Midyear cram poetry Flashcards
(24 cards)
Introduction format
- Comment that introduces poet, poems and broader aspects of poets style
- Contextual background
- Thesis statement
In Angelou’s 1978 poetry collection ‘And Still I Rise’, the poems (poem 1 and 2) consider (key idea from q) in two contrasting ways but both from a (descriptor) view. Maya Angelou, a celebrated African American poet and civil rights activist wrote a lot about themes of (key idea). (Thesis statement)
Still I Rise one sentence summary
A powerful declaration of resilience and dignity in the face of oppression, celebrating Black identity and unbreakable spirit.
Where We Belong, A Duet one sentence summary
A immersive description of the search for love and the deep fufillment in finding true connection
Refusal one sentence summary
A bold assertion from the speaker that they refuse to die unless promised they unite with their beloved
Just for a time one sentence summary
A reflection on a first love, highlighting fond memories while acknowledging the temporary nature of this love
The Lesson one sentence summary
A vivid affirmation of the will to live throughout life’s challenges
California Prodigal one sentence summary
A reflective journey upon returning to California where the speaker, assumed to be David P-B, sees the landscape as timeless yet evolving
My Arkansas one sentence summary
A conflicted ode to the poet’s home state, capturing how the effects of racism linger
Through the Inner City to the Suburbs one sentence summary
A journey from the inner city to the suburbs highlighting the joy and fulfilment of the people in the inner city
Momma Welfare Roll one sentence summary
A depiction of a woman’s harsh reality struggling to provide for her children in a world marked by poverty and injustice
The Singer Will Not Sing one sentence summary
A depiction of a woman silenced, no longer able to sing or speak, reflecting on unfulfilled potential and lost opportunities
Woman Work one sentence summary
A portrayal of the endless responsibilities of a woman who yearns for freedom in nature
Life Doesn’t Frighten Me one sentence summary
A bold, childlike assertion of courage in the face of fears both real and imagined, embodying emotional strength and self-belief
Still I Rise quotes
“You may write me down in history/ With your bitter, twisted lies,”
- Direct address
- Emotionally charged adjectives (both trochee) to create a forceful emphatic rhythm
“But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”
- Simile
- Symbolism of dust as ever-present, hard to suppress
- Defiant tone
“But still, like air, I’ll rise.”
- Simile and symbolism “like air” implies intangible, unstoppable resilience
“I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,/ Welling and swelling I bear in the tide”
- Metaphor of black ocean conveys vast power, depth, and collective identity
- alliteration “welling,” “swelling” emphasise natural force and emotional build-up
“I am the dream and hope of the slave./ I rise/ I rise/ I rise.”
- Historical allusion – references slavery to link past suffering with present strength
- anaphora makes line feel powerful has rising metre
“You may shoot me with your words,/ You may cut me with your eyes”
- Violent metaphors – words and looks are weaponised, illustrating psychological harm
- Parallel structure – repetition of “You may…” reinforces the accumulation of attacks
- Enjambment – carries the momentum forward, mirroring ongoing assault and resistance
The Lesson quotes
“I keep on dying/ Because I love to live.”
- Paradox dying because of her love for life
- Volta (changes whole tone of poem)
- Metaphor of dying as life’s challenges
“The years / And cold defeat live deep in / Lines along my face.”
- Personification – “cold defeat” is given life and depth
- Symbolism – wrinkles become a record of lived experience and emotional scars
- Enjambment – mimics the passage of time, flowing from one line to the next
“Memory of old tombs,/ Rotting flesh and worms do/ Not convince me against/ The challenge.”
- Macabre imagery – conjures death in a raw, unromanticised form
- Sentence flips from negative to positive
“Veins collapse, opening like the / Small fists of sleeping / Children.”
- Juxtaposition between death imagery and peaceful imagery of children
- Visceral yet tender showing how fragility exists even in death
(iambic metre)
California Prodigal quotes
“Then quiet pools whisper/ Private childhood secrets.”
- Personification – “pools whisper” gives nature a human quality, suggesting the landscape holds memory or voice
- Sibilance – the soft s sounds in “pools,” “whisper,” and “secrets” evoke a hushed, intimate tone
“Old adobe bricks, washed of / Whiteness, paled to umber, / Await another century.”
- Symbolism: “washed of whiteness” may hint at the erasure or fading of colonial or settler influence
- Alliteration / consonance – soft “w” and “p” sounds contribute to the worn, faded tone
- Age of landscape is suggested with “another” century
“His lupin fields spurn old / Deceit and agile poppies dance / In golden riot.”
- Personification – “lupin fields spurn old deceit” gives nature a moral agency
- Kinetic imagery – “poppies dance” and “golden riot” create movement and vitality
- Symbolism – flowers represent a break from the past, joyful rebellion
“Flush on inner cottage walls / Antiquitous faces… / Glare disdainfully / Over breached time.”
- Oxymoron / Juxtaposition – “flush” (suggesting life or warmth) versus “antiquitous faces” and “breached time”
- Personification – the faces “glare,” as though judging from the past
- Allusion – to aristocratic or historical ancestry (“old manors”)
My Arkansas quotes
“There is a deep brooding/ in Arkansas”
- Personification – the state itself is capable of “brooding,” suggesting buried emotion or unrest
- Tone – dark, heavy, ominous from the opening
“Old crimes like moss pend/ from poplar trees”
- Simile – “like moss” links natural imagery to violence; “pend” suggests hanging bodies without naming lynching explicitly
- Allusion – historical reference to racial violence in the South
“Sunrise seems to hesitate…/lose its/ incandescent aim”
- Personification – sunrise is hesitant, indecisive
- Symbolism – sunrise typically symbolises hope or new beginnings, but here it falters
- Metaphor – “incandescent aim” suggests purpose or clarity, now lost
“dusk no more shadows/ than the noon./ The past is brighter yet.”
- time is made ambiguous to show how shadow of past crimes hang over
- metaphor past crimes are more prominent than future
“Old hates and/ ante-bellum lace are rent/ but not discarded”
- Juxtaposition – “hates” and “lace” contrasts brutality with delicate lace
- Metaphor – “rent but not discarded” implies partial change; damaged but clung to
- Allusion – antebellum refers to the pre-Civil War South and slavery
“Today is yet to come in Arkansas./ It writhes./
- Metaphor, repetition, personification
Effect: “Today” is not fully realised — the present is suspended or in pain. “It writhes” suggests the state itself is suffering, alive with unresolved conflict and resistance to change.
Life Doesn’t Frighten Me quotes
“Life doesn’t frighten me at all”
- Refrain almost like trying to convince herself
“I go boo / Make them shoo / I make fun / Way they run”
Childlike diction, rhyme, playful tone, role reversal
“Tough guys fight/ All alone at night”
- Shift to real world from imaginary
“That new classroom where/ Boys all pull my hair/ (Kissy little girls
/ With their hair in curls)
- Gets more personal and real
“I’ve got a magic charm / That I keep up my sleeve”
Techniques: Metaphor, symbolism
Effect: The “magic charm” symbolises inner strength or hidden confidence. It taps into a childlike belief in magic while expressing a deeper psychological resilience
“I can walk the ocean floor / And never have to breathe.”
Techniques: Hyperbole, surreal imagery, metaphor
Effect: This exaggerated claim reflects an imaginative and confident mindset. It underscores the speaker’s feeling of invincibility, even in the face of overwhelming odds.
Where We Belong, A Duet quotes
“Then you rose into my life/ Like a promised sunrise.”
“I’ve never been so strong,/ No I’m where I belong”
“I wooed them sweetly, was theirs completely”
“Too sentimental and much too gentle/ I don’t tremble in your arms”
“Braving dangers,/ Going with strangers”
“I was quick and breezy/ And always easy”
“I read mysterious meanings/ In the distant stars”
Refusal quotes
“Beloved, In what other lives or lands/ Have I known your lips”
- Emphatic apostrophe speaker is addressing someone they adore
- Alliteration creates a drawn out sound speaker belief and emphasis in words
“Your laughter brave/ Irreverent”
- laughter described in most detail. - word choice brave, irreverent (on its own line to emphasise speakers fav quality)
“Those sweet excesses that I do adore”
“What surety is there/ That we will meet again”
- note of doubt enters here
“I defy my body’s haste.”
- end stopped abrupt change of tone
- definitive verb defy
“Without the Promise…/ I will not deign to die”
- choice of verb “deign” shows same qualities of beloved in speaker
- Capitalisation of Promise appeals to a greater power
Through the Inner City to the Suburbs quotes
“Scattered/ Watermelon seeds on/ A summer street. Grinning”
“Secured by sooted windows/ And amazement,”
“Frosting filched/ From a company cake”
“Stolen gems/ Unsaleable and dear.”
“The train, bound for green lawns/ Double garages and sullen women”
“ settles down/ On its habit track./ Leaving/ The dark figures dancing/ And grinning. Still/ Grinning.”
Momma welfare roll quotes
“Her arms semaphore fat triangles”
- assonance enforces visual image
- metaphor: “semaphore” (signals with arms) implies communication or a cry for attention.
“Her jowls shiver in accusation/ Of crimes cliched by/ Repetition”
- Personification: her jowls “shiver in accusation” gives her body a voice.
- Alliteration: “crimes cliched” reinforces the repetitive nature of societal judgment
“Her children, strangers/ To childhood’s toys, play/ Best the games of darkened doorways”
- Irony: “strangers to childhood’s toys” highlights deprivation.
- Juxtaposition: innocence vs. survival.
- Dark imagery: “games of darkened doorways” suggests danger, fear, or homelessness.
Effect: The children inherit her social conditions — their “games” are no longer playful, but survivalist, showing generational impact of poverty.
“Too fat to whore,/ Too mad to work”
- Blunt tone / Antithesis / Parallelism: “Too fat…Too mad…”
- Shocking diction: exposes the narrow, cruel social categories women in poverty are pushed into
“Searches her dreams for the/ Lucky sign and walks bare-handed/ Into a den of bureaucrats for/ Her portion.”
- Symbolism: “dreams” and “lucky sign” convey hope amidst hopelessness.
- Metaphor: “den of bureaucrats” evokes danger, power imbalance.
- Contrast: dream-like hope vs. harsh reality.
“‘They don’t give me welfare./ I take it.’”
- Direct speech
- Defiant tone
The Singer Will Not Sing quotes
“A benison given. Unused,”
- benison metaphor for voice
- Biblical allusion: evokes a spiritual or divine calling, as if her talent was heaven-sent
- endstop highlights word unused
“No trumpets gloried/ prophecies of fabled fame.”
- Alliteration: “fabled fame” adds a lyrical, almost ironic musicality.
- Imagery / Biblical reference: “No trumpets” suggests an absence of celebration or divine announcement (recalling the angelic trumpet calls in scripture)
- suggests fame of singer isn’t her destiny
“Yet harmonies waited in/ her stiff throat.”
- Personification: “harmonies waited” implies potential and anticipation trapped within.
- Juxtaposition: beauty of “harmonies” vs. “stiff throat” shows physical or emotional repression
“Her lips are ridged and fleshy./ Purpled night birds/ snuggled to rest.”
- Sensory imagery: “ridged and fleshy” creates a tactile sense of ageing or weariness.
- Symbolism / Visual imagery: “Purpled night birds” may symbolise thoughts, voice, or song — now at rest.
- Colour symbolism: “purpled” hints at richness, but also bruising or decay
- Shift to present tense
“The mouth seamed, voiceless”
- Metaphor: “seamed” suggests it’s been stitched shut — forcibly or traumatically muted.
- Plosive alliteration (voiceless): harsh sounds reflect loss of vitality.
“She came too late and lonely/ to this place.”
- Alliteration: “late and lonely” heightens emotional effect.
- Tone: melancholic, final
Poem ends in quiet resignation
Woman Work quotes
“I’ve got the children to tend / The clothes to mend / The floor to mop”
- Anaphora/Repetition: “I’ve got…” repeats to build pressure and rhythm.
- Listing (Syndetic): mimics a relentless stream of chores + enjambment
- Internal rhyme (“tend/mend”): gives the stanza a breathless, rushed musicality.
“I gotta clean up this hut/ Then see about the sick/ And the cotton to pick.”
- colloquial language gotta adds personal voice
“Storm, blow me from here / With your fiercest wind”
- Apostrophe: direct address to the storm shows desperation.
Personification: gives the storm agency, as though nature might rescue her.
Hyperbole: “fiercest wind” exaggerates desire for escape.
“Let me float across the sky / ’Til I can rest again.”
- Imagery: “float across the sky” evokes freedom, peace.
- Metaphor: flight as liberation.
- Soothing rhythm: created by the enjambed phrasing, mimics floating.
“Fall gently, snowflakes / Cover me with white / Cold icy kisses”
- Oxymoron: “cold icy kisses” fuses gentleness with discomfort.
- Imagery: tactile and visual, portraying serenity.
- Imperative tone: “fall gently” expresses longing or plea.
“Star shine, moon glow / You’re all that I can call my own.”
