Visual Poetry Guidebook

By Leila Berg

This “POETRY GUIDEBOOK” is specially designed with an
intention of assisting students in Malaysian schools where
English is taught as a second language. It simply provides
additional drill materials on important points of a selected
poem of YEAR 6 students. All the stanzas of the poem are
interpreted well and the discussion on the poem that students
need to understand re presented in simple language, with
clear explanations and examples. This book also emphasizes
on learning through constant practice. Ample exercises have
been specially devised to consolidate the items. By working
out the numerous exercises, the students should be able to
achieve some degree of proficiency in the English Literature.
This “POETRY GUIDEOOK” is also planned and organized in a
step-by -step manner using Blooms Taxonomy method, from
easy to harder and more complex items. Therefore, this book
is a must-have for students in YEAR 6 wishing to gain a better
understanding on the literature part.

About The Author

The author and editor Leila Berg, who has died aged 94, was a
passionate advocate for the empowerment of children,
particularly through literature. In an article in the Guardian in
1967, she discussed the importance of children having access
to books. Leila's indignation at the exclusion of working-class
and ethnic minority lives from children's books prompted her
to devise and launch in 1968 the Nippers series of early readers
books published by Macmillan, many of which she wrote
herself. Family life involving such mundane yet never before
represented activities as eating fish and chips and doing the
pools, or details such as an unemployed father, was
incorporated into chatty, playful narratives with repetitive
cadences and unexpected, humorous twists. This was no mean
achievement when control over vocabulary and sentence
difficulty must also be exercised.

POEM :

STANZA 1

STANZA 2

STANZA 3

The poem ' A garden ‘ by Leila Berg is about a
child's creative imagination. The child is trying
to imagine things and how it would be like to
have his own garden. The poem also describes
about the nature and how nature can bring
peace to us. The writer also inspired with all the
surroundings/habitat. For instance/example, he
described about the living things and the
environment of the garden.

TITTLE

Interpretation

STANZA 1

If I should have a garden,
I know how it would be,
There’d be daisies and buttercups

And an apple tree.

The poet imagine her dream
garden and what’s inside it.
For example, daisies and
buttercups

STANZA 2

A dog would chase a ball there,
A bird would sit and sing,

And a little cat would play with
A little piece of string.

The poet is describing what’s animals inside her
garden and what they are doing in her garden.
-The dog doesnt know anything about the world. He
just finding his own happines. For example the dog is
chasing the ball.
- Poet is finding her inner peace through the nature
and animals.

STANZA 3

And in the very middle,
I’d only have to stand,
For ladybirds and butterflies,

To settle on my hand.

The poet wants to take a break from the busy
world and enjoy herself in her imaginery
garden by just standing and relaxing herself.
- She enjoys the little birds and butterflies
who entertain her by sitting on her hands.

Alliteration : Repetition of a particular sound in the
stressed syllables of a series of words or phrases.
For example : In stanza 2, “ A bird would sit and
sing,”

Consonance : Repetition of the same consonant two or
more times in short succession.
For example : In stanza 3, “I’d only have to stand,”
with “To settle on my hand”

Rhyming : Rhyming scheme is the pattern of rhymes at
the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually
referred to by using letters to indicate which lines
rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme
with each other.
Stanza 1
If I should have a garden
I know how it would be
There’d be daisies and buttercups
And an apple tree
Stanza 2
A dog would chase a ball there
A bird would sit and sing
A little cat would play with
A little piece of string
Stanza 3

And in the very middle
I’d only have to stand
For ladybirds and butterflies
To settle on my hand.

Subtopics :

Further discussions on the poem.

Series of questions/quiz related to the
poem

Criticising the poem
•Style of writing the poem : Imaginary poem
Imagery
The creative process culminates in the image. The image,
therefore, might be legitimately called “pure poetry.” An
image is a portrait, model, picture, illustration, reflection or
vision produced by memory or imagination.
So in this poem, the whole idea was imagined by the poet
about a garden which he or she wanted to create. Each and
everything was imagined creatively by the poet. For
example, in the first stanza,

“If I should have a garden
I know how it would be,
There’d be daisies and buttercups

And an apple tree”

Shows that the poet wanted a good relaxation moment in
their garden and they prefer to have a very cool apple tree
in their garden.

Expanded definition of “imagery”

The non-visual allows us to understand that
imagery is the essential element of poetry (rather
than metaphor)

The simple juxtapositioning of images is, minimally,
enough to create a poem. The other needed
elements arise naturally from the images.
Metaphor and simile, which are essentially
comparisons, grow from the seeds of images
juxtaposed with other images.

Way of looking the poem

When inspiration hits us, we often first visualize it in the
form of a half-formed mental image. The initial, intuitive
image may be a phrase or line, usually the first or last line
of a poem. Or, it may be visual, emotive or even rhythmic.
Sometimes, we get an image of the entire poem. Those
are the easiest poetic impulses to process into a poem.
They seem to write themselves. One can simply copy or
take dictation from the imagination in such cases. The
confident, practiced imagination produces imagery naturally
and easily.In a way, a poet is childlike in the sense that he
retains the natural imagination that we all have as children
before we are taught to repress it.

Imagination
Webster defines imagination as “the act of forming mental
images of what is not actually present.” Roget defines it
synonymously as “creative thought, inspiration and
imagery.”
The technique used to write this poem was an imagination
technique. Creativity and imagination are synonymous.
They begin as aptitudes, advance through practice and
self-discipline to open a wormhole to the artist’s
subconscious and to the universal unconscious too. A poet
learns over time to distinguish his or her own degree of
originality, to keep a garden free of weeds where flowers
can grow. This amounts to developing a self-critical sense
to identify the weeds and let the flowers through.
Fishermen throw the small ones back to mature. Poets
should do the same.

Creativity

Imagination is also based in a willingness and
motivation to be creative. Convergent thinkers are
seldom creative. They can’t stop obsessing over
the same thoughts, and are emotionally constricted
by their rigid, convergent attitudes. Creative
thinking is, on the contrary, divergent and non-
linear. Divergent thinkers use their imaginations and
often perform or create works of art, including the
most potentially diverse art of poetry.

The strengths of the poem

•Use Concrete Words Instead of Abstract Words.
Concrete words describe things that people experience with
their senses. For example:
apple
daisies
dog
A person can see apple, smell daisies, or hear a dog.
A poet’s concrete words help the reader get a “picture” of
what the poem is talking about. When the reader has a
“picture” of what the poem is talking about, he/she can
better understand what the poet is talking about.
Abstract words refer to concepts or feelings. For example:
liberty
happy
love

“Liberty” is a concept, “happy” is a feeling, and no
one can agree on whether “love” is a feeling, a
concept or an action.
A person can’t see, touch, or taste any of these
things. As a result, when used in poetry, these words
might simply fly over the reader’s head, without
triggering any sensory response. Further, “liberty,”
“happy,” and “love” can mean different things to
different people. Therefore, if the poet uses such a
word, the reader may take a different meaning from
it than the poet intended.

Subvert the Ordinary.
Poets’ strength is the ability to see what other people see
every day in a new way. We don’t have to be special or a
literary genius to write good poems–all we have to do is take
an ordinary object, place, person, or idea, and come up with
a new perception of it.
Example: All people need to have a garden.
Poets’ Interpretation: A poet looks at the people on their
busy life and imagines scenes from their lives. A poet sees a
sixty-year old woman and imagines a grandmother who runs
in the garden with her grandchild. A poet sees a two-year
old boy and imagines him painting his dog’s portrait in his
garden, and his mother preparing some coffee for him to
drink. The main strength of this poem is the great
imagination of the poet where he took the ordinary and
turn it on its head. (The word “subvert” literally means “turn
upside down”.)

Questions

•Knowledge (Remembering)
These types of questions test the students’ ability to memorize and
to recall terms, facts and details without necessarily understanding
the concept.

Questions:
•List the things the poet wants to be in his or her garden in stanza
1?
•What tree would the poet wants in his or her garden in stanza 1?
-Apple tree
-Mango tree
-Durian tree
-Orange tree

•Comprehension (Understanding)
These questions test the students’ ability to summarize and
describe in their own words without necessarily relating it to
anything.

Questions
•Can you explain the main idea of the poem?
•Interpret stanza 1 in your own words.

•Application (Transferring)
Application questions encourage students to apply or transfer
learning to their own life or to a context different than one in which
it was learned.

Questions
•Suggest two things that you would have in your own garden.
•Based on your creativity replace the things the poet wants in his or
her garden according to your imaginary.

•Analysis (Relating)
These questions encourage students to break material into
parts, describe patterns and relationships among parts, to
subdivide information and to show how it is put together.

Questions
•Explain how would you design your own garden
•Analyse the theme of the poem

•Synthesis (Creating)
These questions encourage students create something new
by using a combination of ideas from different sources to
form a new whole.

Questions
•What could be changed to improve the imaginary garden
of the poet?
•Create a poem for your imaginary garden using own
creativity

•Evaluation (Judging)
Evaluation questions encourage students to develop
opinions and make value decisions about issues based on
specific criteria.

Questions
•What would you think about the poet’s imaginary level?
•Why would you think imagination is the power of a poem?



ANSWERS
Knowledge
Question 1
•There’d be daisies and buttercups and an apple tree
Question 2
•Apple tree
Comprehension
Question 1
The main idea of this poem is the poet’s imagination on how he wanted
his or her garden to be.
Question 2
(any imaginary meaning of the stanza 1 is accepted)
Application
Question 1
(any imaginary things which is logic is accepted)
Question 2
(any imaginary things which is logic is accepted)
Analysis
Question 1
(any imaginary things which is logic is accepted)
Question 2
Imaginary is the theme of the poem. In fact, imagination can help us to
develop our thinking skills more deeper.
Synthesis
Question 1
(any imaginary things which is logic is accepted)
Question 2
(any imaginary things which is logic is accepted)
Evaluation
Question 1
(any imaginary things which is logic is accepted)
Question 2
(any imaginary things which is logic is accepted)