UNDERSTANDING A POEM

PARAPHRASING A POEM
OBJECTIVES:
1. Read closely the poem by extracting significant facts to better
understanding;
2. Acquire skills on what to look for in a poem to have a clear
understanding of the ideas and details presented;
3. Paraphrase a poem;
4. Discuss further some significant meanings of a poem;
5. Evaluate text as to its significance and relevance to the issues the
poem raises.
Motivating Activity:
Find a pair and create a monologue about what the speaker would like to say in this
poem. Some lines for stanza 1 are provided.

THE WIDOW
By: Lourdes H. Vidal

My husband left me Carefully in my mind

He ran out abruptly I must raise the loom
upsetting everything Arrange each single thread
in our little hut, And silently work
on changing pattern
Now I sit alone of circles and squares
with no work left that seem alike
but a flood of quivering threads,
tangled together
like a weaving loom,
Motivating Activity:

My husband left me Why have you left me?

He ran out abruptly Things do not seem
upsetting everything right have in our little
in our little hut, home
Motivating Activity:

Now I sit alone

with no work left
but a flood of quivering threads, Monologue?
tangled together
like a weaving loom,

Carefully in my mind
I must raise the loom,
arrange each single thread
and silently work Monologue?
on changing pattern
of circles and squares
that seem alike
Processing Activity:

1. Did you understand the poem better as you wrote down what you thought the speaker
would have liked to say? What do you think gave you better understanding?

2. What difficulties did you experience in creating the monologue

3. Why does the speaker seem worried?

4.What are the changes that the speaker must initiate, as express in the last
stanza?

5. What do you think are the larger meanings about Filipino wives who
Become widows?
 UNDERSTANDING THE POEM

Understanding a poem better…

Important question: “Who is the speaker?”
“What is the occasion?”

 (when speaker used) “I”, “my”, and “mine” – not necessarily

the poet.
 UNDERSTANDING THE POEM

 Another important question to ask; “What is the central purpose of the

poem?”
- it may be to tell a story
- to reveal a human character
- to impart a vivid impression of a scene
- to express a mood or an emotion or to convey some idea or attitude
vividly.

 Another question to ask; “By what means is the purpose achieved?

-it may be answered by describing the poem’s dramatic framework, if it has

any.
 Discussion Questions:

In the poem “The Widow”

1. Who is the speaker?

2. What is the occasion?

3. What is the central purpose of the poem?

4. By what means is the purpose achieved?

Paraphrasing a Poem

- To paraphrase a poem is to restate a text in another form or other words so as to

make its prose sense as plain as possible.
- Figurative language should be transformed into literal language, metaphor into
similes, inverted statements into normal prose order.
- the resulting paraphrase should be clearer and more direct.

-should retain the speaker’s use of first, second, and third person.
 VANITY
by Trinidad Tarrosa-Subido
 We call her Foreign Woman, God…
Burnished copper dusts are glinting from her hair;
White as the tropic sky her face; her eyes sea-blue;
Like the silver of a levant star her smile.
My eyes are dark and, too, my hair;
And brown the flesh that shrouds my soul;
If I should die tonight and be reborn;
O, lord Creator, make me too
A Foreign Woman to my native land..

Paraphrase:
We call her foreign Woman with blonde hair, white complexion, blue eyes, and a
bright smile. My eyes and hair are black. My skin is brown. If I die tonight and be
born again, God make me a foreign woman in my own country.
 EXERCISES 1:
Read each statement very carefully. Put a ✔ if it explains what a
paraphrase is, and an x if it does not.

A paraphrase…
1. expresses the poet’s thoughts which may not be his/her experience.
2. is a restatement of a poem in prose form to make the issue clear to the
reader.
3. transforms the literal language to figurative.
4. changes similes to metaphors.
5. puts inverted sentences back to their natural order.
6. maintains the original words, although the statements are simplified.
7. retains the speaker’s use of first, second, and third person and the verb tenses
originally employed.
8. may be longer or shorter but must contain all the ideas.
9. is enough to explain the deep significance and meaning of the poem.
10. explains the poem in the interpreter’s own words
 EXERCISES 1:
Read each statement very carefully. Put a ✔ if it explains what a
paraphrase is, and an x if it does not.
To understand a poem better, one must:
11. answer important questions such as, who the speaker is and what the occasion
is.
12. be careful not to identify the poem with the biography of the poet.
13. somehow associate events and ideas with the poets life to get an idea of
his/her attitude towards the subject.
14. identify the central purpose of the poem which may fall into any of these categories:
to tell a story, to reveal a human character or trait, to impart a clear impression of a
scene, to express a mood or emotion, and to convey an idea or attitude.
15. connect the various details of the poem with the central purpose or theme
 EXERCISES 2
Read the following poem then paraphrase it. (Stanza 1 has been done for you)

THE SPOUSE
by: Luis G. Dato She holds no joy beyond the day’s tomorrow,
Rose in her hand, and moist eyes young with She finds no worlds beyond his arm’s embrace,
weeping, She looks upon the Form behind the furrow,
She stands upon the threshold of her house, Who is her Mind, her Motion, Time and Space.
Fragrant with scent that wakens love from sleeping,
She looks far down to where her husband plows. Oh, somber mystery of eyes unspeaking,
And dark enigma of Life’s loves forlorn,
Her hair dishevelled in the night of passion, The sphinx beside the river smiles with seeking,
Her warm limbs humid with the sacred strife, the secret answer since the world was born.
What may she know but man and woman fashion,
Out of the day of wrath and sorrow, life?
Paraphase of “The Spouse”
Rose in her hand, and moist eyes young with weeping,
She stands upon the threshold of her house,
Fragrant with scent that wakens love from sleeping,
She looks far down to where her husband plows.

First stanza: With a rose in her hand, she cries and

stands by the door of her house while looking
towards where her husband tills the land.
Guide Questions:
1. What is the author's view of life as expressed
in the second stanza?
2. How does the setting suggest the mood of
the poem?
3. Who is referred to as her Mind, Motion, Time,
and Space?
4. What is her only World?
5. What is the symbolism of the sphinx?
OUTPUT

Read "Overseas Filipino Worker" and do the following:

1. Answer the following questions:

a. Who is the speaker of the poem?
b. What is the occasion?
c. What is the setting in time and place?
d. What is the central purpose of the poem?
e. By what means is the purpose achieved?
2. Paraphrase the poem.
3. Evaluate the poem in the light the present situation of women as
OCW's
4. Compare this poem with Amira and Lullaby for Amira
 OVERSEAS FILIPINO WORKER
by Eva S.E. Aranas, M.D.

After a graceful glissade Behind me are traceries of

or a tap dance of a touch down, things that define my identity
I am regurgitated through the slit or lack of it anyway: my diary,
of the plane's aluminum skin. my luminous plastic rosary, pamphlet
I have to smother the urge to bend of Nuestra Señora de la Paz y
and kiss the ground on which Buenviaje. Letters executed in
Black Ink. Yellowed photographs of
Tourists, in cluster ruminate, mute toothy smiles left behind in a
drop a condescending line or two. dog-eared home. They wind ruefully
perorate, timorous, half-amused like camp tralls. Or an ubiquitous tail.
while the businessman, late from a
meeting, panic like pedestrians But while the paths are flower strewn,
to an awning after a gentle rain. the suntanned leaves are jigsaw puzzle
pieces of me, that the streetcleaner
I, with my backpack always turn scoops and sweeps into a heap, throws
to look back, chilled by whisphered away from the cobblestoned, stonecold
resonances of whittled whipcracks. City streets that keep no memory of me.
Write a friend or a relative a letter of hope and encouragement or an
expression of how you miss him/her and how you want him/her back
soon.

__________
____________,

______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________

Sincerely,
____________
MAID MOUNTAIN (Marawi City)
by Ralph Semino Galan

in profile she is sleeping on her side

with a blanket of clouds
at her feet and how soundly she sleeps,
her hair streaming through
a thick haze of dreams
as we gaze at her form from a distance,
cameras clicking like brass bells,
waiting - for her misty eyes
to open for her to dance and sing
to the Moorish music
of the clean mountain air.
GABI STEW
by Christine Godinez-Ortega

With a sharp knife

between deft fingers
Mother skins gabi leaves.
Beneath the filmy, gabi-weave.
her fingers turn black.
And for hours she strips,
draws the gabi skins
away from the body's trunk
from emerald to purple ends silent, rhythmic.
only the muted thuds of pallid
gabi stalks fill the rattan basket.