The following poem needs to identify and answer this question.“How does an individual’s perspective of, and responseto, a crisis define him or her?
”It needs to have mood, imagery, and tone identified in separate paragraphs incorporated and displayed how the poet used mood, imagery and tone to enhance the theme.
Consider the speaker’s tone.
-What seems to be the speaker’s attitude?
-What specific details from the poem support your conclusions?
-Is the tone consistent or does the poet’s attitudeshift throughout the poem?
-Why might the poet have used this tone?Determine the mood when determining the theme.
-What predominant emotion is the reader intended tofeel?-What words or phrases support this mood?
-Is this mood consistent or does it shift throughout the poem?
Imagery – are all 5 senses aroused?
Did the poet deliberatelyactive one sense in particular?
foremother by Lillian Bouzanemy
great-grandmother watched her husband
Wash over board
in a Labrador gale
just one more fishing skipper lost
in the Strait of Belle Isle
nobody noticed
she was a grieving woman
until the merchant at Quirpon
moved to short-change her by fifty quintal
on the fish from their last voyage
with a scorn she bothered to show
she ordered the catch reloaded
took the wheel herself
and set her course for the next harbor
where she sold it at a neat profit
steeling her nerve
she raised her flag to full staff
and sailed into her home port
the priest came to see her
to admonish and comfort
she gave him good whiskey
with a glint in her eye
that said “don’t meddle with me
”he didn’t
each year thereafter
she made two voyages to the Labrador Coast
spring and summer
hired for hands only bedlamer boys
kept her name clear
took one trip to Boston each year left
the children behind
with orders to say to the neighbours“don’t meddle with my mother’s good name”they obeyed her
when she was fifty
and had fourteen schooners in her nameshe married again
a man half her age
she made him her bookkeeper/bartender
he was good at both
she got ten winters out of him
she said so herself
once she sailed her flagship
to Montreal to buy a dress
her only purchase when the Duke’s son came
to plant a tree
and settle other matters of State
she danced the night through with himat the government ball
he walked her down to the harbor
they sat on her quarter-deck ‘til dawndrinking port and singing bawdy songs
it was said he asked her to marry him
it was said she turned him downshe already had more ships than hebefore the bank crash of 1894
she liquidated her assets
bought gold
lived another ten years to be ninety
to the consternation of her sons
and the delight of her daughters
who loved her
and got her money
they passed it on to my mother
who educated my five sisters and me
with what was left of itI, her offspring, thrice removed
write this poem in praise of her
and tell only half I know.
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