Dive In

Dive In

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These poems each have a set of guided questions, related videos that allow for deeper investigation, and suggested writing activities. We'll be adding more poems here soon!

1992

  1. The lack of punctuation in the poem suggests that it recounts a single memory or a single scene. Can you tell whether or not the speaker of the poem is in involved in, in witness of, or in control of what’s happening? How can you tell?
  2. What does the poem’s title suggest to you?
  3. What effect does the speaker’s use of verbs create?
  4. What clues point to the age of the speaker?
  5. How would you treat each line break in a recitation of this poem — would you communicate any of them to your audience with a pause? 
  6. Think of a vivid...

400: Coming Home

  1. Roads and highways are often used as a metaphor for life’s journey. If that’s the case, where on the “road of life” do you sense this speaker is? How do they feel about their situation? What do they care about? What clues does the poet leave for you to discover this information?
  2. This poem gets a lot of energy from its verbs. List all the verbs, and try to replace them with others to see how the poem might change.
  3. You might know Dennis Lee’s writing for children, including Alligator Pie and Jelly Belly. The tone here is very different, but...

A Breakfast for Barbarians

  1. This poem shows us to a table where a very unusual meal is being eaten. But this is no ordinary meal; it’s more mystical than actual. What’s going on here, really? What is that meal standing in for? What is the voice of the poem actually inviting its audience of “sweet barbarians” to do?
  2. If you look closely, you’ll see that there’s lots of repetition in this poem, and that a lot of clauses start the same way, with the same words. This is called anaphora. What phrases get repeated, and what is the effect of that repetition? Does it calm down the poem, or does it...

A Stone Diary

  1. This poem seems to be about the speaker’s deepening love of stone. What does the speaker say about that love? How is she affected by it? How has she been changed?
  2. You might notice the poem charting a passage of time and the progression of this love. Take note of the first line of each stanza. What are those first lines doing to help move us through time and through the poem?
  3. After reading Pat Lowther’s biography, and especially about the way she died, does your reading of this poem change? How do you understand the speaker’s love of stone?
  4. You...

A Thunderstorm

  1. The word “wild” is used in the first line of this poem, and in some ways, this poem can be read as a poem about wildness. People have different reactions to wildness. What feelings does the description of the storm evoke in you?
  2. There are no human beings in the poem, not even a specific speaker who is seeing and describing the storm. What effect does this neutral, omniscient speaker have on how the storm is described? How might the description been different had the poet chosen a child as the speaker, for example?
  3. This poem is in the form of a Petrarchan...

Application Form

  1. How would an application like this make you feel about your own identity?

 

  1. The rhythm in the poem starts out conversational, becoming more emphatic and staccato. When reading this poem aloud, how does the rhythm make you feel about the motivations behind the application itself?

 

  1. How does the “list” form affect the feeling of the poem? We do not normally think of lists as something emotional.  Can you find any emotions expressed in this poem? How does the author use the list to express her emotions? ...

April 30, 2014

  1. Why does the poet choose a date as her title?
     
  2. Why does she withhold telling the reader what awaits her in the afternoon of April 30, 2014, until the second last stanza?
     
  3. Although it is spring where the speaker lives, there are a number of negative images that prepare the reader to expect something she’s been dreading is about to occur. What are those foreshadowing images?
     
  4. Why would the poet spend most of the poem describing details of the natural world around her and only briefly refer to her appearance at the hearing...

At the Centre

  1. The word “peace” is used twice in the first stanza. What other words or images throughout the poem feel restful to you?
  2. What does the speaker say the craftsman has come to do? Who do you think the craftsman is – a literal person or something else?
  3. Dr. Afua Cooper is well known for educating and evaluating the historical context of enslaved Africans in her poems. How does the theme of liberation show up in the poem? Think creatively, socially, financially, emotionally, spiritually, etc.
  4. What is the overall tone of the poem? Is it hopeful? Excited...

Badlands

  1. What perspective does the poet use to write this sketch of a father and son? For example, is it in the first person, second person, or third person? What does this choice suggest about the relationship between the two characters in the poem?
  2. How does the poet achieve a sense of intimacy and understanding across distance and time? How does imagery and sensory detail help us understand the character of the father?
  3. What does the father do for a living? What are the tensions between the father’s physical body, his work, and the landscape? What else do we learn...

Beat! Beat! Drums!

  1. Drums and bugles were an important way for armies in the nineteenth century to send signals in the middle of battle. How does Whitman evoke the rhythm of these instruments in his poem?
  2. This poem was written at the beginning of the American Civil War, when many on both sides assumed the conflict would be over quickly. How does Whitman express that confidence and bombast?
  3. The poem wants all normal business to stop – no bargainers, no sleeping, no talking. But of course not everyone will be a soldier. What should the rest of the population be doing while the...

Before the Birth of One of Her Children

  1. The poem is addressed to the speaker’s husband. What does she ask of him? 
  2. Most of Bradstreet’s poems reflect a deep faith tied to Christian notions of Providence, the belief that God has a plan for us which we can’t change. Where does that faith appear in this particular poem? How might someone with faith in Providence look at the world's dangers today: climate change, or racial injustice, economic hardship, or war?
  3. Despite the dark subject matter, Bradstreet’s poem follows a regular,...

Blank Sonnet

  1. What season of the year is the poem set in? How does that shape the mood of the poem?
  2. “Blank Sonnet” is part of a novel-in-verse set in the 1930s in rural Nova Scotia. What sensual details help you imagine this setting?
  3. George Elliott Clarke writes in his micro-interview: “But as a black kid growing up in Halifax, NS, it was the African-American poets — available in my local library and leftist bookstores — I took to quickest.” The two central colours represented in the poem are black and white. What...

Brother

 

 

 

Buen Esqueleto

  1. Who is the speaker in this poem? What words or phrases indicate the speaker’s role or identity?
     
  2. Make a list of the repeated phrases in the poem. How does this repetition affect you?
     
  3. The poet makes use of the ampersand (&) instead of spelling out the word “and.” Does this affect the way you read the poem, and if so, how?
     
  4. How would you describe this poem’s tone or mood? What words or phrases suggest the mood to you most powerfully?
     
  5. In a recitation, how might you convey the different voices in...

But I’m No One

Dive In

  1. Epistolary poems are poetic letters, usually addressed to a specific named or unnamed recipient. Which clues indicate that this poem takes the shape of a letter?
     
  2. The speaker has been made to go along Ms. Rogers’ made-up cultural myth. What role do racism and peer pressure play in his perspective on the situation?
     
  3. In Anne Carson’s poem On Walking Backwards, she writes ‘My mother forbade us to walk backwards. That is how the dead walk, she would say.’ How would you describe and contrast Anne Carson...

Chemo Side Effects: Memory

  1. For a poem that’s about not being able to find a word, Partridge certainly uses a rich vocabulary! Collect all the ways she describes the sensation of being unable to find a word. Think about which senses each comparison evokes – some are more visual, others more tactile, etc. Which description most fully evokes how you feel when you can’t find the word you’re looking for?
  2. Note how the form varies from short, one-word lines to more sprawling, prosey language. How might that reflect the speaker’s own stop-and-start efforts to locate her word? Can you think of another...

Cocteau Twins

  1. This poem references the French poet, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, so understanding a bit about his work will deepen your understanding of the poem. How does the speaker seem to feel about Cocteau?
  2. Looking closely at the poem’s structure and images, in what ways does the poet invoke a sense of doubleness?
  3. What does the poet suggest about the power of the imagination? And about the relationship between a reader and writer?
  4. How would you describe the mood of this poem?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, how would you convey...

Common Magic

  1. What kind of “magic” is happening in this poem?
  2. This poem has many vivid similes (a comparison using "like" or "as") and metaphors (a comparison that doesn't use "like" or "as"). Is there one that stands out to you? Why that one?
  3. The poet chose to use the second person in this poem. What effect does that have on your reading of the poem? How would your experience of the poem change if it were written in the third person?
  4. Who is the speaker in this poem? What do we know about them? Do you think they're...

Dear Updike

  1. This poem begins with an epigraph from John Updike’s memoirs. What is Updike dreading?
  2. Re-read the second line. What happened the previous year?
  3. In her micro-interview, Lau states that, in her own work, she tries “to capture a fleeting moment/experience, or plumb the depths of a difficult emotion.” What moment/experience or emotion does she explore in this poem? What images does she use to evoke that emotion?
  4. Lau uses the pronouns “you”, “I” and “we” in the poem. What is the effect of this? Try removing them. Does this change the overall feeling...

Death of a Young Son by Drowning

  1. This poem is from Atwood’s book The Journals of Susanna Moodie, which loosely follows the life of the 19th century author of Roughing it in the Bush. But the voice of the poem is also very modern in its diction and imagery. Who is the speaker? Moodie? Some version of Atwood? Or is the speaker a stand-in for any mother who has lost a son? What are we to think of her?
  2. This poem uses the image of a river in a lot of different ways. In the first stanza, it’s “the dangerous river of his own birth,” and then later it’s the literal river in which the son has...

dont worry yr hair

  1. This poem lists many of the everyday anxieties people worry about. Which of these worries usually concern you most? Did the poem help you feel better about them?
  2. The author writes this poem in the second person, addressing the reader directly as “you.” How does that affect your reading of it? Does it make it feel more immediate and direct?
  3. The poet writes “a tree grows inside yu”. What do you think the tree represents? If you had a tree growing inside you, what would it look like?
  4. This poem, like most of bill bissett's work, uses unconvential...

Dream Jobs

  1. This is a funny poem, but some of the jokes won’t land if you don’t catch the references. For example, what does “emeritus” mean? And how does that word work alongside titles like  “Ingenue” or “Good Samaritan”? If any of the terms are unfamiliar, look them up!
  2. What’s the tone of this poem? Where are there hints that there are some dark shadows behind the laughs? Do you read it as snide or sad? Or both?
  3. This poem uses a lot of multi-syllabic words — how does this affect the rhythm and feel of the poem?
  4. “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” is a famous poem...

Dulce et Decorum Est

  1. This poem is chock full of similes and metaphors. Read the poem and circle every metaphor or simile you see. Which is the most remarkable to you? What makes it stand out?
  2. How do these metaphors and similes shape your sense of the soldiers’ experience of war? Does it contrast to other famous poems you’ve read about war – “In Flanders Fields,” for instance?
  3. How might your reading of the poem change if the poet had included some contextual details about World War I – about the enemy or “freedom”...

Echolalia

  1. What is the mood of the speaker?
  2. What does the word echolalia mean? How might this relate to the poem?
  3. Repetition with variation is an important technique in music and poetry, but it is also a powerful tool in advertising. The speaker of the poem is very persuasive — are you persuaded?
  4. This poem is taken from Ian Williams’ book Personals, which plays with the form of personal ads. Do you think the voice of this poem is speaking from a position of vulnerability or strength?
    5. ...

Eight

  1. What do you notice about how the poem is put together? What kinds of stanzas does the poet use, for example? What kinds of poetic strategies does she use? And how does the shape and form of the poem connect to its content?
  2. It’s helpful to know that this poem is from a book called Ocean in which all of the poems are about the ocean and each poem has a number rather than its own title. In this poem, what is the relationship between the ocean and the people who live at its edge?
  3. How is the ocean portrayed?
  4. Make a list of all the things the...

Equinox Ritual with Ravens & Pines

  1. The action of the poem is mysterious, but the atmosphere of expectation and mythic possibility is strong. What is the speaker saying about the tension between the natural world and the human world of consumerism and waste?
  2. In the first stanza, the speaker invokes something to be born and a sense of motion is initiated, moving up from the ocean floor. How does this set the tone for the poem?
  3. The final stanza describes an equinox ritual where people write things they want to release onto paper and burn the paper in a fire. Does this feel like a contemporary...

Famous

  1.  Read the poem again. How does it differ from the first time you read it?
  2. The poem goes from discussing things and ideas to the speaker’s own desire. Why do you think the poet’s voice shifts this way?
  3. The poet uses powerful imagery and metaphors to convey meaning. Which metaphor or image stands out most for you?
  4. Where do you see examples of alliteration and assonance (see what I did there)?
  5. If you could replace the word “famous” with another word that had a similar meaning, what would it be?
  6. Where do you see examples of...

Fear of Snakes

  1. This poem is rich with complicated emotions. How does the "fear of snakes" of the title transform into another feeling about snakes?
  2. What is the main metaphor in this poem? How is it used to describe the speaker’s experience?
  3. There are many references to duality in the poem, where experiences and descriptions can have at least two different qualities. Can you list these examples of "twinning"?
  4. What does the poet do to make this memory feel present?
  5. There are some long lines in this short poem! In reciting it, pauses, building, and...

Fire Watch

  1. Who is speaking in this poem? Where is the speaker located?
  2. What is the mood of the speaker?
  3. Do you think the speaker is having a conversation with another person or is he or she speaking essentially to him- or herself? What in the poem supports your interpretation?
  4. What do you learn about the speaker as you move through the poem?
  5. What do you think the inclusion, towards the end of the poem, of the notation “[inaudible]” suggests? Could this be a transcript of a recording, rather than something happening in real time? If this is a...

Five Postcards from Jericho

  1. How does the shape of each stanza recall a postcard?
  2. The first two “postcards” are addressed to personified abstractions (Regret, Time), but then the following three arrive without an address, as if it doesn’t matter who receives them, only that they are sent out. What does this say about the speaker of the poem?
  3. What do associate with postcards? What does this suggest about the speaker in the poem?
  4. What are the poems reporting?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, how would you handle the rich, rhythmic language? Where would you...

fluorine

  1. The near absence of punctuation and capitalization is notable in this poem. What effect does this visual absence have on how you relate to the words? How you read them?
  2. Consider the speaker’s tone. Where does the speaker use irony to examine “mundane acts” and what Wong refers to in this micro-interview as “the materials in our daily lives?”
  3. What kind of “poison” is the speaker referring to? Where does the speaker see poison?
  4. The concluding image of shiny teeth on a “cold crisp...

For My Best Friend

  1. The title of the poem “For My Best Friend” lets the reader know right away that the poem is a tribute. If you were to write a poem in tribute to a family member or friends, who would it be?
     
  2. In the poem, loss is a recurring theme. Which lines in the poem speak to this directly?
     
  3. In many ways a bond with a best friend is different from other friendships. The poet says, “She saved my life before, you know, all of them ... those lives, mine.” How might a best friend save your life (of lives ‘all of them’)? How does the phrase “saved my life...

From Chapter I

  1. This excerpt is from a book-length poem called Eunoia that has five chapters, each one corresponding to a single vowel. (Eunoia is the shortest word in the English language that contains all five vowels.) What does “eunoia” mean? What do you think the relationship is between the word eunoia and the experiment of this book?
  2. Note that all of the words in this excerpt feature words that only contain the vowel I. What is the effect of hearing the same vowel sound repeated over and over? Do you feel that the vowel has a kind of personality of its own? If so how...

From Correspondences

  1. In Roman mythology, the god Janus was often depicted as having two faces that point in opposite directions, one looking forward, the other backward. Janus was associated with doorways, passages, and transitions. What is the doorway that the speaker references in the opening line?
  2. The speaker states that we must “change” the “past.” We are not time-travellers (yet!) and cannot go back in time to change things that have already occurred, so how might a poem create a different “map” of the past, a way to change our perception of past events?
  3. In the second...

from Cross River . Pick Lotus

  1. The poem is as much about location and wanting to be somewhere as it is about the person who wants to go that place. What is one place you have always wanted to go and why? How do you think it would change you?
  2. How is the sea both a beautiful and a dangerous place? How does this play out in the poem? What can be gained from visiting the sea? What can be lost?
  3. In the poem, seven trumpets and prophecy are mentioned. What do you think they mean and how do they foreshadow what is to come?
  4. How do surprise endings make us feel? Did the poem’s ending go...

From Red Doc

  1. What do we know about the two people having a conversation in this poem?
  2. What do we know about the person they are describing?
  3. How would you characterize the relationship of the two people talking? Close? Strained? Loving? Guarded?
  4. What tone do you feel in the poem? Does it change?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, how would you indicate the shifts back and forth between two voices?
  6. Write a poem that is a dialogue between two people that runs together so that the reader...

From thirsty

  1. How does the speaker feel about the city?
  2. How are similes — “innocent as thresholds / and smashed night birds, lovesick, / as empty elevators” — used throughout to set the atmosphere of the poem?
  3. How does the poem portray the non-human life in the city — animals, even inanimate objects?
  4. The speaker wonders “would I have had a different life” if she hadn’t identified so closely with “broken things.” What do you think?
  5. If you were reciting this poem, what tone would you use? What does it mean...

Gayatri

  1. This poem captures memories of a friendship evoked by a photograph. Which memory stood out to you the most? Why is that one so remarkable to you? Can you relate to it?
  2. “Gayatri” is written in the second person (“you”) instead of third person (“she”). What effect does that create for you? Try reading the poem replacing each instance of “you” with “she.”
  3. Souvankham Thammavongsa says in her micro-interview with Poetry In Voice that she found this photograph in a shoebox, then wrote the poem to show how “this photograph with no one in it actually had everything...

Good Day Villanelle

  1. If you are a bit confused about whether it’s the mother or the daughter or both who “ran naked out the door,” don’t be embarrassed! Rogers has blurred those lines deliberately. But we obviously have a very different reaction to the two different scenarios: a little girl who escapes her mother’s grasp after a bath and runs naked down the street would probably seem cute and funny; an adult mother with dementia who does the same thing might make us feel sad and uncomfortable. How does this suspended confusion or tension contribute to the way we encounter the poem?
  2. In what...

grass

 

1) What do you think about grass? Have you ever been forced to mow the lawn? Do you ever catch yourself admiring a long stretch of ultra-green grass in someone else’s yard or a park?

 

2) The tone of “grass” is playful. But is this a funny poem? Why or why not?

 

3) Throughout the poem, the speaker describes the history of grass and what it’s capable of, before switching tactics in the last line. The speaker instructs the reader to step on the grass because “it deserves it”. What effect does that shift have on the mood and rhythm of the poem...

Guanahani, 11

  1. The word “odales” much like “xpectation“ and “landscap” is a neologism (made-up/new word) or portmanteaux that combines “oh” and “dales” (meaning valley) but ellipses the “h” for musical effect. What other effects do the poem’s use of sound, spelling and rhythm create?
  2. What role does punctuation play in the poem’s use of sound and rhythm?
  3. The poem’s imagery repeatedly asks the reader to either look up or look down, and finally look back. Think of ways this motion might make you think differently about spaces that are important in your own life.
  4. ...

Hail

  1. What is happening in this poem? Who or what is saying "Hello"?
  2. The poet has created striking snapshots throughout the poem with his choices of imagery and language. Which one is most striking to you? Why?
  3. What does the poem's title, "Hail," make you think of?
  4. How would you describe the mood of the poem? Does that mood shift anywhere?
  5. If you were reciting this poem, how would you handle its short lines, commas, and periods? Where and how long would you pause?
  6. Consider a complex issue, like climate change, fast fashion, or...

Hall of Mirrors

  1. This poem is addressed to an old friend or former love — we don’t know the exact nature of their relationship, but we do sense the intimacy between them. What does the poem tell you about the speaker’s feelings for the person to whom he is speaking? (Presumably Kristen Lems, as Berrigan dedicated the poem to her.)
  2. Where is the speaker now? Where does he live? What details about the speaker’s life and interests does the poem tell you
  3. The poet says “Knew of it first / in New York City. Couldn’t find it / in Ann Arbor, though / I like it...

Homage to the Mineral of the Onion (I)

  1. What special powers does this poem attribute to the onion?
  2. Imagine how an onion looks, feels, smells, tastes, and sounds. Which of your senses does the poem awaken? Which does it leave out?
  3. In what ways might fog sustain the earth?
  4. This piece is part of a bilingual (Galician and English) series called “Homages to Water” that includes “Homage to the Mineral of Cabbage” and “Homage to the Force of the Potato,” which are all ingredients in borscht, the national soup of Ukraine. How does the picture of people sharing their country’s soup with the...

How One Winter Came in the Lake Region

  1. Based on Wilfred Campbell's poetic description of autumn, then winter, which of the two seasons seems to thrill him most?
  2. Just before autumn changes to winter, Campbell builds tension and suspense. Which lines create these effects?
  3. Personification is a poetic device used effectively to give the natural scene personality. Which natural elements are given which human-like qualities in this poem?
  4. Rhyming couplets occur as part of Campbell's structure. What is the benefit of including them? How do they add to the music of the piece? Where does...

howlin at the moon

  1. Who is the speaker in this poem? What do we know about them?
  2. What does the refrain make you think of: “paint the picture in your hand / nd roll on home.”?
  3. What rhyming pattern has the poet created? How does that shape your reading of the poem?
  4. How would you describe the mood of this poem?
  5. If you were reciting this poem, how would you handle its rhythm and rhyme? (It would be very easy to fall into a sing-song delivery.)
  6. Write a poem that includes a refrain. As a variation, use the refrain or two other lines from “howlin at...

I Am

  1. What is the mood of the speaker in this poem?
  2. What is the speaker’s relationship to friends and family?
  3. Where does the tone of the poem shift?
  4. At the end of the poem, what is it that seems to bring the speaker a sense of comfort and even transcendent freedom?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, how would you convey the shift in tone? Where would you pause or change the pace of your reading? How would you avoid falling into a sing-song pattern on the couplets that close the second and third stanzas?
  6. John Clare wrote this...

i am graffiti

  1. In our Q&A with Leanne Simpson, she explains that she wrote this poem because, “I was watching the closing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and I felt angry, not reconciled”  How do you feel the poem transforms that anger?
  2. How is the image of graffiti used in this poem?
  3. How does the poem suggest resilience and survival in the face of attempted erasure?
  4. How does the poet use repetition to suggest a continual re-emergence of the self?
  5. Do you feel that the mood of the poem is the...

I Feel the Sun

1.       Sunlight is the central image of the poem. What do you think sunlight symbolizes to the speaker?  
 

2.        Why does the speaker call attention to the ‘long, long corridor’ at the outset of the poem?
 

3.        How does the speaker respond initially to the sunlight?
 

4.        As the poem unfolds, does the speaker develop any illusion and/or hallucination of the sunlight? If yes, what is it, and what does it...

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

  1. What’s the mood of the speaker? Does it shift before the poem ends? Where?
  2. How does sound appear throughout the poem? What are your associations with drums? What about bells?
  3. There are different interpretations of what is happening in this poem — what’s your take? Do you think the experience the speaker describes sounds terrible or exciting?
  4. In what ways is this poem about a connection to something mysterious? In what ways does it seem to be about the rupture of connection?
  5. Do you think this poem says more about death or life?
    6. ...

I Have Not Lingered in European Monasteries

  1. Most of this poem is about what the speaker hasn’t done. What connects these activities? Can you link them to what he mentions that he does do at the end of the poem? Do any of them intrigue you?
  2. Why would the speaker present himself in this way? Does he strike you as self-satisfied or frustrated? Ambitious or obnoxious? Young or old? Does he want us to agree with his decisions or challenge them?
  3. You might know that Cohen was well-known as a musician as well as a poet. How does the structure of this poem resemble a song? Are there verses?...

I Have Something to Tell You

  1. This poem unfolds like a dream. At what point do you know that it is not set in the real world?
  2. The poem’s tone is funny, unnerving, and even sad. What images make you feel sympathy for the speaker? What images make you laugh? What images make you feel uncomfortable?
  3. The speaker uses the second person (you) to directly address readers. How does this point of view affect your relationship to the speaker? What about the speaker’s use of conversational language instead of overtly ‘poetic’ language?
  4. In the closing line, the speaker asks, “have I told...

I've Tasted My Blood

  1. What do you think the opening lines “If this brain’s over-tempered / consider that the fire was want / and the hammers were fists.” suggest about the experiences lived by the speaker?
  2. When the speaker says “I’ve tasted my blood too much / to abide what I was born to,” what do you think the speaker can’t abide?
  3. Why do you think the speaker's mother is mentioned? How does that stanza relate to the rest of the poem?
  4. Where is repetition used? What effect does that have on the mood of the poem?
  5. ...

In Flanders Fields

  1. Who are the speakers of the poem, the “we” who appear in line 6?  What do they want us to know about themselves? What information do they withhold from us?
  2. The poem follows a consistent 4-beat line (with the exception of the lines with the “In Flanders fields” refrain). This is called tetrameter – (In Greek, tetra=four and meter=a measure or stride). But McCrae varies where the stresses of the lines appear. Read the poem and circle every stressed syllable. See if you can find places where McCrae deliberately speeds up, or slows down the line.
    3. ...

Insomnia

  1. Have you ever had trouble sleeping? What sensations or feelings come to mind when thinking about that experience? Probably none of those sensations are in this poem. What’s in there instead? What tone or mood does the poem evoke in your mind? Can you connect that feeling to insomnia?
  2. Each stanza begins with the refrain “If I could sleep…” What effect does the repetition have on the way you experience the poem? From the title, we know that there’s an implied “but I can’t sleep” that follows. What sort of details might emerge in a poem that begins, “If I could stay awake...

I’ll Teach You Cree

  1. The poem mixes Cree words and their translations with descriptions of ceremonies “that cannot be translated.” What do you think gets lost in the translation from one language to another?
  2. How does the poet use repetition in this poem? What’s the effect?
  3. How does the speaker use natural imagery to celebrate his love?
  4. In what ways does the poet invoke sensual imagery in the poem?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, what kind of pause would you place between the words in Cree and their translations? Would you use another tone of voice...

Jack Would Speak Through the Imperfect Medium of Alice

  1. In video footage of Alice Notley reading this poem at The Poetry Project at St Marks Church in the Bowery in New York City in the early 80s (an outtake from Canadian director Ron Mann’s fantastic documentary Poetry in Motion; a clip below is available on Youtube), the poet explains before reading the poem, “The Jack is Jack Kerouac and the Alice is Alice Notley.” How does knowing that this poem is about the writer Jack Kerouac, credited with coining the term “Beat generation,” change the meaning of the poem for you as a reader?
  2. How does the poet challenge...

Journey of the Magi

1. “Journey of the Magi” is written from the point of view of one of the magi, or wise men, who travelled from their foreign kingdoms to pay homage to the infant Jesus Christ as the King of the Jews. What does this poem gain by being told in the first person, instead of in third person? What do you notice about the character as you get to know him?
 

2. Because this poem is in the voice of the magus, a speaker who is clearly not a surrogate for the poet himself, we can classify this poem as a dramatic monologue poem. Other examples of dramatic monologues include “...

La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad

  1. What does the French title mean in English?
  2. In keeping with the ballad tradition, Keats doesn’t directly identify the speaker of the poem. What clues does the poem offer about the speaker? Who do you imagine the speaker to be?
  3. “La Belle Dame sans Merci” begins with a series of questions that animate the knight’s story. What answers does the poem provide?
  4. This poem is full of double entendres. Underline or copy down phrases that might have more than one meaning.
  5. The poem opens with two stanzas of questions. Who do you think is asking...

Laurentian Shield

  1. Which of the vivid images in the first stanza of “Laurentian Shield” is most striking to you?
  2. In the final line of the poem, the speaker says that the “rock” of this land will turn into “children.” What is your understanding of this destiny? Do you think the speaker is hopeful, skeptical, or scared about that outcome? What makes you think so?
  3. The poem uses a number of abstract terms such as “wonder,” “productivity,” “exploitation,” and “emptiness.” What do you think the poem is saying about the value of “progress”? Which elements of industrialization and...

Letters

  1. What does the speaker say happens to the letters he throws away? 
  2. Whose letters do you imagine the speaker is referring to?
  3. How does the poem play on the double meaning of the word “letters”?
  4. What is it you imagine the poet would “want back again?” What did he see?
  5. “Letters” strikes an intriguing blend of matter-of-fact statement and metaphysical fantasy. How do these two modes influence the tone of poem? How could that be represented in a recitation?
  6. Write a poem about throwing away something that was given to you....

Low Tide on Grand Pré

  1. This poem recalls a memory, but it is unclear who the “you” is in that memory. Based on your reading of the poem, what do you think the relationship is between the speaker and the person they are talking about?
  2. The image of Grand Pré as a body of water is used throughout the poem. Create a list of the words (adjectives, verbs, nouns) used to describe Grand Pré. What impression do you have of Grand Pré based on this list?
  3. The image of the setting sun is regularly referred to within the poem. How does this image affect the tone and mood of the poem?
    4. ...

Mantra of No Return

1. Read the poem out loud. How do the blank spaces and line breaks influence your reading?

 

2. The subject of language is important in this poem. The radio “babbles”, the mother’s voice “angles    into accent.” Do you or does anyone in your own family speak languages other than English or French? If so, what is your own relationship to that language?

 

3. The poem describes family history as “a narration contrived / to read like non fiction.” How does fiction enter into our tellings of true stories? Is it there from the start?

 

4....

Marshlands

  1. What time of day is it in this poem? Does the poem show you this, or tell you, or both?
  2. The poem doesn’t tell us exactly where this marsh is located; however, it does offer some strong clues. Which clues can you find? Do they suggest a particular area for this marsh?
  3. Johnson uses lots of L and M sounds here, especially in the first few lines. What kind of feeling do these sounds create? Do they make you want to read the poem slowly or quickly?
  4. There’s no explicit “I” or “You” in this poem; the speaker describes a scene but doesn’t appear in it....

mixed tape

  1. How does the structure of a mixed tape work to tell this poem’s story?
  2. How does “side a” differ in tone from “side b”?
  3. What images does the poet use to capture the cold atmosphere following the brother’s disappearance?
  4. How are the relationships among the family members described?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, how would you voice its short lines? Where and for how long would you pause?
  6. Write a poem using song titles to tell a story.

Useful Links...

Modestine

  1. The title of Crosbie’s poem refers to a donkey named Modestine. This is a literary allusion to Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, “Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes.” Do you understand the poem, as it is, without having to research the literary allusion? If you think the title isn’t effective, can you suggest another one?
  2. In her micro-interview, the poet says that “Modestine” is a “poem about a poem.” How does Lynn Crosbie use metaphor to show how the loss of the donkey is parallel to what has been...

Money

  1. This poem traces the speaker’s fascination with the British Museum’s coin collection. What is it about the coins that initially prompts the speaker into further contemplation?
  2. While the poem’s speaker embodies the conversational tone of a museum tour guide, there’s a delightful musicality to the poem that helps us to us to appreciate another element of these ancient coins. Can you find a beautiful passage that resonates with you?
  3. In the last stanza, the speaker says that the quality of a coin can be “checked by a chisel cut,” but that the quality of...

My Brother at 3 A.M.

  1. This poem is a pantoum: The second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The repeating lines seem to recreate while simultaneously deconstructing the scene. How do you think the repetition adds to the poem?
  2. Who is the speaker in this poem? What is the purpose of having the speaker in a nonparticipatory role? What is the speaker revealing in this witnessing?
  3. Note how in the third stanza the word choice in the repeating lines begin to vary. How does this modification to the pantoum form add, or detract,...

My Idea of the Circus Is My Idea of the Circus Otherwise Known As: My Mother Was a Celebrated Stunt Motorcyclist, Vietnam, 1958 to 1962

  1. What is the story in this poem? Who is telling the story?
  2. How does the poem’s structure mimic the speeding circular movement of a stunt motorcyclist riding up and around the inside of a barrel? (Hint: look for the use of repetition, etc.)
  3. How is sound used in the poem?
  4. The title suggests that the speaker is describing events from the past, and yet there are moments where the language shifts to present tense (“You enter”, “This is insane”) — how does this change the mood of the poem? What does it say about the speaker’s relationship to the past?...

My Poem Without Me in It

Newfoundland Sealing Disaster

  1. What is happening in this poem? Who does it happen to?
  2. What does this poem suggest about the lives of the men who are performing this dangerous job?
  3. How does the image of the pure white seal skins at the beginning of the poem contrast to the grisly details of the men’s deaths at the end?
  4. How does the poet recreate this historic tragedy in a way that makes it feel immediate and relatable?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, where would you pause for emphasis and where would you speed up? What tone would you use and where would that...

niya

One Art

  1. “One Art” is written in a traditional poetic form called a villanelle. Among other features, a villanelle uses two lines that repeat in a particular pattern. What are the two repeated lines in “One Art”?
  2. At the end of each line of a villanelle, the poet uses one of only two rhyme sounds. Make two lists, one for each rhyme sound in “One Art.” What tones, qualities, and meanings do you notice about these lists?
  3. Villanelles often work with the tension between the poet’s and reader’s desire for narrative and the way the repetition thwarts that narrative. What...

Opus 75, Sestina in B-flat for the Glockenspiel

1. Why is the girl in an empty classroom early in the morning? Literally, what is she doing?

2. What similes and metaphors are used in the poem? How do they help you understand what sort of person the girl is?

3. The poem uses a fair amount of enjambment, most notably in stanzas one and two. How does this poetic device affect the rhythm of lines? How might it support the poem’s theme?           

4. What do we know about the girl’s peers/classmates? How might the repeated images of “...

Pale Blue Cover

  1. This poem appears in an anthology called Changing on the Fly: The Best Lyric Poems of George Bowering. The term "lyric" refers to a short poem in which the poet, the poet's persona, or another speaker expresses personal feelings. How would you describe the speaker's feelings toward Matt?
  2. This poem is about Canadian author Matt Cohen. What can you glean from the speaker's description about Matt's personality? And who he was as a writer?
  3. The word "Canada" appears twice in the poem. Which other clues does the speaker offer which indicate that Matt is...

Passing into Storm

  1. What are some of the words you would use to describe the effect of this poem on a reader?
     
  2. If you were making a film of this poem, what would be the sounds effects you’d use? Would you shoot it in colour or in black and white? Why?
     
  3. Most would want to walk away from a storm rather than passing into it. Why does the man in the poem choose the latter?
     
  4. Why is the opening line so powerful? What does it imply?
     
  5. How could you perform this poem so that readers would feel its chill?

 

...

people arrived

  1. Who are the people in the poem? 
     
  2. There is a caesura, a white space, in the middle of the poem. How does that space surprise or distort the reading of the poem? Why do you think that space exists? 
     
  3. What is the effect of the forward slash in the poem? 
     
  4. What could the word “people” be substituted with in the poem? 
     
  5. At the 2018 Australian Poetry Slam, Kaie collaborated with electronic percussionist Alon Ilsar to give a remarkable performance of people arrive: (start 2:19)...

Plenty

  1. This poem has a strong voice running through it. How would you describe the speaker’s mood?
  2. Look at some of the more unexpected things the speaker in the poem finds beautiful, like leaves in the gutter or salt stains on shoes. Why are these details more interesting than a more obvious example of beauty, like flowers, would be?
  3. What is the effect of the poet’s use of similes that offer more than one comparison of an image, such as “the sky, lit up like a question or / an applause meter” or “raindrops / like jewels...

Poor Speaker

  1. Where is repetition used in this poem? Are the words repeated exactly every time or are slight changes made?
  2. Do you think the speaker has really “got it”? What leads you to think that?
  3. Who do you think the speaker is talking to? What kind of relationship do you think they have?
  4. The poet has used tercets (stanzas of three lines). How does this affect your reading of the poem? Think of how the poem would read differently if it were written mostly with quatrains (four-line stanzas) or as a prose poem (with paragraphs).
  5. If you were going...

Portrait of Alice with Elvis

  1. What does the poet suggest about the nature of celebrity by marrying together a fictional character and a dead singer?
  2. How does the poet use concrete physical details to ground this fantasy?
  3. Does the story in this poem feel innocent or sinister? Why?
  4. Do you see any connections between Victorian children’s literature and the mythology of rock and roll?
  5. Why do you think Alice and Elvis cry at night?
  6. If you were going to recite this poem, what tone would you take? Would it change?
  7. Write a short poem that imagines...

Praise the Rain

  1. How does the poet use repetition and rhythm to mimic the sound of rain?
  2. Harjo uses a lot of monosyllabic words in this poem. How does this affect the way the poem feels?
  3. Circle the nouns that she uses in the poem — what do they tell you about where she is? What kind of imagery dominates?
  4. What state of mind is the speaker in?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, how would you choose to handle the musical pattern of the lines? Where would you pause? Would you vary your rhythm or keep a steady...

Re: Happiness, in pursuit thereof

  1. What does the line “Here I am, a labyrinth, and I am a mess” suggest about the state of mind of the speaker? What would it mean to see yourself as a labyrinth?
  2. Who do you think the speaker of the poem is talking to? How does the poet demonstrate a sense of urgency through language and tone?
  3. The poem riffs off a line in the United States Declaration of Independence and is full of poetic, mysterious, and emotionally charged language. What is the effect of this contrast between the legal-sounding jargon of “in pursuit thereof” and the vulnerability in the line...

Regardless

 

Reluctance

  1. What season is this poem set in? How can you tell?
  2. What does the title refer to? What or who is reluctant in this poem?
  3. Frost wrote this poem after his future wife initially rejected his proposal of marriage. Devasted, Frost considered suicide. What images in this poem speak to the idea of depression and suicide?
  4. “Reluctance” is composed of four stanza-long sentences. The first two sentences end in periods, but the last two sentences end in question marks. How does this shift the mood of the poem?
  5. “Reluctance” is composed with a...

Richard Cory

  1. What is the relationship between Richard Cory and the speaker?
  2. How does rhyme and meter move the poem forward?
  3. What does the poem suggest about envy?
  4. What does the poem suggest about privilege?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, how would you avoid falling into a sing-song pattern?
  6. Write a poem imagining the inner sadness of a celebrity who appears on the surface to have it all.

Useful Links

 

Watch the folk duo Simon & Garfinkel sing their adaptation of this poem...

Riprap

  1. How does the poet connect language to the physical world in the poem?
  2. What does “the body of the mind” suggest to you?
  3. In the lines “The worlds like an endless / four-dimensional / Game of Go”, the poet is referencing a Chinese board game that has been played for over two thousand years. Look it up and consider what the poet is saying about the worlds (note Snyder chooses the plural!). What kind of game is this?
  4. If the poet is reading the landscape, what do you think its story is?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, what...

Salmon Courage

  1. M. NourbeSe Philip has used salmon as the central metaphor for this poem. What do you already know about salmon and their lifecycle? How does your understanding of salmon frame your understanding of the struggles and sacrifices of the speaker? Of the speaker's parents?
  2. How many years does it take before the speaker relives the journey of their salmon mother? Why do you think it took this long?
  3. What is the salmon father proud of? What is his fate compared to the salmon mother? Compared to the speaker?
  4. Take a moment to review the adjectives that...

Self-Portrait

  1. If this is a self-portrait, what is the speaker saying about himself?
  2. Do you relate to this speaker, or do you distrust him?
  3. What do you think he means that he found “the sweet, the gentle” to be “awful, / dull, brutally inconsequential”?
  4. How does the speaker envision the aging process? Is his true defiance the refusal to soften as he grows older?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, what tone would you use? Would it shift at all? Where?
  6. Write a poem imagining what kind of old person you would like to be.
...

Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong

1. The poet uses his own name several times, addressing his younger self. What effect does this repetition have on your reading of the poem? How do you think the poem would be different if it were written in the first person “I” voice?

 

2. What do you think it means for a poem to be “embodied?” What about a memory? Pause for a moment and close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Inhale deeply, in through your nose and out through your mouth. If you had to draw a map of emotions over your body, where in your body would you locate loneliness, envy, joy, sadness, anger? Write...

Sometimes a Voice (1)

  1. In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker directly addresses the reader. What effect does this technique have on you? Why do you think McKay does this early on in the poem, as opposed to later on?
  2. As a well-known Canadian eco poet, McKay often uses nature-based metaphors in his work. Notice how he repeats the word “voice” in the first stanza. Once you’ve read the whole poem, what do you think McKay means when he writes “[a voice will] recognize itself/as…a flight path still/looking for its bird?”
  3. The poet uses the literary technique of enjambment in “...

Sonoma

  1. Read the poem once and concentrate on the sensory details that the speaker is describing – colours, temperature, what they can see. Don't try to unpick the meaning just yet. Can you explain the ways in which the speaker evokes a particular mood?
  2. “the slumped driver silhouetted by my lights —/only the two of us on the road.” Do you believe the speaker is talking about a living person here? If yes – or no – what evidence can you find for this in the poem?
  3. Sonoma is a place in northern California and – according to the poem – a make of motor vehicle. The word...

sturgeon

1. How do the verbs and line-breaks work to create a feeling of breathlessness? How might you read it aloud?

 

2. What is the relationship between physical violence and freedom in this poem?

 

3. Why does the poet talk about her kitchen table, her plate?

 

4. Does the poet anthropomorphize the sturgeon? Is she attributing human emotions to its experience?

 

5. How would you characterize the emotional effect of this poem? Does it affect what you think about fishing?

 

6. Write a poem where you...

Sun Bear

  1. What is happening in this poem?
  2. What do you learn about sun bears in this poem?
  3. Compare the fact that the bear looks at the speaker “without interest” to the level of attention the speaker gives the caged bear, imagining him even after he has left the zoo. What does this contrast suggest about our relationship with the natural world?
  4. The poem moves from thinking about the bear to the news to the limitations of love itself. What is the speaker saying at the end?
  5. There is no punctuation in this poem and so it moves in a very associative...

Sweet Like a Crow

  1. This poem is made up of wild comparisons, but let’s imagine the poem’s speaker is being direct: What would be one word or one straightforward sentence the speaker would use to describe “your voice”?
  2. What’s your favourite “zinger” in this poem? Which comparison is most ridiculous to you? Which one conjures up a sound you can hear perfectly? Which one can you not hear at all? 
  3. The writer uses similes to describe the child’s singing voice. Why do you think the writer uses similes instead of metaphors? What if the writer wrote, “Your voice is a scorpion...

The Blue Guitar

  1. “The Blue Guitar” is filled with vivid sensory images. Which image do you find most memorable?
  2. There are many noteworthy structural patterns throughout this poem. For example, how many lines are in each stanza? What is the rhythm of each line? Which lines rhyme with one another? Why has the poet italicized the last line of each stanza?
  3. In the poem, the man who plays his blue guitar has a fairly philosophical discussion with his audience. The audience states that they “want the truth and not what you / are playing on the blue guitar.” What do you think this...

The Bull Moose

  1. “The Bull Moose” presents a frank account of a town’s encounter with a moose. Although the speaker of the poem offers no opinion about the events that are being recounted, the poem has a definite sense of right and wrong. Does the speaker side with the moose or the townspeople? Which lines of the poem make you think this?
  2. What animals (other than the moose) are mentioned in the poem? What do these animals have in common? What does invoking them add to the poem?
  3. Contrasting the natural world with the human world is well-trodden territory for poetry (see “...

The Dead

  1. This poem is a sonnet, but it doesn’t use a typical sonnet rhyming pattern. Which lines rhyme with one another? What words are repeated? Using these techniques, you can see that the poet has created two distinct sections within the poem. What is the main message in each section?
  2. The central comparison of the poem takes up the last eight lines – like “gigantic shadows on the wall” that amaze children, the dead are only sensed by us in glimpses, in “phantasma.” What words does Heavysege use to describe the phantasma in the poem? Does that give you a sense of how he...

the ghosts of women once girls

  1. What is the effect of the repeated lines “somewhere a little girl is reading aloud in the middle of a dirt road. she smiles at the sound of her own voice escaping the spine of a book.”?
     
  2. Why is the girl standing in the middle of a dirt road? Is she alone?
     
  3. What is the overall tone of the poem? Joyful? Sadness? 
     
  4. Does the tone change? If so, where does it shift? 
     
  5. Who is the speaker of the poem? To whom is the poem addressed? 
     
  6. Poet aja monet values education through a political...

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

  1. What is the mood of the speaker in this poem? What’s happening?
  2. This poem has such a strong sense of rhythm; read it out loud and then change the order of the words in the first few lines so that it’s more conversational and no longer following patterned meter. Does “made of clay and wattles” feel different than “of clay and wattles made”? How about “I’ll have nice bean-rows” instead of “Nine bean-rows will I have there”?
  3. How does the rhythm of the poem reflect the speaker’s desire for a slower life?
  4. At the end of the poem, it’s the rhythm of the...

The Lonely Land

1. The poet moves from one scene in nature to another. Read through the poem and “frame” each scene. How are they different in their descriptions of beauty? Which one is most remarkable to you, and why?

2. Read through the poem and point out the various uses of assonance and consonance. How do the persistent use of these devices contribute to the harmony of the piece?

3. Overall, what is the tone of this poem? What choices has the poet made to create that tone?

4. Considering your own reactions to the imagery, what choices would you make to ensure that each...

The Potato Harvest

  1. Charles Roberts has loaded this poem with vivid imagery. Which images grab you the most? What is so striking about them?
  2. What does Roberts mean by “day-worn harvest-folk?” What does the speaker tell us about them? What else can you guess about these people that the poem does not say?
  3. Make a chart of the rhyme scheme. Note where rhymes make a hard stop at the end of the line and where they run through to the next line. Can you find other rhymes that do not fall at the end of lines? Can you find “near-rhymes”?
  4. Can you identify archaic words in the...

The Swimmer’s Moment

  1. What is the decision that the swimmers usually make when faced with an unexpected whirlpool? What happens to the swimmers who decide not to acknowledge the whirlpool? What are the directions their lives and self-awareness go in?
  2. What does the whirlpool described in “The Swimmer's Moment” represent to you? What might the silver reaches of the estuary be?
  3. The poem starts with "For everyone," which seems to indicate that "The Swimmer's Moment" is one that is inescapable for all people; however, Avison then writes of "they" and "we." What is she implying by the...

The Tyger

  1. What’s the overall vibe of this poem? How does it feel to you?
  2. In this poem, the speaker is asking a tiger (or “Tyger!”) who created it. Who do you think created the tiger of this poem? Who do you think the speaker believes created the tiger?
  3. Why does the speaker describe the tiger as “burning bright”?
  4. The repetition of a word at the beginning of a sentence of phrase is called anaphora. Blake uses anaphora throughout “The Tyger.” What effects does this have on how you receive the poem?
  5. “The Tyger” is one of the most famous poems in...

The Windhover

  1. In terms of “story,” this is basically a poem about a guy being blown away by watching a bird — a small falcon called a kestrel — ride the wind. How does Hopkin’s use of language capture the fact that the speaker has experienced a moment of transcendence?
  2. What are your favourite lines or clusters of words? Why?
  3. Try replacing any of the words in these lines with another word that means the same thing? How does it change the feel of the line?
  4. What is the mood of the speaker?
  5. If you were going to recite this poem, how would you balance...

These Poems, She Said

  1. In the opening lines, the words “these poems” are repeated three times. What does the repetition tell us about the feeling and emotion of being in an argument?
  2. The intermingled use of “he,” “she,” and “I” in the poem might lead to confusion over who is saying what and to whom specific feelings or responses can be attributed. Might this ambiguity be intentional? Reflect on and play with Bringhurst’s use of pronouns. With different pens or highlighters, mark the sentences or feelings that you think belong to each of the two interlocutors.
  3. 3. Bringhurst’s poem...

They are hostile nations

  1. How does the poet illustrate a sense of urgency in the poem? How does she describe the world?
  2. What does the speaker suggest we do in order to survive?
  3. How does the poet use the three separate sections of the poem to shift her focus of observation?
  4. Do you think this poem is essentially optimistic or pessimistic about the future of human life on this planet? Where do you feel a sense of hope in the poem?
  5. Which are your favourite lines and why?
  6. If you were going to recite this poem, how would you use your voice to reflect the...

Thou Poem

  1. This poem is a conversation between a speaker (a poet) and their poem. What words does the poet use to describe their poem? How does the poet feel about their poem?
  2. What is the poem saying back to the speaker in italics? How do you read the tone of the poem’s replies – defiant? soothing? angry?
  3. What do you think of the poet’s choice to use archaic language with the use of words like “thou” and “catafalque”?
  4. 4) In stanza 3, the poet mentions, "snakes on your lip" and "the toad" as metaphors. These animals are often used in fables and legends. Do...

Tide

  1. It's helpful to know that this poem is about Reena Virk. She was a teen of South Asian descent who was murdered by her peers in Saanich, British Columbia, in 1997. What part of her story is being told in this poem?
  2. How does the title inform the story? What does the word "Tide" make you think of in this context?
  3. What details from the environment are highlighted? What effect do those details have on the mood of the poem?
  4. Though a reader should never assume that a poem in the first person is written from...

Too Negative

  1. The title of the poem appears again in the fourth line. What’s the effect of that repetition?
     
  2. What words or phrases suggest the gossiping parents’ attitude toward the speaker?
     
  3. Does the speaker accept this label? What words or phrases suggest how the speaker feels?  
     
  4. There’s only one strong image in this poem—that of the speaker “lying down” on the “mostly/ frozen sand” with grains of it sticking to their scalp. What feeling does that image leave you with? Brainstorm your associations to this image.
     
    5. ...

Tractor

  1. The poet Karen Solie grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan. What does this poem tell you about the speaker’s view of farm life?
  2. It’s helpful to know that this poem was first published in The Walrus in 2008, so the line “We hope to own it outright by 2017” was looking nearly a decade into the future at the time. What do these details about the cost of the tractor suggest about the economics of farming in Canada?
  3. What is going on across the road from the farm in this poem?
  4. Do you get the sense that the tractor works for the farm or that the farm works...

Two Hours on the Train

1. Why do you think the poet chose a train journey to structure this poem?

 

2. The poem is written in free verse (no rhyme or meter), with no punctuation, and no enjambment of lines. How do these choices fit the poem?

 

3. As the poet reruns the film of his life, he gives half an hour for childhood, and half an hour for prison. How might they be equivalent? In what way is childhood like prison?

 

4. Time is important in this poem. If you look closely, you will notice that the minutes and years fail to add up. Is the poet bad at math...

Two Words: A Wedding

  1. Look at the title of the poem. What do you associate with weddings? What kind of a wedding might the poet be talking about?
  2. The poet Barrie Phillip Nichol was obsessed with the physicality of words and the shape they took on the page. The author name he chose — bpNicho l— highlights his unconventional approach to language and the way language appears in written form. Choose one line from the poem. On a blank sheet of paper, spread the words out across the page however you choose. Do any specific words stand out to you? How does your understanding of that line shift when...

Vancouver Lights

  1. One of the first things you might notice about this poem is how it often puts lots of space between words. Does this poem contain any punctuation? How do you “read” those spaces in the poem? What are those spaces doing?
  2. This poem casts a very wide net: the speaker looks out at the city’s lights and thinks about the ocean’s currents connecting continents, about the planets and the stars, about being and nothingness, and about how humanity will be remembered. Where does that lead us? What is the poem’s speaker ultimately saying about humanity in this poem?
  3. It’...

We Wear the Mask

  1. A rondeau is a French poetic form composed of 15 lines, each of which contains between eight and 10 syllables. How does the poem’s rondeau structure reinforce its message?
     
  2. How does the metaphor of the mask evolve between the first two lines and the last two lines of the poem?
     
  3. In reading the lines ‘This debt we pay to human guile’ and ‘O great Christ, our cries / To thee from tortured souls arise’, how would you describe the speaker’s relationship to humanity, and to the god figure he calls upon?
     
  4. Who do you think ‘we...

What Is Poetry

  1. This poem is an anagram: it uses the same exact letters for each line, re-arranging them to make different words and phrases. It’s amazing how many different combinations she came up with! Which are the most surprising to you? Are there other words you can see in the letters?
  2. Some of Holbrook’s discoveries seem to make fun of poetry itself. Others are downright silly. What do you think about a poem that seems to joke about what poetry can (and should) do? Is it disrespectful?
  3. Each line of this poem must be a very specific length, using all the letters (and...

Where There’s a Wall

  1. In this poem, what are some examples of what the wall can represent metaphorically?
  2. Why might the speaker of this poem search for things to “overhear”in walls?
  3. Notice the shift in tone and in images from the first stanza to the second. What progression is happening in the description of the possibilities contained in the wall between the two stanzas?
  4. “Belly of the wall” is very strange phrase that connects the wall to something human, at least animal. What if the poet wrote “mouth of the wall”? Or “heart of the wall”? How does the use of “belly”...

Wolf Lake

  1. Who is the speaker in this poem? What has happened to her?
  2. This poem was inspired by another poem of the same name by the poet Matt Rader, in which two young men witness a man pulling a woman’s body out of the trunk of a car. In her poem, Bachinsky switches the point of view to the woman in the trunk. There is a long tradition of poems that are direct responses to other poems and in particular, poems that approach the same story but from another character’s perspective. For example, Christopher Marlowe’s romantic poem...

World Town

  1. This poem features a riotous sensory landscape. Which sights, sounds, and smells evoke strong memories for you?
  2. What does the house made of doors tell us about the man’s class? How does that shape your reading of the poem?
  3. There are several clues in the poem that point to where this town might be located, but the town is never named. What makes this town a “World Town”? How would your understanding of the poem change if you knew the town’s name?
  4. This poem jumps across time, from memory to memory. When the speaker encounters the a “man crouched...

“Breathe dust…”

  1. What kind of chores does this poem describe? How are they different from chores you might do at home today?
  2. How do you think the poem’s title relates to the lack of punctuation (with the exception of a few apostrophes)?
  3. Do these seem like happy memories for the speaker? When you come to the line, “I was dying,” towards the end of the poem, what do you think the speaker means? How does this experience colour the speaker’s memories?
  4. What effect does the repetition of the line “the snow smelled like coal” create? How does this repetition and its...

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