PlentyPoem

  1. This poem has a strong voice running through it. How would you describe the speaker’s mood? Speakers mood is lighthearted and the author thinks the world is great and then towards the end he realizes that sometimes its not so great
  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? I think these are more interesting then flowers because they are unique and show flaws and normal thing.
  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 or glass or those bright beads / girls put between the letters of the / bracelets that spell out their beautiful names”? How does this technique add to the overall feeling of the poem? This technique adds to the feeling because they show how the items make the author feel.
  4. What actually happens in this poem? What do you know about the speaker’s life? In this poem the author goes to the grocery store to get something for dinner and he thinks the world is great but on his way back home he sees stuff that makes him think its not as great.
  5. The poem follows the speaker moving through space (down the street, into the grocery store, then back outside looking at the sky) and through the speaker’s associative thought patterns (jumping from thinking of the sky to thinking of the name Skye; from thinking of the name Miranda to thinking of the word verandah). Write a poem in which you try to capture the way your own mind makes connections between seemingly unrelated things and try to maintain a consistent mood throughout.

 

I opened the freezer door to the frozen box

full of frost and fudgesicles

Plenty of food to choose from

yet I’m as indecisive as a leaf in the wind

Maybe later I will decide

but for now I leave with only a cup of water.