CAMBRIDGE PRIMARY ENGLISH 6 WORKSHEET 9B

Name Date

Worksheet 9B: Responding to poetry

Read the poem Fruit in a Bowl by Guyanese poet A. J. Seymour.

Fruit in a bowl.
Yellow bananas, cool and firm to feel
Full golden apples with veined skins Lying in curves of silken-tongued delight.
so fine
That just a look might burst them – And great plumpted mangoes, sweetness to
the seed.
Tangerines Huge cut pawpaws bearing dark-seedling
For all the world like small green cargoes.
solid bells
Promising little kisses of astringency. And sapodillas with their sweet, brown
kernels
Aching to change to sugar once again.

Tropical fruit.

by A. J. Seymour

Glossary
astringency: sharpness of taste that makes the mouth pucker

cargoes: goods carried by a vehicle

kernel: part of a nut or seed inside the hard shell which you can usually eat

tropical: in or from the hottest parts of the world.

1 How many stanzas does the poem have and how long are they?

2 One of the fruits is compared to two things in a simile.

Which fruit and what is it compared to?

Cambridge Primary English 6 – Burt and Ridgard © Cambridge University Press 2021 1
 CAMBRIDGE PRIMARY ENGLISH 6 WORKSHEET 9B

3 a Which word in the poem would you not find in the dictionary?

b What do you think it means?

c Is it an example of alliteration or onomatopoeia? Explain.

4 What does the pawpaw bearing ‘dark-seedling cargoes’ make you think of?

5 Give an example of personification from the poem.

Cambridge Primary English 6 – Burt and Ridgard © Cambridge University Press 2021 2