Poetry Reading Journal: "La Migra"

INSTRUCTIONS

In your Poetry Reading Journal document, answer the following questions, giving examples/quotations from the poem to support or explain your answers.  Remember that when you quote from a poem, you give the line numbers in parenthesis.  If quoting two or three lines, use a slash to indicate a line break.  Example:  "And you laugh back nor can you ever see/The thousand little deaths my heart has died"(7-8).  When quoting four lines or more, use a block quotation, in which you format the lines as they appear in the poem and put the line numbers in parenthesis at the end.  For example:

They whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was nor easy. (1-4)

 

Create a heading with the title of the poem.  Then answer the questions below.

  1. Why has Pat Mora structured her poem using a part I and a part II.  What is the purpose of each part?
  2. In the second part of the poem, the speaker says, "Your jeep has a flat/and you have been spotted/ by the sun" (22-24).  What do you think is the meaning of the word "sun" in this context? What is the significance of being "spotted by the sun"?
  3. The speaker then goes on to say: "All you have is heavy: hat,/ glasses, badge, shoes, gun"(25-26).  Explore the connotative meaning of the word "heavy."  How/why would the glasses, badge, shoes, gun be "heavy"?  Look at each word individually as you explain your answer.
  4. Select three important images in the poem.  Explain their meanings.  Then go on to explain how they help convey the poem's overall theme.