To learn how to speak- Jeremy Cronin

Who is the poet of this poem?

• Jeremy Cronin

• Sipho Sepamla

• Mark Strand

In line 2, the poet refers to the ‘voices’ of the land. Identify the figure of speech.

• Personification

• Metaphor

• Simile

• Pun

Explain the meaning of the personification in the poem.

• Land cannot literally speak. Cronin means that he

  wants to understand the people who live there and their languages.

• People are reluctant to understand one another, nature comprehends language better

The poem is an example of:

• An extended metaphor compares two things over more than one line in the poem.

• A hyperbole- deliberate exaggeration

There is not a single complete sentence in this poem. Why not?

• Free verse

  Language is always changing- not fixed

• There are no capital letters

• No punctuation

Lack/ no punctuation in the poem

• Enjambment

• Sonnet

• Elegy

What is the message/theme of the poem?

• Life is unfair

• Language is not diverse

• Learning to speak in a similar language- to understand one another

What reference is made to the boers?

• -kuil, -pan, -fontein

• Afrikaans was a forced language

Which line in the poem shows that language is not fixed?

• "ikwata bust fife"

  "Chwannisberg"

• land

• water

Name two geographical features that the poem equates to language.

• Land and water

• pan, fontein

• wagon and trails