The Bow

1. This poem so lushly tuned for sound. Which passage is your favourite example of its use of alliteration?
2. A number of common words, “Bow” included, appear prominently in title-case throughout the poem. What do a lot of them have in common? What sets some apart?
3. “The Bow” refers to the Bow River first, but “bow” is a rich homonym. Which of its meanings do you find most interesting to play with in the poem, and why?
4. The beauty and multiple meanings of “softens his reservations / curses his Mary” is so halting. How do you interpret the passage?
5. The poem is so booming with sound and poetic devices, there’s lots of space to have fun reciting it. But there’s a challenge in those six rhetorical questions. Would you recite them in the same tone? How might you modulate them? Do you imagine a call and response? Play around with the options as you recite the poem, both alone and with friends.
6. One way to interpret this poem’s form and direction: “I only know” becomes “I only knows” once the poem has presented what “The Bow knows.” Bouncing off that approach, compose your own two versions of a first-person verb phrase, like Bickersteth’s “I only know(s) rivers,” and have another subject deploy the verb you chose between those two phrases, like “The Bow knows...” Consider adding to the last instance of your first-person phrase, as Bickersteth has with his poem.

Useful Links:

 https://readalberta.ca/articles/author-interview-with-bertrand-bickersteth/