ENGLISH HOMEWORK

HOMEWORK 1 

In the last two lines of the poem, the poet tells us how he feels about his relationship with his father. How does the poet structure this poem so that the last two lines accomplish this?  The poet structures his poem so that the last two lines explain how he feels about his relationship with his father. He realizes that, when he was young, he didn’t understand how much his father loved him, and he regrets this.

Those Winter Sundays

BY ROBERT HAYDENSundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.



I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,



Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?



HOMEWORK 2

1.  Define the following words: 

a.tone 

b.irony 

c.simile 

d. metaphor 

e. personification  

2. How can you use these terms to analyze poetry?

HOMEWORK 3

After reading My Papa's Waltz answer the following question: 

 1. What do you think this poem is about? Use text from the poem to support your answer. 

My Papa’s Waltz

BY THEODORE ROETHKEThe whiskey on your breath   

Could make a small boy dizzy;   

But I hung on like death:   

Such waltzing was not easy.



We romped until the pans   

Slid from the kitchen shelf;   

My mother’s countenance   

Could not unfrown itself.



The hand that held my wrist   

Was battered on one knuckle;   

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.



You beat time on my head   

With a palm caked hard by dirt,   

Then waltzed me off to bed   

Still clinging to your shirt.