Courage, poem analyzing, help please, I need to pass this class.?

Question

Courage

It is in the small things we see it.
The child’s first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
comber your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you’ll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you’ll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

-Anne Sexton



Questions:
1. Who is the speaker?
2. How many stanzas are there?
3. Identify the 3 similes.
4. Identify the 5 things being personified.
5. Identify the 7 metaphors and what they represent.
6. Identify the 2 alliterations.
7. Identify the refrain in the poem.
8. What is the whole poem a metaphor for?
9. What is the meaning of the poem?

Answer 1

1. Anne Sexton...I think
2. Well, that depends on whether a stanza is four lines or all those lines so yeah...not sure
3. as awesome as an earthquake and love as simple as shaving soap. sorry I couldn't find a third.
4. your heart went on a journey all alone, Your courage was a small coal, you powdered your sorrow and after it slept a while, when death opens the back door. Sorry I couldn't find a 5th one.
5. Wow, I can't find seven but here's few: you drank their acid and concealed it (you believed the mean things they were saying about you and kept your feeling bottled up inside), Your courage was a small coal that you kept swallowing, (not sure what this one means but it's a metaphor for something!), each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen, (no idea what it means sorry)
6. simple as shaving soap and it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses and was transformed.
7. I think it might be "Later"
8. Going through life with courage
9. That you will always have your courage, even in the smallest ways

Hope I helped!

Source(s):

Our poetry unit in English class

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