Keeping Quiet (Worksheet-C)

Question 1. What is the sadness the poet refers to in the poem ‘Keeping Quiet’?

Question 2. How, according to Neruda, can keeping quiet change our attitude to life?

Question 3. Which images in the poem, “Keeping Quiet” show that the poet condemns
violence?

Question 4. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
‘It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.’

1. Which exotic moment is referred to in these lines?

2. Why would that moment be strange?
3. What does the poet advocate in the poem?
4. What does the poet mean by the word, ‘engines’?

Question 5. What will count up to twelve and keeping still help us achieve?

Question 6. Which symbol from nature does the poet invoke that there can be life under
apparent stillness?

Question 7. ‘Life is what it is all about;…’ How is keeping quiet related to life?

Question 8. Why does one feel ‘a sudden strangeness’ on counting to twelve and keeping
quiet?

Question 9. How will ‘keeping quiet’ protect our environment?

Question 10. What does the poem, ‘Keeping Quiet’ teach us?

Question 11. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:

Noiv we will count to twelve

and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the Earth
let’s not speak in any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

1. What is the significance of the number ‘twelve’?

2. Which two activities does the poet want us to stop?
3. What does the poet mean by ‘let’s not speak in any language’?
 4. Describe the pun on the word, ‘arms’.

Question 12. What does the poet want us to do in the poem, ‘Keeping Quiet’?

Question 13. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
‘Perhaps the Earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive’.

1. Name the poem and the poet.

2. What does the earth teach us?
3. When do things seem to be dead?
4. Write the antonym of ‘teach’.

Question 14. How can ‘mighty dead’ be things of beauty?

Question 15. How would keeping quiet affect life in and around the sea?

Question 16. How is total inactivity on the Earth in the winter months full of life?

Question 17. Why does Pablo Neruda want us to count till twelve and keep still?

Question 18. What will keeping still help us achieve?

Question 19. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
‘It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.’

1. What would be an exotic moment?

2. Why would it be exotic?
3. What would be the result of all being together?
4. Explain: ‘Sudden strangeness’.

Mrs. Rayena Reza

P.G.T. (English)
SHSSS (Boys)
A.M.U., Aligarh