Undated
Cruelty to animals
Green peace
Upon a recent visit to my loft, I found, amongst other things, one of my old English exercise books dated from 1985 from Miss Scott’s class. I was aged around 13 years old. I have decided to write, verbatim, everything within the book. To be honest, I can see why I got a D in English. The examiners pitied me. The italics/brackets you see are Miss Scott’s contributions. Now remember when you read this, I want to be a writer.
14/4/86 Poetry – poetic language | |||
Paraphrase | Poem | Comments if paraphrase is better | comments if poem is better |
1. froze the brooks and ponds | called to water “Halt!” | The words froze the brooks and ponds sounds better than called to water “Halt” | |
2. turned the thawing snow crisp again | crusted the moist snow with sparkling salt | | the author use’s onomatopia like the crusted sounds like the noise it makes |
3. Brooks ice over | Brooks, Their own bridges, stop | the brooks just is its own form | |
5. Fish | Tench | | Tench is a particular fish |
6. Move slowly | lurk | | Lurk sounds interesting. Why? |
7. beneath the frozen surface of the ponds | under gluey glass | Under gluey glass sounds like a sticky hard surface | |
9. lane | hard-rutted lane | | hard-rutted lane has something to it |
10. Icy puddles crack | breaks a brittle pane | | |
11. trees | tinkling trees | | the tinkling puts more in to it than just trees |
12. bend under the | Changed into weeping willows | Is more concisie | |
13. stick up out of | Take root | More starling – dead things can’t take root | |
14. frost makes patterns | Fearsome windows shoot their ghostly friends | Fits in better with other parts of the poem | |
15. frost | Fierce frost | | Is more startiling |
16. traps | Interns | Is more vivid than interns | |
17. covers trees | Ranks trees in an armed host | Covers trees is concise | |
18. makes icicles | Hangs daggers | More concise | |
19. decorates windows | Ferny ambush weaves | | Expressed in a better way |
20. warmth | In the long war grown warmer | | Is more dramatic |
21. soon melts all the ice away | Will strike him dead and strip his armour | Is more precise | |
Quite good Robert – I’m concerned that you seem to have missed out a lot of work though. Take care with presentation |