Making Meanings
The Gift / Combing
First Thoughts
1. What gifts are given in “The Gift” and “Combing”?
Shaping Interpretations
2. Whom do you think the speaker of “The Gift” is talking to when he says “you”? What scene is taking place in the present?
3. What does the speaker of “The Gift” say he didn’t do with that shard, or piece of metal, in his hand? Why, instead, did he kiss his father?
4. What do you think the poet means in “Combing” when she refers in the last line to women “plaiting the generations”?
Extending the Texts
5. What other things do family members do that tie or braid generations? What other gifts do parents give children?
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