"Fifth Grade Autobiography" by Rita Dove
I was four in this photograph fishing
with my grandparents at a lake in Michigan.
My brother squats in poison ivy.
His Davy Crockett cap
sits squared on his head so the raccoon tail
flounces down the back of his sailor suit.
My grandfather sits to the far right
in a folding chair,
and I know his left hand is on
the tobacco in his pants pocket
because I used to wrap it for him
every Christmas. Grandmother's hips
bulge from the brush, she's leaning
into the ice chest, sun through the trees
printing her dress with soft
luminous paws.
I am staring jealously at my brother
the day before he rode his first horse, alone.
I was strapped in a basket
behing my grandfather.
He smelled of lemons. He's died----
but I remember his hands.
I just got finished reading the poem called "Fifth Grade Autobiography" by Rita Dove from our poetry book. From glancing at the title of the poem, I figured it is about someone's past events from fifth grade. I wasn't really sure about what type of poem it was but I think I have a good picture of what it was.
Once I read "Fifth Grade Autobiography", I noticed a lot of different things afterwards. I saw that it was actually a narrative poem which was one of my particular guesses. It is a story that was told about and around a certain picture which describes the enjoyable moments with the family. I was wondering also if the title "Fifth Grade Autobiography" was relevant to like when she was looking through a old template that had her fifth grade experiences. Also I circled many examples of emjambments from a few stanzas.I noticed a lot of imagery in certain stanzas, particularly stanza's 1 and 2. The next one that follwed two which contained a few words that stuck out which revealed feelings toward her brother. At the end of the poem, the poem did a good job to me at exhibiting caesuras which puts like a bold print on the last few words of the line to show more emphasis. In this poem the author does so by describing her grandfather's hand.
Paul, you are noticing some good things here. Make sure for every technique you discuss, you look at the "so what" - the effect created in the poem. Also, anchor your discussion with quotations from the poem - for instance, what words stick out that reveal her feelings toward her brother?
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