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.
- Why has Pat Mora structured her poem using a part I and a part II. What is the purpose of each part?
- 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"?
- 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.
- Select three important images in the poem. Explain their meanings. Then go on to explain how they help convey the poem's overall theme.