Echo, by Judith Pond (2012) It is the evening of the day before spring. Bare and gleaming, you race through the darkening rooms, your clear laughter echoing. Outside the young light wanes. We are playing the game of me catching you, though you are moving far too fast for me ever to win. One by one the stars wink on. Here are your small clothes, discarded on the long-ago floor of an innocent kitchen. I raise them to my face and breathe you in, remembering this night as though our game were just a dream, as though already it were an echo, and you were gone.

Questions: Answer the following questions according to poems provided by the instructor.

1. What is your first impression and/or emotional response to the poem?

2. Define the following word and write an example sentence. a. Wane

3. The title of a poem can give insight into the interpretation of the poem. What does the title of the poem mean? What information does it provide? How might it contribute to the theme of the poem?

4. Who is speaking? (Gender, age, etc.) Is the speaker addressing someone in particular? Who or what? Is the poem trying to make a point? Win an argument or move someone to action? Or just expressing something without requiring an action?

5. What is the speaker's mood? How do you know?

6. Identify and briefly explain some (min. 3) of the literary devices used in the poem (metaphor, simile, allegory, personification, etc.)

7. What do you think the poem means as a whole? What is the poet trying to say?