Time' by Allen Curnow -- Student's Worksheet

A) Put the following lines into four stanzas.

Organise them how you wish:

I am the mileage recorded on the yellow signs.

I am the sums the sole-charge teachers teach
I am the place in the park where the lovers were
seen.
I am the water-race and the rust on railway lines
I am recurrent music the children hear
I am dust, I am distance, I am lupins back of the
beach
I am nine o'clock in the morning when the office is
clean
I am the slap of the belting and the smell of the
machine
I am level noises in the remembering ear
I am cows called to milking and the magpie's
screech.
I am the sawmill and the passionate gear.
I am the nor'west air nosing among the pines

B) Vocabulary -- close analysis of the first four

stanzas. Here are some notes to help you with the
difficult vocabulary

Vocabulary help:
Line 1: pines are evergreen trees that produce
woody cones and have needle- shaped leaves
Line 4: Lupins are a common sight on the South
Island of New Zealand where they have become
wild (plants)
Line 5: sole-charge teachers are found in about 8%
of primary schools in New Zealand. These are
usually rural schools in isolated villages which
consist of only one class and one teacher.
Line 6: magpies are birds noted for their chattering
call
Line 8: belting -- either the material used to make
belts (it could be the belts of a machine) OR belting
can also be a beating or a thrashing (being hit with a
leather belt)
Line 10: recurrent means occurring repeatedly
Line 12: a gear is a part of a machine used to
change speed

C) Questions about the stanzas to help you think

about the meaning of the poem.
Stanzas 5-7
a) Look at the simile in stanza five: "like a mist".
Why do you think all of the above memories are
compared to a mist? How can memories exist
"among my mountainous fabrics"?

b) "So do they the measurable world resist".

Comment on the following line.

c) Look at stanza 6 and suggest the meanings of the

phrase "your conscious carrier".

d) Look at line 16 -- what does time do to these

memories?

e) The poem is called 'Time"; pick out all the

references to time. What is being suggested about
time?

f) The last line 'I am ... the Beginning and the End' is
derived from the Bible:
Revelation 22, v.13. There are also echoes of 'East
Coker' (Eliot's Four Quartets)
with its closing lines 'In my end is my beginning'.
Does this help to reveal the meanings of the poem?
OR does the poem remain "private and
unanswerable?"

g) Look closely at the final stanza and the use of

listing. Comment on the choice of nouns in the list.

h) Look closely at the use of punctuation in the last

three stanzas and in the poem as a whole. Comment
on the effect of this punctuation.
Does this help to reveal the meanings of the poem?
OR does the poem remain "private and
unanswerable?"

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by_allen_curnow#ixzz1FZu168Ie