Funeral Blues

By W H Auden
My learning aim is
• To understand what the poem is about
• To be able to explain the language
-personification
-metaphor
Dictionary skills
What is:
1. A mourner
2. Crepe
Before we read…

• Personification is making an object that

is not alive sound like a person or living
creature
Which words are
personification here?

‘Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead’
Read the poem
• Do you see the personification? Identify
them.

• Discuss the poem in pairs

• Write a paragraph describing what the

poem is about eg The poem is about a
person who is talking about their partner
who…
Metaphor
• A metaphor compares one thing with
another eg

He was a lion on the football field

The field was a green blanket

Read the poem
• Can you find some other metaphors?
• Highlight them
Now

• Find a quote to go with each image on

the sheet
Now…
• Explain in your own words what the
poet is trying to say in this metaphor

‘He was my North, my South, my East,

my West’
Now..
• Choose 3 lines or phrases and explain
why you like them eg

I like the line ‘The stars are not wanted

now: put out every one’ because it
shows that he is so unhappy even
beautiful stars cannot interest him. He
feels he is in a dark place emotionally,
so it might as well really be dark’
Form
• Copy and complete:
The poem is written in_____ stanzas (verses).
Each stanza has____lines. In each one, the
words at the end of the_____lines and
the_______lines rhyme.

The poem is slow/fast to read. This makes it

sound sad/happy to show how the person is
feeling.
Finish this sentence
• I think the poet has written this poem
because…
Personal response
• How would you feel if someone you
loved died?

• Write either a poem or 200 words

summing up how you feel and your
sense of loss