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"A Poem for My Librarian, Mrs. Long," Vocabulary from the poem

Do you remember your first trip to the library? Nikki Giovanni's poem is look at a little girl's first adventure into the world of books (and a thank you to the woman who guided her along the way).
13 words 358 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. situation
    the general state of things
    We sat on front porches watching
    The jfg sign go on and off greeting
    the neighbors, discussing the political
    situation
    A situation can also be a "complex or critical or unusual difficulty." This could describe the political situation that the poet was growing up in: a racially segregated South of the 1940s. But the overall mood of the poem is childlike and cheerful, which makes the adult awareness more painful in contrast.
  2. congratulate
    say something to someone that expresses praise
    congratulating the preacher
    On his sermon
  3. portable
    easily or conveniently transported
    but when I listened
    Late at night with my portable (that I was so proud of)
    Tucked under my pillow
    The given definition is for the word as an adjective, but the example sentence uses the word as a noun to refer to a small radio.
  4. Ella Fitzgerald
    United States scat singer (1917-1996)
    I heard nat king cole and matt dennis, june christy and
    ella fitzgerald
  5. Sarah Vaughan
    United States jazz singer noted for her complex bebop phrasing and scat singing (1924-1990)
    And sometimes sarah vaughan sing black coffee
    Which I now drink
  6. inhale
    draw deep into the lungs by breathing
    There was a bookstore uptown on gay street
    Which I visited and inhaled that wonderful odor
    Of new books
  7. preference
    a strong liking
    Even today I read hardcover as a preference
  8. resort
    something or someone turned to for assistance or security
    paperback only
    As a last resort
  9. corridor
    an enclosed passageway
    And up the hill on vine street
    (The main black corridor) sat our carnegie library
    A corridor can also be "a tract of land forming a passageway through another country." This definition is a better fit, because the parenthetical description is connected to a street. The image literally describes blacks walking on Vine Street, but it could also figuratively refer to the speaker of the poem traveling to many places that are open to her through the library.
  10. stereoscope
    an optical device for viewing stereoscopic photographs
    The stereoscope always ready to show you faraway
    Places to dream about
  11. humiliate
    cause to feel shame
    Probably they said something humiliating since southern
    Whites like to humiliate southern blacks
  12. nonetheless
    despite anything to the contrary
    But she nonetheless brought the books
    Back and I held them to my chest
    Close to my heart
  13. wardrobe
    a piece of furniture that provides storage space for clothes
    And Mrs. Long opened that wardrobe
    But no lions or witches scared me
    The image of a wardrobe, lions, and witches is a literary allusion to C.S. Lewis's series of fantasy novels, The Chronicles of Narnia, in which four ordinary brothers and sisters step through a piece of household furniture and become royal heroes in another land. This sense of magic and possibility is what the librarian gave to the speaker as a child; as an adult, the speaker tries to recapture and repay through this poem.
Created on Mon Jul 21 19:14:16 EDT 2014 (updated Wed Jul 30 14:46:23 EDT 2014)

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