Read the poem below then answer the questions below. You do not have to rewrite the poem but you will need to restate the questions when answering them.
SKY DIVER by Adrien Stoutenberg
Grotesque, jumping out
like a clothed frog, helmet and glasses,
arms and legs wading in the sky,
feet flapping before the cloth flower opens;
then suspended, poised,
an exclamation point upside-down,
and going down, swaying over corn and creeks
over the bones of fish and eagles.
There is the interim between air and earth,
time to study steeples
and the underwings of birds going over,
before the unseen chasm,
the sudden jaw opening and hissing.
Lying here after the last jump
I see how fanatic roots are,
how moles breathe through darkness,
how deep the earth can be.
THINK & DISCUSS
1. Where is the sky diver in the first stanza? in the second? What does he or she see?
2. In the last stanza, what do the words "the last jump" suggest has happened? What lines in the middles stanza prepare you for this?
3. Identify and list a simile. What is it describing?
4.Is "cloth flower" in the poem a similie or a metaphor? Tell what it describes.
5. How would you change this poem to give it a different ending? Rewrite the last stanza with a different ending and in your own words.
SKY DIVER by Adrien Stoutenberg
Grotesque, jumping out
like a clothed frog, helmet and glasses,
arms and legs wading in the sky,
feet flapping before the cloth flower opens;
then suspended, poised,
an exclamation point upside-down,
and going down, swaying over corn and creeks
over the bones of fish and eagles.
There is the interim between air and earth,
time to study steeples
and the underwings of birds going over,
before the unseen chasm,
the sudden jaw opening and hissing.
Lying here after the last jump
I see how fanatic roots are,
how moles breathe through darkness,
how deep the earth can be.
THINK & DISCUSS
1. Where is the sky diver in the first stanza? in the second? What does he or she see?
2. In the last stanza, what do the words "the last jump" suggest has happened? What lines in the middles stanza prepare you for this?
3. Identify and list a simile. What is it describing?
4.Is "cloth flower" in the poem a similie or a metaphor? Tell what it describes.
5. How would you change this poem to give it a different ending? Rewrite the last stanza with a different ending and in your own words.