th
7 Grade Poetry Packet
Summer Reading
Winter by Nikki Giovanni
Frogs burrow the mud
snails bury themselves
and I air my quilts
preparing for the cold
Dogs grow more hair
mothers make oatmeal
and little boys and girls
take Father John's Medicine
Bears store fat
chipmunks gather nuts
and I collect books
For the coming winter
But anybody can act how I stutter in a rage.
Anybody can copy echoes I make.
And mirrors can show me multiplied
many times, say, dressed up in green
or dressed up in blue.
One by James Berry
Only one of me
and nobody can get a second one
from a photocopy machine.
Nobody has the fingerprints I have.
Nobody can cry my tears, or laugh my laugh
or have my expectancy when I wait.
But anybody can mimic my dance with my dog.
Anybody can howl how I sing out of tune.
And mirrors can she me multiplied
many times, say, dressed up in red
or dressed up in grey.
Nobody can get inot my clothes for me
or feel my fall for me, or do my running.
Nobody hears my music for me, either.
I am just this one.
Nobody else makes the words
I shape with sound, when I talk.
The Courage That My Mother Had
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite on a granite hill.
The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.
Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.
And tipping, tidied up her room.
And would not let her see
He missed his game of baseball
Terribly.
Jim by Gwendolyn Brooks
There never was a nicer boy
Than Mrs. Jackson’s Jim.
The sun should drop its greatest gold
On him.
Because, when Mother-dear was sick,
He brought her cocoa in.
And brought her broth, and brought her bread.
And brought her medicine.
How I Learned English by Gregory Djanikian
It was in an empty lot
Ringed by elms and fir and honeysuckle.
Bill Corson was pitching in his buckskin jacket,
Chuck Keller, fat even as a boy, was on first,
His t‐shirt riding up over his gut,
Ron O’Neill, Jim, Dennis, were talking it up
In the field, a blue sky above them
Tipped with cirrus.
And there I was.
Just off the plane and plopped in the middle
Of Williamsport, Pa., and a neighborhood game,
Unnatural and without any moves,
My notions of baseball and America
Growing fuzzier each time I whiffed.
So it was not impossible that I,
Banished to the outfield and daydreaming
Of water, or a hotel in the mountains,
Would suddenly find myself in the path
Of a ball stung by Joe Barone.
I watched it closing in
Clean and untouched, transfixed
By its easy arc before it hit
My forehead with a thud.
As Joe Barone asking me how I was
Through tears, picking me up
And dusting me off with hands like swatters,
And though my head felt very heavy,
I played on till dusk
Missing flies and pop-ups and grounders
And calling out in desperation things like
“Yours” and take it,” but doing all right,
Tugging at my cap in just the right way,
Crouching low, my feet set,
“Hum baby” sweetly on my lips.
I fell back.
Dazed, clutching my brow,
Groaning, “Oh my shin, oh my shin,”
And everybody peeled away from me
And dropped from laugher, and there we were,
All of us writhing on the ground for one reason
Or another.
Someone said “SHIN” again,
There was a wild stamping of hands on the ground,
A kicking of feet, and the fit
Of laughter overtook me too,
And that was important, as important
Poem and Author
Example
“A Dream Deferred”
Langston Hughes
“Winter”
Nikki Giovanni
Explain what is happening in
the poem or what it is about.
Identify the speaker of the
poem.
Identify two language devices and give
examples from the poem.
Explain how you connect
to the poem.
The speaker is questioning what
happens to dreams that are put on
hold. The speaker lists
consequences resulting from and
unfulfilled dream.
The speaker appears to be
someone who has lost a sense of
hope. It appears the speaker is
lost because he/she imagines a
dream rotting and eventually
exploding.
Personification – In the poem, a dream is given
human qualities with the use of verbs such as
“dry”, “run”, and “stink.”
There are times in my life
when I feel as if I fall short of
my dreams. Like the speaker,
I wonder if my dreams are
lost or damaged. The poem
makes me think about the
importance of dreams.
Simile – In the poem, a dream is “like a raisin in
the sun”, “like rotten meat”, and “like a syrupy
sweet.”
“One”
James Berry
“The Courage
That My Mother
Had”
Edna St. Vincent
Millay
“Jim”
Gwendolyn Brooks
“How I Learned
English”
Gregory Djanikian