The Flower-Fed Buffaloes By Vachel Lindsay

The Flower-Fed Buffaloes by Vachel Lindsay

Background on Vachel Lindsay:

Vocabulary:

1_____Blackfeet 2____Bellow 3______Ranged 4______Locomotive 5______Prairie 6______Pawnees 7______Buffalo 8______Lie low 9______Gore 10______Trundle

A. To pierce or wound with something pointed.
B. To make the loud deep hollow sound characteristic of a bull.
C. To lie prostrae, defeated, disgraced.
D. American Indian people of Montana, Alberta and Saskachewan.
E. To move on or as if on wheels.
F. Also called Bison.
G. A wide area of land in North America without many trees and originally covered with grass.
H. A self propelled vehicle that runs on rails and is used for moving railroad cars.
I. American Indian people originally fro Kansas and Nebraska.
J. To roam at large or freely.

Questions:
1. Why did the poet use flower-fed to describe the buffaloes? What image does this bring to mind?

2. When does the poem take place?

3. Who in the poem "ranged"?

4. Who has taken their place?

5. What effect does the use of personification in "the locomotives sing" have?

6. Comment on the intersting use of punctuation :- in the poem in lines 4 and 12. What effect does this have on the reader?

7. Look at the words used to describe the grass in line 5. What effect do they create?

8. What is swept away by the wheat?

9. What are the grass and the wheat images of?

10. Why is the word wheels repeated in line 7? What effect does this have?

11. What is your interpretation of lin 8 "In the Spring that still is sweet"?

12. What does the use of the word "but" in line 9 indicate?

13. Why did the poet use the word "us in line 10?

14. Where did the buffaloes go?

15. What image do the words "gore" and "bellow" in line 11 give? What is the effect of the repetition of no more?

16. Comment on