Grade 9 Poetry Book

Term 3, 2022
 A Lady
By Amy Lowell

You are beautiful and faded

Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded silks
Of an eighteenth-century boudoir1.
In your eyes
Smoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes,
And the perfume of your soul
Is vague and suffusing2,
With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.
Your half-tones delight me,
And I grow mad with gazing
At your blent colors.

My vigor3 is a new-minted penny,

Which I cast at your feet.
Gather it up from the dust,
That its sparkle may amuse you.
1. A woman's bedroom or private room
2. Gradually spread through or over
3. Physical strength and good health.

Questions:
1. Identify two examples of simile: explain which two things are being compared in each simile.
line 1 - 3 the aging woman is being compared the now faded silks of the bedroom are
to a old piece of music being compared to the aging woman
2. Identify two examples of metaphor: explain which two things are being compared in each
metaphor.
perfume of soul is vague and poet and the new minted penny
suffusing
3. Identify one example of personification: explain what is being personified and how.

4. Identify one example of hyperbole: explain what is being exaggerated.

5. What is the subject of this poem? What is this poem about? Explain your response.

6. What is the tone of this poem? How does the speaker treat the subject of the poem? Refer to
text.

7. What is the mood of this poem? How does this poem make you feel? Refer to text in your
response.
Operating Room
By John Reed

Sunlight floods the shiny many-

windowed place,
Coldly glinting on flawless steel
under glass,
And blaring imperially on the
spattered gules1
Where kneeling men grunt as
they swab the floor.

Startled eyes of nurses swish by

noiselessly,
Orderlies2 with cropped heads 1. The color red
swagger like murderers; 2. An hospital attendant responsible for the
nonmedical care of patients, order, and cleanliness
And three surgeons, robed and 3. A gradual increase in loudness or intensity.
masked mysteriously,
Lounge gossiping of guts, and
wish it were lunch-time.

Beyond the porcelain door,

screaming mounts
crescendo3
Case 4001 coming out of the
ether,
Born again half a man, to spend
his life in bed.

Questions:
1. Identify one example of simile: explain which two things are being compared.

2. Identify one example of metaphor: explain which two things are being compared.

3. Identify one example of personification: explain what is being personified and how.

4. Identify one example of hyperbole: explain what is being exaggerated.

5. What is the subject of this poem? What is this poem about? Explain your response.

6. What is the tone of this poem? How does the speaker treat the subject of the poem? Refer to text.

7. What is the mood of this poem? How does this poem make you feel? Refer to the text.

- eveal about the surgeons?

Explain your answer.
By Otto Leland Bohanan

The Dawn's awake!

A flash of smoldering flame and fire
Ignites the East. Then, higher, higher,
O'er all the sky so gray, forlorn1,
The torch of gold is borne.

The Dawn's awake!

The dawn of a thousand dreams and thrills.
And music singing in the hills
A paean2 of eternal spring
Voices the new awakening.

The Dawn's awake!

Whispers of pent-up harmonies,
With the mingled fragrance of the trees;
Faint snatches of half-forgotten song--
Fathers! torn and numb,--
The boon of light we craved, awaited long,
Has come, has come! 1. Pitifully sad and abandoned or lonely:
2. A song of praise or triumph.

Questions:
1. Identify two examples of personification: explain what is being personified & how in each example.

2. Identify an example of hyperbole: explain how it is exaggerated.

3. Identify an example of metaphor: explain which two things are being compared.

4. Find three examples of imagery in the poem that access three different senses. Explain which senses are
called on by the speaker for each example.

5. Contrast the tone -- tone of the rest of the poem. How is

this line different and why do you think that it is?

6. This poem was written by an African American poet during the Harlem Renaissance. Knowing this, how
t?