{"id":10470,"date":"2016-12-07T11:59:57","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T03:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/?p=10470"},"modified":"2018-09-19T22:51:38","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T14:51:38","slug":"teacher-diaries-ms-holly-the-poem-i-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/2016\/12\/teacher-diaries-ms-holly-the-poem-i-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Teacher Diaries: Ms. Holly &#8211; The Poem I Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The poem I love is an interesting one for students to read if they\u00a0are interested in Greek mythology. To understand this poem, they\u00a0will first have to know the background story of sirens, which were dangerous mythical creatures that would lure sailors by singing to them.<\/p>\n<p>This is a very cleverly written poem because it appears to be from the perspective of a siren, explaining how she finds her work tedious and claiming she would reveal the secret of the siren song. However, as the readers continue, they realise, from the last verse, that the poem is the \u2018siren song\u2019 itself and the readers have been \u2018lured\u2019 like the sailors.<\/p>\n<p>The lines of this free-versed poem end in the middle of a sentence, slowly and haltingly leading the readers to continue reading. This poetic technique matches the theme of this poem, which is to seduce the readers to go on. The secret of the siren song is never revealed in the poem, but the readers can already guess how it works \u2013 the suspense is irresistible.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Siren Song<\/span><br \/>\nBy Margaret Atwood<\/p>\n<p>This is the one song everyone<br \/>\nwould like to learn: the song<br \/>\nthat is irresistible:<\/p>\n<p>the song that forces men<br \/>\nto leap overboard in squadrons<br \/>\neven though they see the beached skulls<\/p>\n<p>the song nobody knows<br \/>\nbecause anyone who has heard it<br \/>\nis dead, and the others can&#8217;t remember.<\/p>\n<p>Shall I tell you the secret<br \/>\nand if I do, will you get me<br \/>\nout of this bird suit?<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t enjoy it here<br \/>\nsquatting on this island<br \/>\nlooking picturesque and mythical<\/p>\n<p>with these two feathery maniacs,<br \/>\nI don&#8217;t enjoy singing<br \/>\nthis trio, fatal and valuable.<\/p>\n<p>I will tell the secret to you,<br \/>\nto you, only to you.<br \/>\nCome closer. This song<\/p>\n<p>is a cry for help: Help me!<br \/>\nOnly you, only you can,<br \/>\nyou are unique<\/p>\n<p>at last. Alas<br \/>\nit is a boring song<br \/>\nbut it works every time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The poem I love is an interesting one for students to read if they\u00a0are interested in Greek mythology. To understand this poem, they\u00a0will first have to know the background story of sirens, which were dangerous mythical creatures that would lure sailors by singing to them. This is a very cleverly written poem because it appears [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":10560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[713],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10470"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12382,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10470\/revisions\/12382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}