THE SEED SHOP – KCSE ENGLISH POETRY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow.

The seed shop.
Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shriveled scentless dry,
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

In this brown husk a dale of haw throne dreams;
A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust,
That will drink deeply of a century’s streams,
These lilies shall make summer on my dust,
Here in their safe and simple house of death, 
Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap;
Here I can blow a garden with my breath,
And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

QUESTIONS

1. Describe the rhyme scheme of the poem (2mks)
2. What is the effect of rhyme in the poem? (1mk)
3. How else has the poet achieved the effect in (ii) above? (3mks)
4. Which words would you stress in the last line of stanza one and why? (2mks)

ANSWERS

The seed shop

1. a b a b c d e f  ef √ 1
   It is regular √ 1 
2. Creates rhythm 1 /musicality/memorability/interesting
3. Repetition √ ½ ‘Here’ in stanza  1, 3√ 1
   Sibilance √ ½ Line  2  – Stone shifting sand √ 1
   Line  –  as ashes, shrveied, scentless√1
   Alliteration  √  ½ mark line 3 stanza  3  drink, deeply
   Line  1  stanza  3  safe and simple Accept any 2.
   Identification √ ½  illustration √ 1mark.No mark for illustration without identification
4. Meadows  √ ½ gardens √ ½ running √ ½ hand ½ 
   Reasons – content words √ 1