Hi Everyone!! This article will share Unfolding Bud Questions & Answers.
This poem is written by Naoshi Koriyama. In my previous posts, I have shared the questions and answers of The Boy Who Broke The Bank, The Lost Dances of Cranes and Anne Bakes A Cake so, you can check these posts as well.
Unfolding Bud Questions & Answers
Question 1: Does the water-lily ‘opens up’ (that is, bloom) quickly over a night or day, or gradually over a few days? What supports your answer?
Answer: The water-lily blooms over several days. The first stanza talks about how the water-lily blooms with each passing day taking on new colours and growing in size.
Question 2: Why do you think the speaker speaks of the water-lily ‘unfolding’ rather than ‘blooming’?
Answer: The word ‘unfolding’ brings out the similarity between the flower and the poem. While the flower unfolds to reveal its colours, the poem unfolds to reveal its inner meaning.
Question 3: What is amazing about that process of opening up? What two things change each day?
Answer: As the water-lily opens up, the colours and the dimensions change.
Question 4: The water-lily grows larger in size and gets a deeper colour as it unfolds. What does the poem do?
Answer: The poem opens up and reveals its rich inner self.
Question 5: What is our first reading of a poem compared to? Do we find that surprising?
Answer: The first reading of a poem is compared to a closed bud. This is not surprising, as most poems do not reveal their full meaning and message until they have been read over and over again.
Unfolding Bud Questions & Answers
Question 6: Does the poem just unfold as time passes or does it happen when we do something a few times? What do we have to do?
Answer: The poem unfolds itself only when the reader reads it many times.
Question 7: When are we actually surprised about the poem? What causes it?
Answer: We are surprised by the poem when we have read it many times, as the poem’s inner meaning slowly reveals itself to us.
Question 8: Why do you think the last three lines are written in that way? Does it make our reading of them slower, adding value to each re-reading?
Answer: The last three lines show how a poem needs to be read. Separating the words into three different lines makes the reading slower and conveys that this is how every poem is to be read.
Question 9: What words describe the state of the poem when it is first seen? Why have those words being used?
Answer: The words used to describe the poem are ‘tight-closed’ and ‘tiny-bud’. These words signify that the poem’s inner beauty is closed to the reader at the beginning.
Question 10: What has this poem taught you about how a poem is best read? State the difference between reading a story and reading a poem in a short paragraph.
Answer: This poem teaches us that a poem needs to be read and understood slowly and over a period of time. Every poem needs to be read multiple times before it can be fully understood and appreciated. A short story, in contrast, takes just one reading for it to be understood.
So, these were Unfolding Bud Questions & Answers.