CBSE Class 12 English Flamingo Poems Notes

1. MY MOTHER AT SIXTY SIX

Read the following extracts and answer the questions that follow each :

1. Driving from my parent's 

home to Cochin last Friday 

Morning, I saw my mother 

beside me,

doze, open mouthed, her face

ashen like that 

of a corpse and realized with pain 

that she was as old as she looked but soon

put that thought away........

Questions

(a) Where was the poet coming from and Who was sitting beside her? 1

(b) What did the poet notice about her mother? 1

(c) With what does the poet compare her mother's face and why? 2

2. ....... and looked out at young

Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling

out of their homes, but after the airports 

security check, standing a few yards

away,.......

Questions

(a) Where is the speaker in these lines?

(b) What thoughts did occupy her mind before she looked outside?

(c) Does lookingout help her, how?

3. I looked again at her, wan, pale

as a late winter's moon and felt that old

familiar ache, my childhood's fear, 

but all I said was, see you soon, Amma,

all I did was smile and smile and smile.......

Questions

(a) Who looked wan and pale and why? 1

(b) What childhood tear did the speaker have?

(c) What do the parting words suggest? 1

(d) Explain the comparison : 'as a late winter's moon'. 1

Answer the following questions in 30-40 words each : (2 marks each)

1. What does the poet's mother look like? What kind of image has the poet used to signify her aging decay?

2. How has the poet compared the scene inside the car with the activities going on outside?

3. Why is the poet's mother compared to late winter's moon?

4. What is the poet's familiar ache and why does it return?

5. Why does the poet smile and what does she say while bidding goodby to her mother?

6. What poetic devices have been used in the poem 'My Mother at Sixty Six'?

7. What different images does the poet use to convey the idea of her mother's old age?

2 AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM IN A SLUM

Read the following extracts and answer the questions that follow each :

1. Far far from gusty waves these children's faces. 

Like rootless weeds, the hair torn round their pallor:

The tall girl with her weighted-down head. The paper seeming boy with rat's eyes.

Questions

(a) Who are 'these' children? Where are they sitting? 1

(b) Why is the head of the tall girl "weighed down"? 1

(c) What do you understand by "The paper-seeming boy, with rat's eyes"?1

(d) What do the images "rootless weeds" and hair torn round their pallor" suggest? 1

2. The stunted, unlucky heir

Of twisted bones, reciting a father's gnarled disease, 

His lesson, from his desk. At back of the dim class 

One unnoted, sweet and young, His eyes live in dream; 

Of squirrel's game, in tree room, other than this. 

Questions

(a) What has the unlucky heir’ inherited? 

(b) What is the stunted boy reciting? 

(c) Who is sitting at the back of a dim class? 

(d) “His eyes live in a dream”What dream does he have? 

3. On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare–s head.

Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities.

Belled, flowery, Tyrolese Valley. Open-handed map Awarding the world its world.

Questions

(a) What does the colour of the classroom walls suggest? 

(b) Which pictures do the classroom walls have? 

(c) Explain : “Civilised dome riding all cities.”

Awarding the world its world. 

(d) Why does the poet refer to the “Tyrolese Valley” in these lines? 

4. ......And yet, for these children, these Windows, not this map, their world,

Where all their future–s painted with a fog,

A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky Far far from rivers,

capes, and stars of words.

Questions

(a) What do “these windows“ “this map“ represent? 

(b) What is the future of these children? 

(c) What are the “narrow street” and “lead sky” indicative of? 

(d) Where would these children prefer to be? 

5. Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, the map a bad example,

with ships and sun and love tempting them to steal’

for lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes From fog to endless night?

Questions
(a) Why is the Shakespeare wicked? Why is the map a bad example? 

(b) How does the poet describe the present condition of these children in these lines? 

(c) Explain “From fog to endless night” ? 

(d) What are the things that tempt the slum children to steal?

6. On their slag heap, these children Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of Steel,

with mended glass, like bottles bits on stones All of their time and space are foggy slum So blot their maps with slums as big as doom.

Questions

(a) What does slag heap refer to. 

(b) How are the children described in these lines? 

(c) Explain : “So blot their maps with slums as big as doom”. 

7. Unless governor, inspector, visitor.

This map becomes their window and these windows

That shut upon their lives as catacombs.

Break o break open till they break the town.

Questions

(a) What is expected of the governor, inspector and visitor and why? 

(b) How can “this map” become their window? 

(c) “Break o break open” What should they break? 

8. And show the children to green fields, and make their world.

Run azure on gold stands, and let their tongue Run naked into books the white and green leaves open History is theirs whose language is the sun.

Questions

(a) Where will the children–s world extend up to? 

(b) What other freedom should the children enjoy? 

(c) Who can create history? 

(d) Explain : “Run azure on gold sands”.

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