Far far from gusty waves these children’s faces.

Like rootless weeds, the hair torn round their pallor.

The tall girl with her weighed-down head.

The paper seeming boy, with rat’s eyes.

The stunted unlucky heir of twisted bones,

Reciting a father’s gnarled disease,

his lesson, from his desk.

The tall girl has bowed down her head:

 

• in shame

   

• to show curtsy

   

• out of depression

   

• due to inferiority complex

Tick the item which best answers of the following:

What do you think is the colour of “sour cream?” Why do you think the poet has used this expression to describe the classroom walls?

The walls of the classroom are decorated with the pictures of ‘Shakespeare, ‘buildings with domes’, ‘world maps’ and ‘beautiful valleys’. How do these contrast with the world of these children?

What does the poet want for the children of the slums ? How can their lives be made to change?

Have you ever visited or seen an elementary school in a slum? What does it look-like?

How does Stephen Spender depict the life of the children of ‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum?

What is the unnoted boy doing at the back of the classroom?

How is the future of the children of an elementary school in a slum depicted by poet Stephen Spender?

Why does Stephen Spender call the slum children of Tyrol as unsung fighters? What is his appeal for them?

How does Spender interpret the poverty stricken yet onward struggling men in the poem : ‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum?’