Exploring the Text

Exploring the Text

Access the text here.

  1. What is the significance of the title of this poem? Why does William Stafford set the poem along the Canadian border?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - What is the significance of the title of this poem? Why does William Stafford set the poem along the Canadian border?
  2. How would you describe the tone of the poem? What details serve to reveal the speaker’s attitude?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - How would you describe the tone of the poem? What details serve to reveal the speaker’s attitude?
  3. Why is the sky called heroic?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Why is the sky called heroic?
  4. What is the effect of the dashes in line 8?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - What is the effect of the dashes in line 8?
  5. This poem presents a basic paradox: a place is being defined by what is not there and what did not happen there. How would you describe the paradox of the last line, “that people celebrate it by forgetting its name”?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - This poem presents a basic paradox: a place is being defined by what is not there and what did not happen there. How would you describe the paradox of the last line, “that people celebrate it by forgetting its name”?
  6. How would you paraphrase the poem as a whole?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - How would you paraphrase the poem as a whole?