Basking Shark Flashcards
(24 cards)
To stub
To have
Helps to capture readers attention
Infinitive verbs
On a rock
Compares shark to rock
Metaphor
Bulky and solid
Unintelligent without feeling
It rise
Shark is in charge
Sloungs
Onomatopoeia
Noise of waves, clumsy movement
Once (too often)
Although he’s frightened, he tries to inject humour to make light of it
-
Dash shows no rush
Scary at first, but now seems worthwhile
I count as gain
Emphasises as worthwhile
Explains why in rest of poem
Met
Experience no longer a shock
He can now think about what happened
On a sea tin-tacked with rain
Visual and audible imagery
Sees and hears rain on sea
Now that shock has passed he can focus on details
Rooms iced monster with a matchbox brain
Large with small brain
Dinosaur
Physical and mental difference
Displaced more than water
Idea of shark making him rethink world and his place in it
He shoggled me
Sharks in control again
Moving him
Self deprecating
Centuries back
Thinking back to prehistory
Decadent townee
Moved far from origins
Lost sense of purpose in life become to immersed in pursuit of hedonistic pleasure
Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree
Reminded that this shark is also part of our family tree
Inextricablyinjed to us as ancestors
Swish
Onomatopoeic swish of water
Emphasises displacement of water
Dirt
Murky Thought of human evolution
One fling
Sudden nature of his thoughts
How one encounter can change viewpoint
Emerging
Moving/developing from prehistoric times
Slime
Primeval slime from which all organisms are made, linking evolution of humanity with shark
Everything
Poet and us are connected to every animal
Who’s the monster?
Not confident as to who’s a superior being
Twenty seconds
Doesn’t think for long
Emphasises how man is the monster
Sail after sail
Tail fin slid away
Shark is elegant being
Contrast to earlier in the poem
