a) A grown up/parent. "Oh, child...."
b) Metaphors
1)"....ribs on his concertina chest". This shows the deep effect of hunger such that ribs look like the musical instrument
2"....stomach is a den of lions". The stomach is rumbling loudly because of hunger.
Similes
1) "Skin was pale and touts like a glove...."
There is no flesh between the skin and the bones because of hunger
2)"....tongue darted out in and out like a chameleon’s...."
This enhances the vividness of how hunger had affected the boy’s health
c)
1)it means that the bun is placed on a very high shelf where the boy cannot reach, is so he sees it as "sky high"
2) The point describes the rumbling of the stomach due to hunger.
d) Sympathetic. "I counted ribs" "o! child"
e)
–curved
-glasslike
-tightly stretched
-coloured
-bits of paper thrown on a bride during her wedding
f) Pitiful. 'O! Child...'
marto answered the question on October 14, 2019 at 09:08
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
There was an Indian, who had known no change,
Who strayed along a sunlit beach.
Gathering shell, He heard a sudden strange
Commingled noise; looked up; and gasped for speech.
For in the bay, where nothing was before,
Moved on the sea, by magic, huge canoes,
With bellying cloths on poles and not oar,
And fluttering coloured signs, and clambering crews.
And he, in his fear, this naked man alone,
His fallen hands forgetting all their shells,
His lips gone pale, knelt low behind a stone
And stared, and saw, and did not understand,
Columbus’s doom- burdened caravels.
Slant to the shore, and all their seamen land
Question
a) Describe the rhyme scheme in the above poem and state its function.
b) Identify words that end in the same sound in line 4.
c) Provide words that are identical in pronunciation to the following. (4 marks)
i) Pale
ii) Oar
iii) Crews
iv) Was
d) What would be the effect of mid-line pauses on the performance of the poem.
Date posted: October 9, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions.
A freedom song(Solved)
Questions
a) Who is speaking in this poem? Give evidence.
b) In about 50 words what is the poem talking about?
c) If you were to read this poem to an audience, which words and lines would you emphasize?
d) How does Atieno change over the years?
e) From the poem identify.
i) A proper noun
ii) Three common noun
Date posted: October 9, 2019. Answers (1)
- (Solved)
Analyze the oral song below and answer the questions that follow.
WHEN I SEE THE BEAUTY ON MY BELOVED’S FACE
When I see the beauty on my beloved’s face,
I throw away the food in my hand;
Oh, sister of the young man, listen;
The beauty on my beloved’s face.
Her neck is long, when I see it cannot
Sleep one wink
Oh, the daughter of my mother-in-law,
Her neck is like the shaft of a spear.
When I touch the tattoos on her back,
I die;
Oh, sister of the young man, listen;
The tattoo on my beloved’s back.
When I see the gap in my beloved’s teeth,
Her teeth are white like dry season simsim;
Oh, daughter of my father-in-law, listen;
The gap in my beloved’s teeth.
The daughter of the bull confuses my head,
I have to marry her;
True, sister of the young man, listen;
The suppleness of my beloved’s waist.
i) How has rhythm been achieved in this oral song?
ii) Explain how you would perform this oral song.
iii) What tone will you adopt when singing this song?
Date posted: October 7, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and then answer questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the poem below and then answer questions that follow.
(a) Who is the speaker in this poem?
(b) Describe what the poem above is about.
(c) Identify three instances of similes in the poem.
(d) Give this poem a suitable title.
Date posted: September 30, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and then answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the poem below and then answer the questions that follow.
i). Describe the rhyme scheme of this poem.
ii).Identify any two sound patterns used in the poem above.
iii). How would you perform the last line of the poem?
iv). Which words would you stress in the first line?
Date posted: September 24, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
I wonder by the edge
Of this desolate lake
Where wind cries in the sledge
Until the axle break
That keeps the stars in their round
And hands hurt in the deep
The banners of east and west
And the girdle of light is unbound,
Your breast will not lie by the breast
Of your beloved in sleep
(i) Describe the rhyme scheme of the poem.
(ii) Identify and illustrate any two sound pattern used in the poem.
(iii) How would you say the last two lines of the poem?
(iv) Give homophones for the following words used in the poem (2mks)
Wonder –
Break-
Date posted: September 12, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following poem and then answer the questions that follow. (Solved)
Read the following poem and then answer the questions that follow.
There, I've got you,
I've got you . . . Crack, crack,
what a louse. It bit me,
what a louse. . . It bit me,
what a louse!
(From: Oral literature in Africa, by Ruth Finnegan)
i) Explain how rhythm is achieved in this poem
ii) How would you perform the above poem to make it enjoyable?
iii) Identify the words that you would stress in line 3, and explain why.
Date posted: September 11, 2019. Answers (1)
- READ THE FOLLOWING POEM AND THEN ANSWER THE QUESTIONS THAT FOLLOW .(Solved)
READ THE FOLLOWING POEM AND THEN ANSWER THE QUESTIONS THAT FOLLOW .
The light of the whole being,
The illuminator of my very self,
In your presence darkness exists no longer,
You make me feel bright and shining all over,
Oh! My moon.
My moon is still not yet fully full,
My moon is three-quarter full,
Still becoming what it will be,
But the brightness of my moon surpasses all other moons,
Oh! My moon.
My moon is uncomparable,
My moon has possession of the natural beauty,
The sight of my moon makes hearts stop a beat or melts hearts’
The smile of my moon makes the whole of my being hot and boiling,
Oh! My moon.
My moon when will you become a full moon?
I have waited long enough and my patience is fading away,
I may end up devouring my moon before it is fully ripe,
My moon my moon without you then I am not;
Oh! My moon
From when I wake I think only of you my moon,
At noon you are still dwelling in my mind,
In the evening I die just to see you,
And in the dark night I am restless and sleep never comes,
Oh! My moon.
By NYagilo. C
QUESTIONS
a) I) classify the poem.
II) What does the term moon refer to.
b) What do you think the persona means when he says that his moon three quarters full?
c) Give the character traits of the persona.
d) Identify any other words the poet uses to refer to the moon?
e) State how the moon affects the persona’s mind at different times.
f) Which aspects of style has the poet employed?
g) Give the meaning of the following words as used in the poem.
I) Devouring
II) Surpasses
Date posted: September 11, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the incomplete poem below and then answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the incomplete poem below and then answer the questions that follow.
A million stars up in the.......
One shines brighter-I can’t deny.
A love so precious, a love so...........
A love that comes from me to you.
The angels sings when you are near.
Within your arms I have nothing to.....
You always know just what to say
Just talking to you makes my..........
I love you, honey, with all my heart
Together forever and never to.............
i) If the rhyme scheme is aa,bb,cc,dd,ee, fill the gaps with the most suitable words . use one word in each space.
ii) How would you say the second last line of this poem?
iii) It is also concluded by the audience after the recitation that the recitor is anxious. Suggest four signs that could have led to this conclusion.
Date posted: September 11, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
Make me a grave whate’er you will,
In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill,
Make it among earth’s humblest graves’
But not in a land where men are slaves.
I could not rest if around my grave
I heard the steps of a trembling slave,
His shadow above my silent tomb
Would make it a place of fearful gloom.
I could not rest if I heard the tread
Of a gang to the shambles led.
And the mother’s shriek of wild despair
Rise like a curse on the trembling air.
(i) Show the rhyme scheme of the poem and describe it.
(ii) What features would you employ when reciting the above poem before the audience?
(iii) Mention two ways in which you would know that your audience is fully participating during the recitation of the above poem.
(iv) Which words would you stress in the last line of the above poem and why?
Date posted: September 11, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
NATURALLY”
I fear the workers: they writhe in bristling grass
And wormy mud: out with dawn, back with dusk.
Depart with seed, and return with fat- bursting fruits.
And I ate the fruit.
And still they toil at boiling point,
in head – splitting noise and threatening saws:
They suck their energy from slimy cassava
And age – rusty water taps: till they make a Benz
And I ride in the benz: festooned with
stripped rags and python copper coiling monsters
While the workers clap their blistered hands
And I overrun their kids.
They build their hives: often out
of broken bones of fallen mates
And I drone in them – “state house”
Them,“collegize” them, officialize them.
And I……. I whore their daughters
Raised in litter – rotting hovels
And desiring a quickquickhighhighlifelife
To break the bond.
And I tell the workers to unite:
knowing well that they can’t see, hear or understand:
what with sweat and grim sealing their ears
And eyes already blasted with welding sparks,
And me speaking a colourless tongue
But one day a rainstorm shall flood
The litter rotten hovels and
wash the workers’ ears and eyes clean,
Refresh the tattered muscles for a long – delayed blow
a) Describe the working conditions of the workers as depicted in stanza 1 and 2.
b) The persona assumes different roles in stanza 3, 4 and 6.With illustrations explain these roles.
c) Identify and explain 2 images from the poem
d) Which bond do the girls want to break in stanza 5 and how do they do it.
e) What reasons are given for the workers’ inability to understand the persona?
f) What is the poem suggesting in the last stanza?
Date posted: August 19, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
I laugh at Amin
(Solved)
3. Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow
I laugh at Amin
I laugh with all the skulls
Amin holds in his hands
With those perched on his shoulder
and the ones in an infinite queue
behind his back
I laugh with the victims of
the 1976 firing squad.
They were dead long before
the gunmen fired
I laugh at bullets wasted
I chuckle with the heads of school
across the nation.
It tickles to extract money
From an army of tortured widows
I remember in our school
only one child had a father
we were curious about her
we laughed to discover
she was Amin’s daughter.
I laugh with the ghost of Kay Amin
Remembering Amin astride
her dismembered body
calling her “wicked woman”
before her bereaved children.
But mainly I laugh
that seventeen years after
the man was forced to retire
Ugandans still sob at the mention of his name
surely my people lack
a good sense of humour.
(Susan NalugwaKiguli)
(a) What are we told about Amin in this poem?
(b) Identify and illustrate the main stylistic feature in the first stanza?
(c) In the last two lines, the persona claims to have a ‘good sense of humour’. Comment on the persona’
sense of humour
(d) Describe the tone of this poem.
(e) Give two lessons that we learn from this poem.
(f) Identify and illustrate other two stylistic devices used in this poem.
(g) With illustrations from the poem, say who the persona is
(h) Explain the meaning of the following words as used in the poem.
(i) Chuckle
(ii) Dismembered
Date posted: August 16, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
AN ELEGY
When he was here
We planned each tomorrow
With him in mind
For we saw no parting
Looming in the horizon
When he was here,
We joke and laughed together
And no fleeting shadow of a ghost
Ever crossed our paths
Day by day we lived
On this side of the mist
And there was never a sign
That his hours were running fast
When he was gone,
Through glazed eyes we searched
Beyond the mist and shadows
For we couldn’t believe he was nowhere
We couldn’t believe he was dead
(Laban Erapu)
a) What is the message of this poem?
b) Comment on the use of repetition in line 1 of stanza 1 and 2.
c) What is the significance of the last line of poem?
d) What would the persona miss in his friend’s absence?
e) Describe the mood of this poem
f) Paraphrase the following line: Through glazed eyes we searched
g) Which two lines in the poem show that the persona has nostaligic tone?
h) Explain the meaning of the following lines as used in the poem.
i. Ghost
ii. And there was never a sign: that his hours were running fast
Date posted: August 15, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
(Solved)
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.
I laugh with all the skulls
Amin holds in his hands
With those perched on his shoulder
and the ones in an infinite queue
behind his back
I laugh with the victims of
the 1976 firing squad.
They were dead long before
the gunmen fired
I laugh at bullets wasted
I chuckle with the heads of school
across the nation.
It tickles to extract money
From an army of tortured widows
I remember in our school
only one child had a father
we were curious about her
we laughed to discover
she was Amin’s daughter.
I laugh with the ghost of Kay Amin
Remembering Amin astride
her dismembered body
calling her “wicked woman”
before her bereaved children.
But mainly I laugh
that seventeen years after
the man was forced to retire
Ugandans still sob at the mention of his name
surely my people lack
a good sense of humour.
(Susan NalugwaKiguli)
(a) What are we told about Amin in this poem?
(b)Identify and illustrate the main stylistic feature in the first stanza?
(c) In the last two lines, the persona claims to have a ‘good sense of humour’. Comment on the persona’ sense of humour.
(d) Describe the tone of this poem.
(e) Give two lessons that we learn from this poem.
(f) Identify and illustrate other two stylistic devices used in this poem.
(g) With illustrations from the poem, say who the persona is
(h) Explain the meaning of the following words as used in the poem.
(i) Chuckle
(ii) Dismembered
Date posted: August 15, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below then answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the poem below then answer the questions that follow.
RESPECT.
What you don’t understand, sister.
Is that women are respected in Africa
Oh yes
We call a woman the light of the house
She is the one who fetches water
She is the one who cooks the food
She is the one who gives milk and brings wood
She is the one we come to
When we need satisfaction
We know where the light comes from
We are respected
Is that so, brother?
Is that why she is the last to drink from the gourd?
Is that why she is the last to eat from the bowl?
Is that why she is the last to sleep and first to rise?
Is that why she is the one for whom the only satisfaction
Is another mouth to feed?
And tell me, brother
If the woman is the light of the house
Where does darkness come from?
And tell me, brother
What Will happen if the light fades
Or simply refuses to shine?
Then, sister
It must be made to shine again
Or cast out
A light that does not shine is of no use to any one
Isee
Good, I knew you would understand
In Africa, my sister, women are respected
By Jeanette Cross
Questions
1. Who is the persona in this poem?
2. What is the tone of this poem? Explain.
3.What is the attitude of the “brother” towards women?
4. What does “sister” mean by 1 see”?
5.Discuss the message in this poem.
6.Explain the meaning of the following expressions as used in the poem.
a. ….is another mouth to feed
b. ... we come to when we need satisfaction
C. ...Women are respected
Date posted: August 15, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below carefully and answer the questions that follow.
(Solved)
Read the poem below carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Pedestrian to passing Benz-man
You man, lifted gently
Out of the poverty and suffering
We so recently shared; I say
Why splash the muddy puddle onto
My bare legs as if, still unsatisfied
With your seated opulence
You must sully the unwashed
With your diesel-smoke and mud-water
and force him buy, beyond his mean
A bar of soap from your shop?
A few years back we shared a master
Today you have none, while I have
Exchanged a parasite for something worse
But maybe a few years is too long a time.
(a) Briefly explain what is happening in the poem
.................................................................
(b) With two illustrations from the poem, describe the economic condition of the persona.
...............................................................
c)Explain the significance of the following images in the poem.
...............................................................
(i) Muddy puddle/mud-water.
.................................
(ii) Diesel smoke.
...................................
(iii) Parasite.
.....................................
d)What is the importance of the last line in relation to the rest of the poem.
.........................................................
e)Explain the tone of the poem.
..........................................................
Date posted: August 15, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the following oral poem and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the following oral poem and answer the questions that follow.
Oh beautiful bride, don’t cry,
Your marriage will be happy,
Console yourself, your husband will be good.
And like your mother and your aunt,
You will have many children in your life,
Two children, three children, four……………..
Resign yourself do like all other,
A man is not a leopard,
A husband is not a thunderstruck,
Your mother was your father’s wife,
It will not kill you to work.
It will not kill you to grind the grain
Nor will it kill you to wash the pots
Nobody dies from gathering firewood
Nor from washing clothes.
We did not do it for you,
We did not want to see you go,
We love you too much for that
Its your beauty that did it
Because you are so gorgeous
Ah, we see you laugh beneath your tears!
Goodbye, your husband is here
And already you don’t seem
To need our consolations.
Questions
a) With evidence, classify the oral poem.
b) Who do you think are the singers of the song? Illustrate.
c) How do the singers make the situation bearable for the lady?
d) What is the attitude of the society from which the song is derived towards women?
e) Illustrate and explain the use of the following stylistic devices in this oral poem.
i) Repetition –
ii) Ellipses –
f) State in note form the duties of a wife according to the song.
g) Explain any social aspect and one economic activity carried out in the commodity from which the oral poem is taken
h) Explain the irony in the 7th stanza.
Date posted: August 14, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and then answer the questions that follow.
No coffin, no grave by Jared Angira
(Solved)
Read the poem below and then answer the questions that follow.
No coffin, no grave by Jared Angira
He was buried without a coffin
Without a grave
The scavengers performed the post-mortem
In the open mortuary
Without sterilized knives
In front of the night club
Stuttering rifles put up
The gun salute of the day
That was a state burial anyway
The car knelt
The red plate wept, wrapped itself in blood its
master’s
The diary revealed to the sea
The rain anchored there at last
Isn’t our flag red, black and white?
So he wrapped himself well
Who could signal yellow
When we had to leave politics to the experts
And brood on books
Brood on hunger
And schoolgirls
Grumble under the black pot
Sleep under torn mosquito net
And let lice lick our intestines
The lord of the bar, money speaks madam
Woman magnet, money speaks madam
We only cover the stinking darkness of the cave of our mouths
And ask our father who is in hell to judge him
The quick and the good.
Well, his diary, submarine of the Third World
War
Showed he wished
To be buried in a gold-laden coffin
Like a VIP
Under the jacaranda tree beside his palace
A shelter for his grave
And much beer for the funeral party
Anyway one noisy pupil suggested we bring
Tractors and plough the land.
(From Poems from East Africa, D. Cook andD. Rubadiri (Eds,): East African EducationalPublishers)
a) Briefly explain what this poem is about.
b) Explain the use of onomatopoeia in the poem.
c) Identify and explain the tone of the poem.
d) Comment on the central theme of the poem.
e) Explain the meaning of the following lines:
i) who could signal yellow
ii) submarine of the Third World War
f) How else can people bring change in society without assassinating politicians?
g) Explain the meaning of the following words as used in the poem
i) Anchored
ii) Brood
Date posted: August 14, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the oral poem below and answer the questions that follow.(Solved)
Read the oral poem below and answer the questions that follow.
Ha! That mother who takes her food alone
Ha! That mother before she has eaten
Ha! That mother she says, “lull the baby for me”.
Ha! That mother, when she has finished eating,
Ha! That mother, she says, “give the child to me.”
a) What type of oral poem is this? (2 marks)
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
b) Explain briefly what the above oral poem is about (4 marks)
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
c) Who is the speaker in the above oral poem? (2 marks)
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
d) What is the speaker’s attitude towards the mother? (2 marks)
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
e) What evidence is there to show that this is an oral poem? (6 marks)
.....................................................................................................................................................
f) State two functions of the above oral poem.
g) Mention one feature that is characteristic of this sub-genre (2 marks)
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................................
Date posted: August 13, 2019. Answers (1)
- Read the poem below and answer questions that follow (Solved)
Read the poem below and answer questions that follow
(8mks)
To my Sister
It is the first mild day of March
Each minute sweeter than before,
The red breast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door
There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield?
To the bare trees and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field
My sister! (‘tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done
Make haste, your morning task resign,
Come forth and feel the sun.
William Wordsworth.
Questions
(i) List any four pairs of rhyming words.
(ii) Describe the rhyme scheme of the poem.
(iii) How would you say the ninth line of the poem?
Date posted: August 13, 2019. Answers (1)