Do you have a favourite poem? We’re going to tell you poems we like and explain some vocabulary in this episode of Aprender Inglés con Reza y Craig.
Comment on the blog from Gaby from Peru.
Hello there Reza and Craig. I’ve been kind of snowed under at the university where I work.
I’ve been also longing to share with you all that I passed my CAE. Still a long way to go though.
Here’s is just a piece of my weekly wind up (whine) which is cleaning my cats poo. By the way I’ve got 5 of them. Well, kisses and hugs from your fan Gaby.
Voice message from Leo from Jerez
Chatting with friends Episode 196
How’s it going? – Not bad, yourself?
Poetry
Poetical devices
Metaphor – when something represents/symbolises something else – “The computers at school are old dinosaurs”, “Time is money.”
Simile – comparing two different things in an interesting way – “she’s like a rose”, “she’s as cold as ice” “She eats like a pig.” “She’s as blind as a bat.”
Analogy – when an idea or a thing is compared to another thing that is quite different from it.
Metaphors and similes are tools used to draw an analogy. An analogy is more extensive and elaborate than either a simile or a metaphor.- “The structure of an atom is like a solar system. The nucleus is the sun, and electrons are the planets revolving around their sun.”
Life is like a race. The one who keeps running wins the race, and the one who stops to catch a breath loses.
Rhyme – when words sound similar. NB. In English they might/might not look similar.
e.g. queen/mean, though/go, scare/fair
Onomatopoeia – when a word sounds like its meaning. e.g. buzz, crunch, splash
Alliteration – repetition of the same consonant sound in nearby words eg. Sally sings so softly
Assonance – repetition of the same vowel sound in nearby words eg. So Joe must go home
Personification – giving human qualities to non-human things e.g. “Life’s a bitch!”
“Funeral Blues” by W H Auden
Vocabulary
Muffled drum
Coffin
To mourn/mourner – lamentar la muerte de
To moan – gemir, quejarse
To scribble – garabatear
Crepe bows – lazo de tela
Wood – small forest – bosque
To sweep up – barrer
Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Funeral Blues – Four Weddings and a Funeral:
“Digging” by Seamus Heaney
Vocabulary
Squat (adj.) – short and thick
Snug (adj.) – comfortably positioned
To rasp – rasping – chirriar
Gravel (noun) – grava, gravelly (adj.) – de grava
Rump – rear end, posterior
To stoop – stooping – to bend over – encorvarse
To nestle – to be in a comfortable position
Lug – part of a spade, where you put your foot
Spade – pala
To root out – to destroy from the roots, to eradicate
To scatter – to throw a handful of pieces – esparcir
Turf – turba – once a very common fuel in Ireland
Bog – an area full of turf
To cork – to close a bottle – encorchar
Sloppily – without care or attention
To nick – nick – to lightly cut
To heave – to pull/lift something heavy
Sod – piece of turf/grassy soil
Mould – type of fungus – moho
Squelch – sound of solid and liquid mixture – chapoteo
Slap – sound – bofetada
Soggy (adj.) – when a solid has a lot of liquid – pastoso
Curt – cutting/abrupt – cortante
Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
…and now it’s your turn to practise your English. Do you have a favourite poem in English? Why not record yourself reading it? It’s good practice for your intonation and pronunciation.
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On next week’s episode: Helping People – (another true story from José Molina)
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