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Poetry Question Paper

Poetry

Course:Bachelor Of Arts In Literature

Institution: Kenyatta University question papers

Exam Year:2007

KENYATTA UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS 2006/2007
FIRST SEMESTER EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF
ARTS
ALT 302: POETRY
DATE: Wednesday 21st February, 2007
TIME: 8.00 a.m. -10.00 a.m.
INSTRUCTIONS
Answer any THREE question ONLY.
1.
From your own exposure/experience, clearly demonstrate what you understand by the
term 'POETRY' as a literary genre.
2.
Referring closely to any TWO poems of your OWN choice, demonstrate how poets
re-create language in refreshing and artistic way.
3.
Compare a poem of NOT MORE THAN 12 lines in which any ONE of the following
theme/mood is dominant:
(a)
IN THE LABYRINTH OF LOVE
(b)
HEAVENLY HAPPINESS
(c)
FOR HOWLONG

4.
What significant strategies would you employ in order to make poetry enjoyable and
meaningful to a given class of students?
5.
Comment systematically on the use of language/symbolism in the following poem
and indicate its overall impact on the reader: .
1

ZULU GIRL by Roy Campell (South African)
When in the sun the hot red acres smoulder,
Down where the sweating gang its labour plies,
A girl flings down her hoe, and from her shoulder
Unslings her child tormented by the flies.
She takes him to a ring of shadow pooled
5
By thorn trees: purpled with the blood of ticks
While her sharp nails, in slow caresses ruled,
Prowl through his hair with sharp electric clicks.
His sleepy mouth, plugged by the heavy nipple,
Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feeds:
10
Through his frail nerves her own deep languors ripple
Like a broad river sighing through its reeds.
Yet in that drowsy stream her flesh imbibes
An old unquenched unsmotherable heat -
The curbed ferocity of beaten tribes,
15
The sullen dignity of their defeat.
Her body looms above him like a hill
Within whose shade a village lies at rest,
Or the first cloud so terrible and still
That bears the coming harvest in its breast.

HENRY
BARLOW.
The Village Well
By this well,
By this well
Where fresh waters still quietly whisper
My eyes asked for love, and my heart went mad.
As when I
I stuttered.
First accompanied Mother and filled my baby gourd,
And murmured my first words of love
By this well,
And cupped,
Where many an evening its clean water cleaned me;
With my hands, the intoxication that were her breasts. ,30
This silent well
In this well,
Dreaded haunt of the long haired Musambwa,
In the clear waters of this whispering well,
Who basked
The silent moon
In the mid-day sun reclining on the rock
Witnessed with a smile our inviolate vows,
Where I now sit
The kisses
Welling up with many poignant memories;
That left us weak and breathless.
This spot,
It is dark.
Which has rung with the purity of child laughter;
It is dark by the well that still whispers.
This spot,
It is darker,
Where eye spoke secretly to responding eye;
It is utter darkness in the heart that bleeds
Uao
This spot,
By this well,
Where hearts pounded madly in many a breast;
Where magic has evaporated but memeries linger.
By this well,
Of damp death
Over-hung by leafy branches of sheltering trees
The rotting foliage reeks,
I first noticed her.
And the branches
I saw her in the cool of a red, red evening.
Are grotesque talons of hungry vultures,
I saw her
For she is dead.
As if I had not seen her a thousand times before.
The one I first loved by this well.

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