on smooth, flat stones."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Cedar and jagged fir

uplift sharp barbs 

against the gray

and cloud-piled sky;