1. Write short notes on any two of the following:

Diction

Abuse of colloquialism

Nature as a romantic theme

Climax in a poem


2. Poetry is 'spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings'. Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer.

3. A perfect metrical composition in verse alone can be considered good poetry. Give a reasoned answer.

4. What is cliche Why should it be avoided in poetry?

5. Discuss the importance of images and symbols in poetry.

6. This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge;

Comment on the opening of the poem and the use of the present tense.

Discuss the poet's emotional response to the beauty of nature.

What does the lime-tree bower symbolise for the poet?

Comment upon the rhyme and meter.

7. Indian Women
-Shiv K. Kumar

In this triple-baked continent
women don't etch angry eyebrows
on mud walls.
Patiently they sit
like empty pitchers
on the mouth of the village well
pleating hope in each braid of their
mississippi-long hair

looking deep into the water's mirror
for the moisture in their eyes.
With zodiac doodlings on the sands
they guard their tattooed thighs
Waiting for their men's return
till even the shadows
roll up their contours
and are gone
beyond the hills.

What is the theme of the poem?

Comment on the metrical pattern.

Explain the line 'women don't etch angry eyebrows on mud walls'.

What are the aesthetic innovations in this poem? Discuss with examples.

8. Dreams
-Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Discuss the structure of the poem.

Explain the metaphors of life.

Do you think the brevity of the poem creates unity and intensity of impression

What is the theme of the poem?

9. Write a poem of 15 to 20 lines on anyone of the following topics

Summer Afternoon

Fashion

Midnight Street

Moment

10. Punishment in Kindergarten -KamalaDas

The words are muffled now, the laughing
Faces only a blur. The years have
Sped along, stopping briefly
At beloved halts and moving
Sadly on. My mind has found
An adult peace. No need to remember
That picnic day when I lay hidden
By a hedge, watching the steel-white sun
Standing lonely in the sky.

Memories of childhood often create romantic poems. Do you consider this poem to be romantic in its theme Give reasons.

Explain the image 'the steel-white sun standing lonely in the sky'.

Comment upon the meter and style.

How does the ending elicit response from the readers emotional