Unit five

Exercise 1. Read, translate and transcribe the following poem by American poet Carol Levin from the collection “Place one foot here”. Write down all unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own:

Bumbling

Before dawn and for the last time

I scampered to the foredeck

to watch our arrival and stood

confounded: where

was Venice?

I saw only a series of little islands

floating in the coolest time of day.

I grimaced ignorance

of geography as we disembarked

struggling luggage, tingling

in confusion

of water taxis and emblems

of Byzantine origins on pale

salmon colored palaces.

Poled in a gondola under

the Rialto Bridge

on the Grand Canal

to some hotel gasses of decomposing

islands of garbage floating

alongside assulted us.

Orange peels, sandwiches,

fishheads, cheezy,

sickening, rank smelling

chemically engaged

in transforming into

something else,

woke up

our olfactory senses,

explained why thirteenth

century Venice had led

the trade to fetch spices

to mask rot with fragrance.

The kids puckered

faces, pinched nostrils,

grinning, we faced each other

at the onset

of our odyssey wideyed.

Exercise 2. Make up a list of tree species according to the model in exercise 2, Unit 1.Read, translate and transcribe each word on the list. Repeat for clarity of articulation. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition: Use the terms in sentences of your own.

Exercise 3. Repeat the following poem by Carol Levin over and over, speak on the nouns in the text. Accuracy first, the speed! Make a recording of the way you sound as you begin your studies, and then make a comparison, recording every six to twelve months:

Shrouds and Other Obstructions

I don’t understand, oh wizard of art, how you can’t

remember the mountain village

after the tedious drive. Don’t

you recall dark snuck through

trees and we were nervous about the road?

Children chased us as we joined

the evening stroll in the merciful cool

they fidgeted practicing decrypted

English vying for attention.

Centered in the old village square

was a ghostly object, only

the polished pedestal visible.

I don’t know what compelled

you suddenly to stride to it,

lift the canvas cover, read

the plaque in Greek. How can’t you

remember the uproar:

the men, fear and anger

in their eyes and the women

calling in boys and girls early?

You remember, you saw?

Then you said it was a poet carved

in white stone. I can’t recall

his name but you knew.

Explained small details

of his words, politics

of his sympathies against

the reigning coup.

You are looking at me as if

to suggest it never happened.

The stone must have been long since

liberated by reversals of power

and I struggle to remember what you whispered:

was it Titos Patrikios,

or Manolis Anagnostakis?

See, I’m practicing words

draping our recalcitrant forgetfulness

in a white robe of forgiveness.

Exercise 4. Read the poem by James Joyce; transcribe and learn the new words. Use them in a dialogue with your neighbour. Remember that you are not in competition with anyone, and that you will progress at your own rate:

Flood

Goldbrown upon the sated flood

The rockvine clusters lift and sway;

Vast wings above the lambent waters brood

Of sullen day.

A waste of waters ruthlessly

Sways and uplifts its weedy mane

Where brooding day stares down upon the sea

In dull disdain.

Uplift and sway, O golden vine,

Your clustered fruits to love's full flood,

Lambent and vast and ruthless as is thine

Incertitude!

Exercise 5. Read the old Canadian song, translate and transcribe every line. Give three forms of the verbs. Use them in sentences of your own:

Sleep, baby, sleep!

Your father guards the sheep,

Your mother shakes the dreamland tree,

And from it fall sweet dreams for you,

Sleep, baby, sleep!

So, Sleep, baby, sleep!

Exercise 6. Pronounce the tongue-twister below. Repeat it over and over. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition:

Little lady Lily lost her lovely locket.

Lucky little Lucy found the lovely locket.

Lovely little locket lay in Lucy’s pocket.

Lazy little Lucy lost the lovely locket.

Exercise 7. Read the question below. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Make up a dialogue as if you were at the café. Add more words to describe your favourite cuisine:

Have you ever had a hot dog with mustard and mayonnaise, with ketchup and pickles, with garlic and onion, with pepper and salt?

Exercise 8. Continue the list of professions and occupations. Transcribe and translate every word. Repeat for clarity of articulation:

artist, art therapist, butcher, book-keeper, cashier, confectioner, dancer, dentist, dendrologist, dermatologist, doctor, economist, electrician, florist, phonetician, geologist, graphologist, guitar player, hairdresser, historian, linguist, make-up artist, mathematician, musician, musicologist, oboist, obstetrician, pediatrician, politician, psychologist, psychiatrist, sailor, speech therapist, stage hand, stylist, teacher, technician, translator, trend maker, violinist, ventriloquist, worker, yachtsman.

Exercise 9. You have lost your way. Ask the passer-by to help you. Begin your dialogue with the phrase “How can I get to…Use English street names and numbers. Repeat them for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 10. Read the poem. Continue the story. Describe the party you have recently visited or organized. Use more sentences in The Present Perfect Tense:

Asking About 1968 At Parties

The adrenaline clench of her fair maiden hands was Sadie’s answer,

a gesture across the kitchen counter as she crisply clicked off

King,: April 4th, dead, shot in the neck. Death: June 6th,

young Kennedy. She said she watched him on the TV

crumple in the pantry of the imposing Hotel Ambassador minutes past midnight.

She motioned, “Of course, the Chicago Democrats rampaged--”.

“Hard” Sadie said, “hard year that year ”. “How can you ask,

how can you imagine writing the deaths?”

Arranging platters of sushi, salmon spread, crackers and cheese

lighting candles, softening lamps: she continued to speak

taking a new tack all of the sudden, blurting

facts. Married a man she “didn’t love”. She said