PRE-READING 1. Have you ever felt a moment of connection or empathy with a complete stranger?
2. Do you enjoy people watching, perhaps at a café or an airport, where you observe the people around you and imagine what their stories are?
COMPREHENDING AND RESPONDING 1. Pick a metaphor from stanza one and explain its impact.
2. In stanza two how does the speaker explain her connection with the roofwalkers? Refer to stanza two in support of your answer.
3. The speaker asks two rhetorical questions in stanza three. Pick one of those questions and explain what you think it really means.
4. Would you agree or disagree that ‘A life I didn’t choose/ chose me’ is the most powerful line in this poem? Explain why you agree or disagree, with reference to the poem as a whole.
5. The speaker thinks that her ‘tools are the wrong ones’. What do you think she means by this? What kind of tools might she be talking about?
6. Explain the final lines of the poem in your own words: ‘I’m naked ignorant,/ a naked man fleeing/ across the roofs/ who could with a shade of difference/ be sitting in the lamplight/ against the cream wallpaper/ reading—not with indifference—/ about a naked man/ fleeing across the roofs.’
7. What do you think might have been going on in the poet’s life personally and/or professionally when she wrote this poem (was she happy, unhappy, etc.)? Support your answer with reference to the poem.
8. What theme or themes can you find in this poem? Refer to the poem in support of your answer.
CREATING
1. A local film school has invited submissions for a competition to make a short film based on a poem. Your class wishes to submit a proposal for a short film based on ‘The Roofwalker’. Write the proposal your group would submit.
2. Imagine you could swop places with anyone else (living or dead) for one day. Write the diary entry you would compose after this life swop.
3. Write a short story with the title: ‘A life I didn’t choose, chose me’.
