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English 4 – PoetryPoem – My Father’s SadnessBy Shirley Geok-lin Lim1My father’s sadness appears in my dreams.His young body is dying of responsibility.So many men and women march out of his moutheach time he opens his heart for fullness,5he is shot down; so many men and women like dragons’ teeth? rising in the instanceof his lifetime. He is an oriental. He claims paternity. But in his dreams he is a young bodywith only his life before him. 10My father’s sadness masks my face. It is hardto see through his tears, his desires drum in my chest.I tense like a young man with a full moonand no woman in sight. My father brokewith each child, finer and finer, the clay 15of his body crumbing to a drizzle of siliconein the hour-glass. How hard it is to be a father, a bull under the axle,the mangrove? netted by lianas,? the hostperishing of its lavishness.Write your answers on a separate piece of notebook paper in complete sentences. You do not have to write the questions.What theme about fatherhood is developed in the first stanza?What does the author mean by the phrase “He is an oriental” in line 7?What simile does the author use in the first stanza?What is the tone, or attitude, of the speaker toward the father? How do the details in lines 10-13 communicate this tone?What kind of figurative language does the author use in line 11?Explain how the metaphor in lines 13-16 contributes to the theme of the poem.What does the hourglass in line 16 symbolize?According to the speaker of the poem, is being a father difficult? Support your answer with lines from the text.What emotion is evoked by the imagery of the speaker’s father as a “bull under the axle” in line 17?Are lines 18-19, “the mangrove netted by lianas, the host perishing of its lavishness,” an effective ending for the poem? Support your view by explaining both the literal image created by the lines as well as their figurative meaning.Bonus Questions (if you finish early):What is the image of the father that the speaker sees in dreams?In the style of Lim (the author), write four lines of a poem about a particular person. Incorporate at least one type of figurative language in your poem.How do you think that the speaker’s culture influenced her ideas and expectations about her family? ................
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