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  • The Circle Game

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    The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell follows a person from childhood to adulthood, describing how they view aging at different stages of life. It starts with the character as a curious child and ends with them as a 20-year-old realizing "there'll be new dreams, maybe better." The poem uses the metaphor of being "captive on a carousel of time" to represent the inevitable cycle of aging. D-Day Minus by Edwin Brock is a letter from a father to his son, telling him he only has two months left to live. It discusses the son's impending death and advises him to find love and have children before he dies. The father wants to prepare his son for death,

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    "Circle Game" poems and questions

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    The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell follows a person from childhood to adulthood, describing how they view aging at different stages of life. It starts with the character as a curious child and ends with them as a 20-year-old realizing "there'll be new dreams, maybe better." The poem uses the metaphor of being "captive on a carousel of time" to represent the inevitable cycle of aging. D-Day Minus by Edwin Brock is a letter from a father to his son, telling him he only has two months left to live. It discusses the son's impending death and advises him to find love and have children before he dies. The father wants to prepare his son for death,

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    227 views3 pages

    The Circle Game

    Uploaded by

    mslenihan
    The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell follows a person from childhood to adulthood, describing how they view aging at different stages of life. It starts with the character as a curious child and ends with them as a 20-year-old realizing "there'll be new dreams, maybe better." The poem uses the metaphor of being "captive on a carousel of time" to represent the inevitable cycle of aging. D-Day Minus by Edwin Brock is a letter from a father to his son, telling him he only has two months left to live. It discusses the son's impending death and advises him to find love and have children before he dies. The father wants to prepare his son for death,

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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    of 3

    Page 1 of 3

    The Circle Game – Joni Mitchell

    Yesterday a child came out to wonder Chorus


    Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
    Fearful when the sky was full of thunder Sixteen springs and sixteen
    And tearful at the falling of a star Summers gone now
    Cartwheels turn to car wheels
    Chorus: Through the town
    And the season they go round and round And they tell him, “Take your time,
    And the painted ponies go up and down It won’t be long now”
    We’re captive on a carousel of time Till you drag your feet to slow the
    We can’t return, we can only look behind Circle down
    From where we came
    And go round and round Chorus
    In the circle game
    So the years spin by now and the
    Then the child moved ten times Boy is twenty
    Round the seasons Though his dreams have lost some
    Skated over ten clear frozen streams Grandeur coming true
    Words like “when you’re older” There’ll be new dreams, maybe better
    Must appease him Before the last revolving year
    And promises of someday make his Is through
    Dreams
    Chorus

    D-day Minus – Edwin Brock

    Son, you have two more months you do not understand, is the
    to live. On the sixteenth of December condition you will come to fear.
    1963, if the hospital has guessed
    right, you will begin to die. By Son, you are the third of my children;
    the time you are old enough to read this, you the other two are dead, looking for
    will be dead: love. When you meet them, be
    this is a process called communication. gentle; be gentle also with me;
    and she who held you happily for
    You will not see the world at first: nine months: we too are looking for love.
    you will touch flesh and you will cry.
    Years later you will cry because And love, in case you do not understand,
    you see too much and touch too little. is the grandeur that will kill you.
    Have children soon, my son: everyone
    You will be hungry for love, and love should live for those nine months.
    will feed you; later, you will be Afterwards, die in good company;
    hungry for love. And love, in case for dying is a lonely occupation.
    Page 2 of 3

    Copy – Richard Armour The Stunt Flier – John Updike

    His mother’s eyes, I come into my dim bedroom


    His father’s chin, innocently and my baby
    His auntie’s nose, is lying in her crib facedown;
    His uncle’s grin, just a hemisphere of the half-bald head
    shows, and the bare feet, uncovered,
    His great-aunt’s hair the small feet crossed at the ankles
    His grandma’s ears. like a dancer doing easily
    His grandpa’s mouth, a difficult step – or,
    So it appears… more exactly, like a cherub
    planning through Heaven,
    Poor little tot, cruising at a middle altitude
    Well he may moan. through the cumulus of the tumbled covers,
    He hasn’t much which disclose the feet crossed
    To call his own. at the ankles à la small boys who,
    exulting in their mastery of bicycles,
    lift their hands from the handle bars
    to demonstrate how easy gliding is.

    The Circle Game Questions:


    1) What is the “carousel of time”? What figure of speech is this?

    2) How does the child feel about aging at each of the different stages?

    3) At what stage of life does the poem start? At what stage does it end? What is the speaker doing
    at both times?

    4) Are there any lines/phrases that are particularly effective?


    Page 3 of 3

    D-Day Minus Questions:


    1) What is the situation in the poem?

    2) What is the father trying to teach the child?

    3) What are some effective lines/phrases?

    Stunt Flier Questions:


    1) To what does the father compare his child? What figure of speech is used?

    2) How does the father feel about his child? How do we know this?

    3) What are some effective lines/phrases?

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