or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.
1. EXPLORE
2. 3. 4. 5.
Who do you think are the two characters in the poem, represented by the personal pronouns ‘I’ and ‘they’?
What does the ‘I’ character want and what do ‘they’ want?
The poem has lots of vivid images. Choose your favourite one and explain why you chose it.
Many of the images are metaphors. Choose one and explain what the metaphor represents.
Do you like this poem? Explain your answer.
Teaching a Lesson CREATE W7.3
This poem by Billy Collins represents the difference between how ‘they’ feel about poetry and how the poet feels. What are your thoughts about poetry? Imagine you had to design an ideal lesson to teach your favourite poem to a group of first year students. How would you teach it? What would you like them to know about the poem? Think about what you would teach (the main points and literary devices you would highlight, your favourite lines) and how you would teach it (images, music, games or other teaching techniques that have helped you in the past).
This will help you in preparation for your Oral Communication task (p. 318).
D
258 FIRE AND ICE 2
Remember
A pronoun replaces a noun, so instead of saying ‘John is my friend and John is a very generous person’, you would say, ‘John is my friend – he is a very generous person’. ‘He’ is a personal pronoun. If you need to revise these, go back to page 5 in the Friendship collection.
