My Own True family - Ted Hughes Text with Questions and Answers

 

My Own True family 

Ted Hughes

The author and the text: 

Edward James' Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was a noted English poet, and had been the Poet Laureate of Great Britain from 1984 until his death. His famous works include Birthday Letters, The Hawk in the Rain and Tales from Ovid. 

The poem describes the magical experience of a young child in an oakwood, and indicates that human beings and trees should thrive as a single family. It focuses strongly on the need to protect our natural environment for the welfare of man kind. 

Read the following:

Once I crept in an oakwood - I was looking for a stag. 

I met an old woman there - all knobbly stick and rag. 

She said: 'I have your secret here inside my little bag. '

Then she began to cackle and I began to quake. 

She opened up her little bag and I came twice awake ---

Surrounded by a staring tribe and tied me to a stake. 

They said: 'We are the oak trees and your own true family. 

We are chopped down, we are torn up, you do not blink an eye. 

Unless you make a promise now - now you are going to die. 

'Whenever you see an oak - felled tree, swear now you will plant two. 

Unless you swear the black oak bark will wrinkle over you 

And root you among the oaks where you were born but never grew!

This was my dream beneath the boughs, the dream that altered me. 

When I came out of the oakwood, back to human company, 

My walk was the walk of a human child, but my heart was a tree. 

Comprehension exercises 

1. Choose the correct alternative to complete the following sentences: 

(a) Creeping in an oakwood, the poet was looking for a - 

(i) goat 

(ii) rhinoceros 

(iii) stag 

(iv) buffalo 

(b) Whenever an oak tree is felled, the number of trees the poet must plant is - 

(i) two 

(ii) three 

(iii) four 

(iv) five 

(c) When the poet came out of the oakwood, his heart was that of a - 

(i) stag 

(ii) tree 

(iii) human child 

(iv) old woman 

2. State whether the following statements are True or False. Provide sentences / phrases / words in support of your answer. 

(a) The old woman held the poet's secrets her little bag 

Supporting statement: ______________________

(b) The tree tribe said that the poet is bothered to see the chopping down of oak trees.

Supporting statement: ______________________

(c) The poet never came out of the oakwood. 

Supporting statement: ______________________

3. Answer the following questions: 

(a) When did the poet come twice awake? 

(b) What would happen to the poet if he failed to make the promise? 

(c) What was it that altered the poet?

Answers