Two poetry journals, #50 and #51, due February 23 and 24.

Journal #50


Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and make repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some are so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
nd to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
e moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Notes:

The wall that the poet refers to is made of rocks. Every year, moisture gets between the cracks and gradually as it freezes and thaws, expands and contracts, the wall falls down. The subject of his poem is the annual mending of the stone wall.


In your journal:

1. Why does the narrator think that “we do not need the wall”?
2. Why would the narrator mend the wall if he does not like it?
3. The neighbor argues that "good fences make good neighbors." What do you think he means by this?
4. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” Who and/or what are those something(s)?
5. . What simile does the speaker use near the end of the poem to describe his neighbor? What does this tell you about the speaker’s attitude toward him?
6. What do you think the wall symbolizes?
7. What is the author’s tone? What is the mood of this poem?
8. Explain the title.

JOURNAL # 51:


Haiku is a type of Japanese poetry that has seventeen syllables and just three lines. It is a short poem that captures a moment in nature. Often the last line contains a ‘surprise’ or interesting thought. Line 1 has 5 syllables, Line 2 has 7 syllables and Line 3 has 5 syllables.
Examples:

A bitter morning

Sparrows sitting together


Without any necks.



How beautifully


That kite soars up to the sky


From the small boy's hand.


Write at least one haiku poem about something you see in nature.