Unit 1.pdf - Southwest High School

Activity 1.7
continued
Applying Reader Response Criticism
My Notes
P o e t r y
A b o u t t h e A u t h o r
Peter Davison (1928–2004) was both a poet and an editor,
serving as poetry editor of The Atlantic Monthly for
29 years. The author of 11 collections of poetry, Davison
also wrote three prose works, including essays on
poetry and the memoir The Fading Smile, which includes
recollections of his mentor, poet Robert Frost. In his
writing and editing, Davison emphasized the power of
active language to engage with ideas and events: verbs,
he said, not nouns, show what a writer really means.
by Peter Davison
When I saw your head bow, I knew I had beaten you.
You shed no tear—not near me—but held your neck
Literary terms
Free verse is poetry without
a fixed pattern of meter and
rhyme. In contrast, fixed
form is poetry in which
the length and pattern are
determined by established
usage or tradition, such as a
sonnet.
5
10
Bare for the blow I had been too frightened
Ever to deliver, even in words. And now,
In spite of me, plummeting it came.
Frozen we both waited for its fall.
Most of what you gave me I have forgotten
With my mind but taken into my body,
But this I remember well: the bones of your neck
And the strain in my shoulders as I heaved up that huge
Double blade and snapped my wrists to swing
The handle down and hear the axe’s edge
Nick through your flesh and creak into the block.
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16 SpringBoard® English Textual Power Senior English