Poetry Support

Read the extract below and answer the questions that follow.

Leaves
  Murmuring by myriads in the shimmering trees.
Lives
   Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees.
Birds
   Cheerily chirping in the early day.
Bards
   Singing of summer, scything through the hay.
Bees
   Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond.
Boys
   Bursting the surface of the ebony pond.

(From Wilfred Owen's "My Diary, July 1914)
(In Poets and Poetry (1992). R.K. Sadler, T.A.S. Hayllar & C.J. Powell (Eds.). Melbourne: Macmillan Education.)

1. Apart from the fact that the poem is written in couplets, what is its most outstanding feature?
a) Assonance
b) Punctuation
c) Alliteration

Glory to God for dappled things -
For skies of couple-colour, as a brinded cow;

(From Gerard Manley Hopkins: "Spring")
(In Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (1953). H. Gardner (Ed.). Melbourne: Penguin.)

2. The alliteration of "g" and "c" in the above quote gives:
a) a sense of strength to the thought
b) a sense of softness and gentleness to the thought
c) a sense of emphasis to the thought

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean.

(From Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "Kubla Khan")
(In The Progress of poetry (1965). C.J. Horne & M. O'Brien (Eds.). Melbourne: Heinemann.)

3. The alliteration of "m" and "r" in the above quote gives:
a) a sense of hardness and strength to the description
b) a sense of emphasis to the description
c) a sense of flow and softness to the description

The rows of cells are unroofed,
A flute for the wind's mouth,
Who comes with a breath of ice
From the blue caves of the south.

From Judith Wright's "The Old Prison")
(In Five Senses (1963). Judith Wright. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.)

4. The poet's use of assonance in the words: "rows", "unroofed", "blue" and "mouth" and "south" help to create:
a) an atmosphere of bleakness and inhospitableness
b) an atmosphere of starkness
c) an atmosphere of nonchalance

Thrush
A Thrush, lush, limpid, O like lightning under
The mountain-piled white clouds, the caverns of the thunder,
O call, call, in cold cadenza call the rush,
The hush of rain. O drench, quench the summer bush:
The thronging fires of red and yellow Christmas bells,
The sapling flames, each heat-hushed gum that shells
The sun-burned bark. O let the creek speak from soak
To soak; let the frogs croak, in chorus croak.
Ah thrush, limpid, lush, ah, let the rain be spent
Night-long on the leaves, the mould, my stretched-tight tent.

Roland Robinson
(In New Senior English (1988). R.K. Sadler, T.A.S. Hayllar & C.J. Powell. Melbourne: Macmillan Education.)

5. In the above poem Robinson, to achieve the urgency and need for rain experienced by the parched earth, and to highlight the thrush's action in the wake of a coming storm the poet makes use of:
a) alliteration and assonance
b) alliteration, assonance, consonance, sound variation
c) a great deal of sound variation

South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country,
Rises that tableland, high delicate outline
Of bony slopes wincing under the winter;
Low trees blue-leaved and olive; outcropping granite -
Clean, lean, hungry country. The creek's leaf-silenced,
Willow-choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crab-apple,
Branching over and under, blotched with a green lichen;
And the old cottage lurches in for shelter.

From Judith Wright's "South of my days")
(In Five Senses (1963). Judith Wright. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.)

6. In the above poem Wright, to achieve the description, atmosphere and tone, makes use of:
a) a great deal of sound variation
b) alliteration and consonance
c) alliteration, consonance and assonance, sound variation

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound.

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The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

(Both quoted passages are taken from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner")
(In Progress of poetry (1965). C.J. Horne & M. O'Brien (Eds.). Melbourne: Heinemann.)

7. If a comparison were to be made between the two quoted passages, would it be fair to say that:
a) they are examples respectively of cacophony?
b) they are examples respectively of onomatopoeia?
c) the first stanza quoted is an example of cacophony and the second stanza quoted is an example of euphony?

Read the passages printed below and answer the questions that follow the

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

(From John Keats: "To Autumn)
(In Progress of poetry (1965). C.J. Horne & M. O'Brien (Eds.). Melbourne: Heinemann.)

8. The above line contains an example of:
a) onomatopoeia
b) consonance
c)assonance

There are two windmills at the bottom of our garden.
One whistles like a rainbird as the dry rod squeaks,
The other drones like a camel as the snails drag round.

(From Nancy Cato's "The Two Windmills")
(In Poets and poetry (1992). R.K. Sadler, T.A.S. Hayllar & C.J. Powell (Eds.). Melbourne: Macmillan Education.)

Identify the types of rhyme used in the stanzas below:

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

(From Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner")
(In The Progress of poetry (1965). C.J. Horne & M.O"Brien (Eds.). Melbourne: Heinemann.)

9. The above quoted lines contain:
a) examples of onomatopoeia
b) consonance
c) assonance

Score = /9
Correct answers: