Carl August Sandburg (1878-1967) was an American poet. He was awarded three Pulitzer Prizes (two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lioncoln).
Poem: Fog is a small poem consisting 2 sentences in 6 lines. The poet writes about the arrival and departure of the Fog into a harbour city. He compares the fog to a cat.
Summary:
The poet says the fog is coming towards the city and the harbour just like a cat. It comes very silently and unnoticed. Later the fog covers the whole city and the harbour as if a cat is siting on its hunches. At the end, the fog departs as silently, as unpredictably as a cat.
Literary Devices:
Metaphor: Fog is comapred to a cat.
Personification: Fog is personified.
Enjambment: The two sentences used in the poem continue to the following line without any punctuation marks at the end of the lines.
Rhyme Scheme: There is no rhymne scheme followed in the poem. It is in free verse.
Answers to the textual questions:
1. What does Sandburg think the fog is like?
Sandburg, the poem thinks that the fog is like a cat that comes silently and unnoticed.
2. How does the fog come?
The fog comes very silenctly like a cat.
3. What does 'it' in the third line refer to?
'It' in the third lilne refers to the fog.
4. Does the poet actually say that the fog is like a cat? Find three things that tell us that the fog is like a cat.
The poet compares fog to a cat.
The three things that tell us that the fog is like a cat are:
1. The fog comes on its little cat feet meaning that the fog arrivves silently just like a cat.
2. It sits looking over harbour and city on silent hunches meaning that the fog has encompassed the city as it a cat sitting on its hunches is looking all over.
3. ... and then moves on meaning that the fog departs as silently and as unexpectedly as a cat.
