Literary Response and Analysis--Poetry, grades 5&6

To understand poetry, use these 10 items to respond to the poem that follows:

1. Write the title of the poem.
2. Read the poem twice for fluency. Read it a third time for comprehension.
3. How many stanzas are in this poem?
4. How many lines are in each stanza?
5. Identify (Circle) key vocabulary words that convey a feeling (the connotation).
6. What is the meaning or message of this poem?
7. What is the mood or tone of the poem?
8. What person is the poem written in? What is the evidence?
9. Identify and label all literary devices.
10. Illustrate the content and feeling of the poem.

Poem 1: Water Picture
by May Swenson

In the pond in the park
all things are doubled:
Long buildings hang and
wriggle gently. Chimneys
are bent legs bouncing
on clouds below. A flag
wags like a fishhook
down there in the sky.
The arched stone bridge
is an eye, with underlid
in the water. In its lens
dip crinkled heads with hats
that don't fall off. Dogs go by,
barking on their backs.
A baby, taken to feed the
ducks, dangles upside-down,
a pink balloon for a buoy.
Treetops deploy a haze of
cherry bloom for roots,
where birds coast belly-up
in the glass bowl of a hill;
from its bottom a bunch
of peanut-munching children
is suspended by their
sneakers, waveringly.
A swan, with twin necks
forming the figure 3,
steers between two dimpled
towers doubled. Fondly
hissing, she kisses herself,
and all the scene is troubled:
water-windows splinter,
tree-limbs tangle, the bridge
folds like a fan.

Poem 2: The Green Moth
By Winifred Welles

The night the green moth came for me,
A creamy moon poured down the hill,
The meadow seemed a silver sea,
Small pearls were hung in every tree,
And all so still, so still—

He floated in on my white bed,
A strange and soundless fellow.
I saw the horns wave on his head,
He stepped across my pillow
In tiny ermine boots, and spread
His cape of green and yellow.

He came so close that I could see
His golden eyes, and sweet and chill,
His faint breath wavered over me.
“Come Child, my Beautiful,” said he,
And all so still, so still—

Poem 3: Song for a Blue Roadster
By Rachel Field

Fly, Roadster, fly!
The sun is high,
Gold are the fields
We hurry by,
Green are the woods
As we slide through,
Past harbor and headland,
Blue on blue.

Fly, Roadster, fly!
The hay smells sweet,
And the flowers fringing
Each village street,
Where carts are blue,
And barns are red,
And the road unwinds
Like a twist of thread.

Fly, Roadster, fly!
Leave time behind;
Out of sight
Shall be out of mind,
Shine and shadow,
Blue sea, green bough,
Nothing is real
But Here and Now.