Based on the book The Rocking Chair by Abraham Moses Klein…
The central poem on Montreal is followed by a triptych (three poems) devoted to Mount Royal. While the first gives us a glimpse (and a feeling) of a winter landscape in which the poet’s subjectivity makes only a fleeting appearance, the other two give childhood a strategic place. Comment briefly on the importance of childhood in these two poems and the collection as a whole. How does this represent Montreal as a multicultural city?
Consider:
- Environment for young Montrealers
- Lookout: Mont-Royal
- Talks about boyhood
- Positive perspective – Montreal, for him, is where everyone can be who they are
- Nature in the poem represents childhood innocence.
- The tone is lighthearted; adjectives, “fluffy white clouds,” poems, metaphors, literary devices, and imagery are almost childish.
- Childhood as a strategic place (illicit compassion from readers; readers can relate)
- Lots of descriptions, metaphors and literary devices
- Photography as a symbol of childhood
- Childhood helps people understand the diversity of cultures and languages that surround them.
- Children within the identity of Montreal?
- To Montréal, Mont-Royal is a substantial monumental place, like the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.
- Multiculturalism within the kids “other kids of other slums and races;”
- Home will always be that childhood part of you.
- You will go out and do things, but home will always be home.
- “Remembering boyhood, it is always here.”
- The city represents who he is; Montreal will always express his childhood, even as he grows up.
- Innocence of childhood (see the good)
- Sentimental connections
- The author was a Jewish minority anglophone.
- Deep understanding of the unique position of les Canadiens and their struggle to preserve their culture, language and religion **COPIED FROM ONLINE***
- Rich area, described in the second paragraph of the poem.
