CBSE Class 8 English Literature Poem Communication Aisha Sherazi

Poem: Communication  By Aisha Sherazi

About the Poet

Aisha Sherazi is a freelance writer, teacher ,parent and wife based in Canada. She has written many  thought-provoking poems on a variety of topics which include gender issues, global warming and terrorism. She is also known for her stand on humanitarian concerns and is also a social-activist.

Summary

The poet wants to convey the fact that  the spread of education and growing technology gadgets like I-pads, I-phones,, laptops etc have reached the heart and minds of people. This surely has adversely affected their social relation with their family and friends.

The relationship between parents and children has been affected the most, as parents are either working and children are really busy with school work. It is true that nowadays technology rules the world. Undoubtedly, human interaction has been influenced through introduction of new technological devices. There are positive and negative impacts on everything! Technology makes the world move faster. But using too much of technology is surely damaging the relations.

EXERCISES

I.  Answer with reference to context:

a) Communication Breakdown,
What’s happening today?
We don’t say what we mean,
And we don’t mean what we say

(i) Identify the poem and poet.

(ii)Who does ‘we’ refer to? What is wrong with this generation?

iii)Identify the rhyme scheme of the above stanza?

(b) We use our text messages,
Our computers, to speak for us,
We use our telephones,
And rely on our trust

(i) Identify the poem and poet.

(ii) How do most people communicate these days?

(iii) What effect has this had on human relationships?

II.  Answer the following questions briefly:

a)What are the positive and negative effects of using modern communication gadgets?

b) What does the poet mean when he says ‘World peace depends on these things’?

c) In the last stanza when the poet says, ‘This isn’t really connecting, it isn’t really civilized,’ what does she wish to convey?

III. Choose the correct answer from the option given below:

a) Communication breakdown refers to

(i) breakdown of gadgets

(ii) breakdown of networks

(iii) lack of interaction between human beings

b) Being busy is the craze,here ‘craze’ refers to

(i)being mentally disturbed

(ii) being fashionable

(iii) being jealous

c) The poet believes that we need to connect to other human beings in order to

(i) bring about world peace

(ii) be civilized

(iii) All the above