Speculative Fiction & Poetry--Assignment 9 James Madison University

Instructions: Please type your initial commentary for submission. It should be at least a paragraph or two. Your question/quote can be handwritten or typed on the bottom/back of the same page or on another full-sized sheet of paper. Remember to include your name at the top of the assignment. Multiple pages should be stapled together.

• For this Initial Commentary, choose one of the following prompts (note that all commentary choices are based on on "To Be From Earth") :
  
  1. In the next to last stanza of the poem spoken by the snow leopard, she calls the wind "your friend." Discuss how wind might be particularly relevant to her both in general and in the context of the point of that stanza, and offer an explanation for why she labels it as a friend.
  OR
  2. Consider the relevance of the fact that the aliens in this poem were "nurtured" in "the great hives." Some possibilities for what you might consider: How does this seem to affect the way they think? How might it affect the way we look at them? Why might this bit of information be given to us only at the end of the poem?
  OR
  3. Consider how the fact that the snow leopard is "the last of the great leopards" might be significant in the context of this poem.