Читать книгу English for Life Reader Grade 8 Home Language - Elaine Ridge - Страница 13

Pre-reading
1.	Look at the title and the first line of the poem. What kind of poem do you think this is going to be?
During reading
2.	How do you know quite early on that this poem is based on a cultural myth? Write down two phrases that suggest this.

Blue mist like smoke

Stephen Watson

The hare

is like a mist,

like !kho,

a blue mist

resembling smoke,

our mothers used to say.

When a mirage

appears at daybreak,

just before sunrise,

they say it is

the hare,

the mirage in it,

that keeps the sun in mist,

that cloaks the sun in smoke,

that weakens the sun’s eye,

that does not let it rise,

and brings much illness

to us.

It is, they say,

the hare that does it,

a hare like mist,

a hare like smoke,

the mirage in it,

the !kho of it.

It is, they say,

a smoke resembling mist

blue mist like smoke

that does it.

Post-reading
3.	What about the hare would make it seem like “blue mist resembling smoke” in real life?
4.	On a very hot day it sometimes looks as if there is water on the road ahead, but that is just a mirage. Here the mirage at daybreak is supposedly caused by the hare. What does it do to the sun?
5.	What effect does !kho have on humans (according to the myth)?
6.	Write down two examples of personification in the poem and say what they contribute to the poem.
7.	The speaker says ‘our mothers used to say’, and then uses ‘they say’ three times more when describing the myth. What does it suggest about his attitude to the myth?