C. And Even Now


1) And Even Now- the poem is below but read the following first.

Before you read, pretend that you are a child trying to get to sleep. Consider various images that might come to mind.
Then find the definitions for:

goblin: are {what}in folklore and fantasy

Agony: extreme physical or mental suffering.

During reading, write down one word that conveys each stanza. (In poetry, a stanza is a grouped set of lines within a poem, usually set off from other stanzas by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas in poetry are like paragraphs in an essay)




And Even Now
Dorothy Livesay



When I was a child,
Lying in bed on a summer evening,
The wind was a tall sweet woman
Standing beside my window.
She came whenever my mind was quiet.

But on other nights
I tossed about in fear and agony
Because of goblins poking at the blind,
And fearful faces underneath by bed.
We played a horrible game of hide-and-seek
With Sleep the far-off, treacherous goal.

And even now, stumbling about in the dark,
I wonder, Who was it that touched me? –
What thing laughed?




About the poet
Dorothy Livesay was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1909 and passed away in 1996. As a teacher, she worked in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) from 1959 to 1963. She then taught as a writer-in-residence at a number of universities in Canada. Besides being a professor, she also worked as a journalist and editor. Livesay was the founder and first editor of CVII and a founding member of the League of Canadian Poets. The B.C. book prize for poetry is named in her honour. She won the Governor General's Literary Award in the poetry category in 1944 for Day And Night, and again in 1947 for Poems for People. Livesay was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1987.




Please respond to the following questions:

1. What was “the tall sweet woman” of the author’s childhood?

2. When did she come to visit?

3. What did she see during nights of “fear and agony”?

4. The author writes that Sleep was the “far off treacherous goal.”
What do you imagine the word treacherous means? Find the
word in the dictionary.

5. Locate the personification in this poem and write down the specific lines in which you have found the personification.


Please attach these questions to the dropbox on D2L