I Hear America Singing

Answer each of the following questions with a response of one sentence to several sentences. Use details from both texts to support your responses.

1. How is personification used in both “I Hear America Singing” and “Chicago”? How do these instances of personification relate or contrast?

2. What adjectives best describe the tone established in each poem? If you were to deliver a reading of each poem aloud, what poetry sound devices (such as assonance, consonance, alliteration, euphony, cacophony, onomatopoeia, pacing, and rhythm) would help you to best convey the appropriate tone of each poem?

3. Considering rhyme scheme, line length, and meter, what poetry term accurately labels both “I Hear America Singing” and “Chicago”? Regarding those features, how does the reader’s experience while listening differ with each poem?

4. Find and note examples of parallelism and/or anaphora (repetition words at the beginning of successive lines) in each poem. How does each poet utilize these literary devices in accomplishing his poem’s message?