I’m working on a English question and need guidance to help me study.
• Read “A Quick Guide to Reading Poetry” (located in Course Materials) • Read Gary Snyder’s “Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout” (locate online) • Read Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” (locate online) • Read Sharon Olds’ “I Go Back to May 1937” (locate online) • Read John Berryman’s “Dream Song #1” (locate online) • Read Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” (locate online) • Read Louise Erdrich’s “Dear John Wayne” (locate online) • Access the discussion forum and post a response to the writing prompt listed in the forum entitled “Snyder, et al”
Answer four (4) of the following questions:
1.) Explain, with reference to specific lines, the argument Gary Snyder’s “Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout” makes about nature.
2.) Explain, with reference to specific lines, your emotional reaction to Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese.”
3.) Explain, with reference to specific lines, your emotional reaction to Sharon Olds’ “I Go Back to May 1937.”
4.) Explain the relationship between the last two lines of Berryman’s “Dream Song 1”–“Hard on the land wears the strong sea / and empty grows every bed”–and the rest of the poem.
5.) The last lines of Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”–“What did I know, what did I know / Of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (lines 13-14)–are rather famous. Explain, in detail, your reaction to and understanding of these lines, specifically as they relate to the poem as a whole.
6.) Explain, with reference to specific lines, how Louise Erdrich’s “Dear John Wanye” takes issue with the way Hollywood has historically represented Native Americans.
