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The Road not taken
a) Either: the poem is not about making choices/decisions. It is irresponsible in life
to have everything that seems desirable.
- What we chose influences out destiny.
- In choosing one thing, we forge something else.
- And that once a choice is made you have to learn to live with its consequences/outcome/result/eventualities.
Or (literal/surface meaning)
- The road/path in which he is traveling dirges/folks into equally attractive, thereby forcing the traveler to select one of them.
- The persona hopes to explore the road not taken (by him) in future but he knows that it could be impossible to do so.
- He regrets the fact that making the choice one way or the other limits the persona’s freedom and as it were closes the door on the other choice
b) Symbolism/allegory
….. road/path/way = option or choices
…..Yellow wood =unknown, yet to be uncovered through exploration.
……Undergrowth = confusion/indecision/obstacles to be overcome.
Personification
….Road/path seen as having the better claim a road an inanimate object but described in human term as influencing the choice of the persona.
Contrast
--- Two roads, one not traveled and other well traveled on. This indicates the difficulty in making choices in life.
Repetition
Two roads, 'I'and the word 'and' _______ emphasize the difficulty in making a choice + ages/ ages, way /way.
Rhyme
______ 'Would' -stood' – create rhythm/ makes the poem interesting/memorable /musical.
(Candidate should first identify, the explain what has been identified)
c) i) The road not well trodden/used.
It needed someone to walk on it/ clean it.
Or
It was more challenging/difficult option to take/
It seemed less popular/people avoided it
ii) The persona means that he did not select the first alternative but he hope to explore it in future
iii) The road taken (1 mark) has led /has determined the destination of the persona
Or
The choice made has forever determined his destiny/fate/hopefully for the better
d) ----The title may be alluding to the road/option that the persona did not take (1 mark) but which seems to have been taken by many 1 mark
---- The title may be alluding to the road/ option that the persona took (1 mark) but which is not taken by many --- the biblical allusion
marto answered the question on April 2, 2019 at 09:16
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow:(Solved)
Love
Love is madness
Hard brutal madness
Love is fire
Hot blazing
Love is a chameleon
a camouflaged dangerous chameleon
Hot fiery Love
I beg you ------------
Put out your blazing flame,
Because I desire to feel you.
Hard remorseless love
Please change your stance.
Before the fire of my youth
is quenched.
(From the African saga by Susan N. Kigali)
a) Explain in your own words what the poem says about love. (4 mks)
b) Identify and explain the image used to describe love (6 mks)
c) What effect does the persona create by addressing (apostrophizing?) love directly in the last stanza? (4 mks)
d) Explain the irony of the last two lines: Before the fire of my youth is quenched (3 mks)
e) Explain the meaning of the following
i) brutal
ii) Camouflaged
iii) Remorseless
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.
Crazy Peter Prattles
So what is the mountain deal
About the minister's ailing son
That he makes boiling news?
How come it was not whispered
When Tina's hospital bed crawled with maggots
And her eyes oozed pus
Because the doctors lacked gloves?
What about Kasajja's only child
Who died because the man with the key
To the oxygen room was on leave?
I have seen queues
of emaciated mothers clinging to
babies with translucent skins
faint in line
and the lioness of a nurse
Commanding tersely
"Get up or leave the line".
Didn't I hear it rumoured that
the man with the white mane
and black robes
whose mouth stores the justice of the land
ushered a rape case out of court
because the seven year old
failed to testify?
Anyway, I only remember these things
when I drink
they are indeed tipsy explosions.
["Crazy Peter Prattles" by Susan Nalugwa Kiguli in Echoes Across the valley: Ed. Auther I. Luvai and Kwamchetsi Makokha]
a) What problems are highlighted in the poem about the state of health care?
(2 mks)
b) What is the significance of the rhetorical question in the first stanza?
(3 mks)
c) Pick out any two images in this poem and explain their significance.
(4 mks)
d) i) Identify the problem that the fifth stanza deals with (2 mks)
ii) How does this connect with the problems in the previous stanzas?
(3 mks)
e) Explain the meaning of the following words a they are used in the poem
(3 mks)
(i) oozed
(ii) emaciated
(iii) translucent
f) What is the significance of the last stanza (3 mks)
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.
My little sister likes to try my shoes,
to strut in them
admire her spindle- thin twelve- year old legs
In this season's styles.
She says they fit perfectly,
But wobbles
On their high heels, they're
hard to balance
I like to watch my little sister
playing hopscotch, admire the
neat hops-and -skips of her,
their quick peck,
never missing their mark, not
over-stepping the line
She is competent at peever.
I try to warn my little sister
about unsuitable shoes,
Point out my own distorted feet, the callouses,
Odd patches of hard skin.
I should not like to see her
In my shoes
I wish she would stay
Sure footed
Sensible shod
(By Liz Lochhead in poem 1, ed. Celeste flower. Singapore: Longman, 1995.)
a) Why does the little sister try the persona's shoes? (3 mks)
b) How do we know from the first stanza that the shoes don't fit? (1 mk)
c) Why does the persona like watching her younger sister play hopscotch?
(4 mks)
d) In the third stanza, the persona gives us new reasons why her little sister should not wear her shoes. What are these reasons? (2 mks)
e) What is the message of this poem? (5 mks)
f) Describe the tone of the poem? (3 mks)
g) Explain the meaning of the following lines; I should not like to see her in my shoes (2 mks)
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.
Touch by High Lewin.
When I get out
I'm going to ask someone
To touch me
Very gently please
And slowly
Touch me
I want
To learn again
How life feels.
I've not been touched
For seven years
for seven years
I've been untouched
out of touch
and I've learnt
to know now
the meaning of
untouchable.
Untouched - not quite
I can count the things
that have touched me.
One: fists
At the beginning
fierce mad fists
beating beating
till I remember
screaming
don't touch me
please don't touch me.
Two: paws
The first four years of paws
everyday
patting paws, searching
- arms up, shoes off
legs apart
prodding paws, systematic
heavy, indifferent
probing away
all privacy.
I don't want fists and paws
I want
to want to be touched
again
and to touch
I want feel alive
again
I want to say
when I get out
Here I am
please touch me.
(From poets to the people, edited by Barry Feinberg)
a) Where do you think the persona is? Briefly explain your answer (3mks)
b) What do you think the persona means by "touch"? (3 marks)
c) Using two illustrations, describe the persona’s experience during the seven years. (4 marks)
d) What is the significance of the word "paws"? (2 marks)
e) Which device does the poet use to reinforce the theme? (2 marks)
f) Explain the meaning of the following words as they are used in the poem:
(2 marks)
g) What does the poem reveal about human need? (4 marks)
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and then answer the questions that follow:(Solved)
Read the poem below and then answer the questions that follow
"Sympathy"
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opens,
And the faint perfume from its petals steals-
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he rather would be on the branch a swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting-
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his blossom sore;
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a song of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to heaven he flings –
I know why the caged bird sings!
(Adapted from the poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar in America Negro Poetry, edited by Arna Bontemps. New York: Hill and Waug 1974.)
(a). Explain briefly what the poem is about (3 mks)
(b). What does the poet focus on in each of the three stanzas? Give your
answer in note form. (6 mks)
(c). How would you describe the persona's feelings towards the caged bird?
(4 mks)
(d). What can we infer about the persona's own experiences? (3 mks)
(e). Identify a simile in the first stanza and explain why it is used. (2 mks)
(f). Explain the meaning of the following lines
(i). And the faint perfume from its petals steals. (1 mark)
(ii). And they pulse again with a keener sting. (1 mark)
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
The Brewing Night
It was that memorable night when I heard it.
Yes, I heard it all.
That night sleep deserted me,
Mocked at me and tantalized me;
So I lay awake, sharp in all my senses.
It was long past midnight:
Time dragged on, the clock wouldn't chime;
The dog wouldn't bark, nor the babies cry;
It was a moonless and windless night;
The whole universe seemed to stagnate
In dark, dreary, dead slumber
What was amiss? I knew not.
The dead quietness and solitude
Seemed to be eternal, - but
Waves of babbling and muttering
Began to trickle through the streets;
A distant roaring if heavy trucks filled the air,
Hurried footsteps echoed through the street.
What was a miss? I knew not.
I pulled my curtain
And there I saw it all
Heavy boots thick uniforms and solid helmets
Dimly discernible under the pale street lamp
The atmosphere stood stiff and solid with
Browny - faced and clenched-teeth determination.
The night had pused with passions high and wild;
The streets were stained with new portraits framed;
The wheel changed hands and new plans were filled.
The morning saw the country strangely dressed
And everyone attended the rally.
To hear the eloquence from a strange face,
And everyone quietly nodded and said, 'yes'
(By Yusuf O. Kassam, in poem from East Africa.)
(a) Explain what the poem is about
(b) ln what way was the night described in the poem peculiar?
(c) What was amiss? I knew not. (Rewrite as one sentence beginning: I did)
(d) Paraphrase in one sentence what the persona saw when he or she pulled curtain to see.
(e) What is the significance of stanza two?
(f) Explain the meaning of the title.
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.
Betrothed by Obyero Qdhiambo
The bride, they said
Had gone through school
Primary secondary university upwards
Three thousand shillings is not enough
For having fed her
schooled her
employed her
Three thousand shillings is not enough
For having borne her
Cared for her
doctored her
And "she is pure"
Three thousand shillings is not enough
Look at her silky black hair
Darker and finer than that
Flywhisk there
Look at her forehead, a
nice wide trace between
hair line and eyes:
"She is immensely intelligent".
Look at her eyes .Yes, look again
Two diviners' cowries spread out
Symbolically on the divination mat
Deep profound intelligent
Look at those lips "ndugu"- - - - -
Three thousand shillings is not enough
even to shake her by the hand.
"Fathers, this is what we walked with!
Three thousand shillings
As a token of our
Love
For your daughter and you
Our intended kin
It was just a token
the size of a token does not reflect
The size of the heart that bringeth it
My heart is full to the brim with
Love
For her and you my intended kin"
But young man, you say, you love
And you possible expect love
But, young man, don't you
Don't you really feel
Three thousand shillings is not enough
even to get love?
Three thousand is not enough!
(From an ‘Anthology of East Africa Poetry’ Editing by A.D Amateshe, Longman, UK 1988)
1. Briefly explain what the poem is about? (2 mks)
2. Which qualities make the bride such a special person according to her kin?
(4 mks)
3. Identify the adjectives in the comparative degree. 2 mks)
4. Identify the metaphor in the fifth stanza and explain it’s meaning
(4 mks)
5. Why do you think the line "Three thousand shillings is not enough" is repeated several times? (2 mks)
6. How would you describe the bride's kin? Illustrate your answer (4 mks)
7. What do we learn about the society from this poem? (2 mks)
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.
CITY LIFE
When I am in a great city, I know that I despair.
I know there is no hope for us, death waits, it is useless to care,
For oh the poor people, that are flesh of my flesh,
I, that am flesh of their flesh,
When I see the iron hooked into their faces
their poor, their fearful faces
I scream in my soul, for I know I cannot
Take the iron hooks out of their faces, that make them so drawn,
Nor cut the invisible wires of steel that pull them.
Back and forth, to work,
Back and forth to work,
Like fearful and corpse-like fishes hooked and being played.
By some malignant fisherman on an unseen shore where he does not choose to land them yet, hooked fishes of the factory world.
(D.H. Lawrence (1885 - 1930)
1. Identify and explain the mood in the poem (2 mks)
2. Identify and explain the appropriateness of 3 poetic features used in the poem (6 mks)
3. In one sentence summarize the persona perception of the city life? (1 mark)
4. If you were to recite this poem how would you make it emotional? (2 mks)
5. Explain the meaning of the word ‘malignant’ (1 mark)
Date posted: April 2, 2019. Answers (1)