Exercise 3

Assalamualaikum to all my Muslims comrades and hi there! This time, I would like to provide you guys with two practices on the poem, In the Midst of Hardship. If you guys want to answer it successfully, you can refer to the previous entry, just click here.

Practice 1

1. At what time of the day did the family return home?

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2. Which lines in stanza 1 tell you that the family accept the hardship calmly?

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3. Explain the line they had to brave the horrendous flood.

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4. What was the family looking for in the flood waters?

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5. In your opinion, why did the family not complain about the hardships they had to face?

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Practice 2

1. Where is the setting of the poem?

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2. In your opinion, why did the family go towards the stove as soon as they returned home?

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3. Why do you think the people braved the floods to look for the albino buffalo?

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4. How did the family unwind after a hard day work?

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p/s-as usual, kindly email your answer to rabiatul.adawiyah20@yahoo.co.uk

Exercise 2

This is the exercise for the poem, 'The River' by Valerie Bloom. I guess all of you could answer this exercise easily since it is an objective format. All the best ! =)

1. How many stanzas are there in ‘The River’?

a) 5

b) 6

c) 7

d) 8

2. Pastoral people who move from place to place in search of food and water are called

a) Campers

b) Nomads

c) Caravan people

d) Vagrants

3. To be ‘vexed’ means to be

a) worried

b) angry

c) irritated

d) haunted

4. What is the most likely reason a river ‘twists and turns’?

a) river waters move in torrents

b) river water moves in currents

c) water moves from left to right

d) it cannot cut through hard rocks

5. To ‘gobbled’ means to

a) eat in slow motion

b) eat noisily and quickly

c) eat slowly in small mouthfuls

d) eat in an easy relaxed manner

6. When water goes down our throats, it may

a) gurgle

b) gargle

c) gobble

d) garble

7. ‘The River’ uses plenty of metaphors. Which is the following is not a metaphor?

a) baby

b) winder

c) singer

d) treasures

8. ‘The River’ is personified with a

a) female gender

b) male gender

c) neutral gender

d) no gender

9. The poet describes ‘The River’ as if it is a

a) monster

b) person

c) baby

d) wanderer

10. An angry river becomes a monster and

a) swallows

b) destroys

c) gobbles

d) crushed

p/s-Simply email your answer to rabiatul.adawiyah20@yahoo.co.uk

Exercise 1

This is an exercise for those who are into Literature, (especially my students), which is provided to enhance your understanding on the poem, He Had Such Quiet Eyes.

Practice 1

1. What does the phrase quiet eyes refer to?

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2. Explain the phrase layered with thinnest eyes.

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3. What emotion is expressed in lines 9 and 10?

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4. In stanza 3, what is the persona's advice before getting into a relationship?

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Practice 2

1. What does the phrase two pools of lies refers to?

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2. Explain the phrase to render him paradise.

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3. How did man deceive the persona at first?

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4. Give one possible message of the poem.

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p/s-Please email your answer to rabiatul.adawiyah20@yahoo.co.uk

Poem: Mr Nobody

I know a funny little man,
As quiet as a mouse,
Who does the mischief that is done
In everybody's house!
There's no one ever sees his face,
And yet we all agree
That every plate we break was cracked
By Mr. Nobody

`Tis he who always tears our books,
Who leaves the door ajar,
He pulls the buttons from our shirts,
And scatters pine afar;
That squeaking door will always squeak,
For, prithee, don't you see,
We leave the oiling to be done
By Mr. Nobody

The finger marked upon the door
By none of us are made;
We never leave the blind unclosed,
To let the curtains fade.
The ink we never spill; the boots
That lying round you. See
Are not our boots they all belong
To Mr. Nobody.

(Author Unknown)

Poem: In The Midst of Hardship

SYNOPSIS (OVERALL)

This poem is about a family who faces hardship whereby their son’s albino buffalo is nowhere to be found. A flood occurs and they go out to find the buffalo. They reach home early in the morning without the buffalo and yet there is no sign of despair in them. Meanwhile, they can still crack jokes and roll the cigarettes.

SYNOPSIS (ACCORDING TO STANZA)

STANZA 1

They returned home at day break and headed for the stove. Their clothes were soaking wet and tattered. Their bodies were covered with scratches and wounds. Yet, they did not display any signs of being worried.

STANZA 2

They were out in the flood the whole day and night. They were surrounded by dead animals and parts of trees that had been destroyed by the flood. They searched desperately for their son’s albino buffalo but were unable to find it.

STANZA 3

They were born into poverty and difficulty, but they do not complain about their suffer. Instead, they sit in the kitchen, cracking jokes while smoking cigarettes.

SETTING

The setting of the poem is in the house.

THEMES

• Being resilience when facing hardship
• Family love
• Acceptance of way of life

MORAL VALUES

We should learn to accept problems in life with a positive outlook. We must attempt to face and solve problem. Facing hardship is part and parcel of life. If we face a problem, do not feel despair.

TONE, MOOD, ATMOSPHERE

• Understanding and sympathetic
• Acceptance of situation

POINT OF VIEW

• Third person point of view.

LANGUAGE & STYLE

• Language is simple and easy to understand.The style is simple with no rhyming scheme.

POETIC DEVICES

• Imagery – Gives picture of poet’s thoughts e.g ‘soaky clothes torn’ and ‘legs full of

wounds’

• Alliteration – e.g. ‘but on their brows’Symbols – e.g. ‘horrendous flood’ and ‘bloating carcasses’

• Diction – e.g. ‘stove’ and ‘brows‘

Valerie Bloom (The River)

Valerie Bloom was born in Jamaica and came to England in 1979.

She studied English with African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

She writes poetry in English and Jamaican patois for all ages, and has performed her work throughout the world, with many television and radio appearances.

Her poetry is included in a number of anthologies and she tutors regularly for schools and colleges.Her books include the Jamaican poetry collections Touch mi! Tell mi! (1983); andDuppy Jamboree and other Jamaican Poems (1991); Hot Like Fire (2002), a collection of poems in English and Jamaican patois; and more recently, Whoop an'Shout! (2003).She has edited several collections of poetry such as On a Camel to the Moon and other poems about journeys (2001) and One River, Many Creeks: poems from all around the world (2003).

Her children's novel, Surprising Joy, was published in 2003.Valerie Bloom has been awarded an Honorary Masters Degree from the University of Kent, and lives in Kent. Her latest books are The Tribe and A Soh Life Goh, both published in 2008. In the same year, she was awarded an MBE for services to poetry.

Bibsy Suenharjo (He Had Such Quiet Eyes)

Bibsy Soenharjo was born in Jakarta on 22 November 1928. Bibsy and her siblings were homeschooled and each was encouraged to pursue their own interests. She had a particular fondness for literature and, after returning home from a four-year stay in Japan, Bibsy began writing her first prose in 1957, and then poetry in the 60s. The Literary Review, an international quarterly published by Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, USA, published her first four literary pieces in their Autumn and Spring Editions in 1967 and 1968 respectively. In 1967 also, her poem, “Jakarta, March 1967” was published in the Australian magazine Hemisphere, while ”Setelah Gerhana Bulan” (After the Eclipse of the Moon) was published in Gelanggang, an Indonesian cultural magazine now defunct. Her poems have appeared in bilingual anthologies, with her Indonesian works translated into English, Dutch and Japanese and her English poems into Indonesian and Dutch. She continued to write prose pieces in Indonesian that appeared in Jakarta dailies under the pen name Nuspati. Bibsy Soenharjo now lives in Jakarta with the youngest of her three sons, Haryo, his wife Sutji and their children.