1a. What does the speaker direct the reader to understand in the first stanza of "Feel Like a Bird"?
2a. In stanza 5, what does the speaker compare to "seeds in A Quartered / Apple"?
3a. What does the speaker ask in the final two stanzas?
4a. In what ways is the bird unlike a human?
5a. In "Feel Like a Bird," what insights does the speaker reveal about birds that the average person might not notice? What conclusions about birds does the speaker make based on his or her observations? How well does the speaker voice his or her observations and ideas about birds? Support your answer with evidence from the text.
1b. Why does the speaker think these instructions are important?
2b. How does this image help the reader envision what the bird is doing in stanza 5?
3b. How might the speaker answer these questions?
4b. How does the bird benefit from freedom more than a human might?
5b. "Feel Like a Bird" and "Freedom" both link the concepts of flight and freedom, and both evoke a response from the reader. How do the poems approach these concepts in different ways? Are there any parallel ideas between the poems? How does your response to "Feel Like a Bird" differ from your response to "Freedom"?
Lyric Poem. As the reader, how would you respond differently if this poem were written in story form describing a bird's flight? Would you learn more about the bird? about the speaker? How would your response differ? What emotions does "Freedom" consider?
Free Verse. May Swenson creatively uses free verse, as well as unconventional word combinations, punctuation, and capitalization. Look back at your graphic organizer and review the ways in which she uses each technique. What effect do these literary tools have on the poem? on the reader? How does her use of these tools evoke images? Look at the way "Freedom" makes use of some nontraditional stylistic elements. How do these elements contribute to the poem's meaning?
1. Write a free verse poem for a younger family member, describing for him or her the value of freedom.
2. Imagine that a road project in your town threatens a hawk family, whose nest is in a tree on the planned route. Write a petition to the city, asking that the project be delayed until a new suitable habitat is found for the birds.
3. Imagine you had wings instead of hands. What would life be like? Make two lists—one of your new limits and one of your new freedoms.
Bird Identification. Reread "Feel Like a Bird," and try to picture the bird in your mind. The sculpture shown on page 450 is just one possible representation of the bird. What type of bird do you think the poem describes? What clues lead you to this conclusion? Browse through the pictures and descriptions in a field guide for ideas. Popular field guides you may find in your library include Birds of North America: A Guide to Field Identification (Golden Press) and Field Guide to the Birds of North America (National Geographic Society). Try drawing the bird you have identified. Use the images from the poem, such as the quartered apple and the sail, to help you create the distinct shapes of the bird's body parts. On paper, draw the bird you have identified.
Forming Compounds. Examples of compound nouns in "Feel Like a Bird" include star-toes, finger-beak, and feather-pocket. Compound adjectives in the poem include close-lapped and water-licked. Choose an animal with interesting characteristics. Describe the animal in a paragraph, using at least five compound nouns and five compound adjectives. You may use common compounds or you can make up your own as May Swenson did.
Correcting Wordy Sentences. Rewrite the sentences below to make them concise.
1. May Swenson was a really good and interesting poet who wrote poems about many different and various subjects and topics such as animals, birds, cats, nature, the environment, her surroundings, and the world.
2. Willard Stone was a Cherokee artist with a lot of artistic talent who became interested in art and sculpture and in creating sculptures in wood, a craft at which he excelled.
3. Saadi Youssef is a Middle Eastern poet who has written many compelling poems and whose popular, interesting, intriguing works are well known and famous throughout much of the Middle East.
4. Assyria was an ancient kingdom from long ago in what is now the nation of Iraq, a country in the Middle East, and was a very old civilization.
5. Poems about flying and being in flight make me feel as if I, too, can fly above the whit, fluffy clouds, far above the earth below, and soar like a bird.
6. If you could be a bird or any other kind of animal, which type of bird or other animal would you want to be the very most?
7. Many, but not all, birds can fly, and there are some birds, the now-extinct dodo (there are no more living) was one type that could not fly.
8. For a long, long time, thousands of years, people have had a fascination or a great interest in flight or the ability to move through the air without touching the ground.
9. People have a wide variety of all kinds of devices, such as balloons, airplanes, and gliders, to name only a few of the many kinds of devices, to fly.
10. Some people have a great fear of flying and do not like to travel by air at all.
