The Wasps Nest

by James L Rosenberg

Two aerial tigers,

Striped in ebony and gold
And resonantly, savagely a-hum,
Have lately come
5 To my mailboxs metal hold
And thought
With paper and with mud
Therein to build
Their insubstantial and their only home.
10 Neither the sore displeasure
Of the U.S. Mail
Nor all my threats and warnings
Will avail
To turn them from their hummed devotions.
15 And I think
They know my strength,
Can gauge
The danger of their work:
One blow could crush them
20 And their nest; and I am not their friend.
And yet they seem
Too deeply and too fiercely occupied
To bother to attend.
Perhaps they sense
25 Ill never deal the blow,
For, though I am not in nor of them,
Still I think I know
What it is like to live
In an alien and gigantic universe, a stranger,
30 Building the fragile citadels of love
On the edge of danger.
The Wasps Nest by James L Rosenberg

1. What materials have the wasps used to build their nest? (1 point)

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2. Identify 2 ways in which the speaker personifies the wasps. (2 points)

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3. In your own words, in lines 26-31, what does the reader learn that the speaker
and the wasps have in common? (1 point)
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4. Clearly explain 2 reasons why the metaphor in line 1 is effective. (2 points)

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5. The poet writes their only home instead of their only nest. Why is the poets
choice effective? (1 point)
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6. What is the speakers attitude towards the wasps? Justify your answer with
evidence from the text. (1 points)
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7. Onomatopoeia is when a word is spelled like it sounds. Find an example of

onomatopoeia in the poem. (1 point)
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8. An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two contradictory terms work together
to create meaning. If citadels are fortresses, how does fragile citadels work as an
oxymoron? (1 point)
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9. What figure of speech best captures the poets use of my mailboxs metal hold in
line 5? (1 point)
a. simile
b. personification
c. metaphor

10. What word best captures the way the speaker use alien in line 29? (1 point)
a. foreign
b. extraterrestrial
c. native

11. What is the danger of their work that the speaker mentions in line 18? (1 point)
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12. Why is the wasps nest described as insubstantial in line 9? (1 point)

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13. Where does this poem take place? How do you know this? (1 points)
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