Home CBSE NCERT: CLASS XII, ENGLISH, Flamingo: Quiz on Poem- ‘Keeping Quiet’

NCERT: CLASS XII, ENGLISH, Flamingo: Quiz on Poem- ‘Keeping Quiet’

Poem_03_Keeping Quiet
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ncert_std.12_flamingo_poem keeping quiet

About the Poet
Pablo Neruda (1904 –1973) was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old, and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems. Pablo Neruda is one of the most influential and widely read 20th-century poets of the Americas.

 

About the Poem
The poem Keeping Quiet is basically an anti-war poem. The poet is deeply concerned about violence, cruelty and plight of manual workers. The poet offers a very simple solution to many of our social, political and religious problems. The solution is self-introspection. Neruda speaks of a world of wisdom in a calm fashion and with much serenity.

 

Poem
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
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For once on the face of the Earth

let’s not speak in any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
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It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
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Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
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What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
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Perhaps the Earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
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Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Other Poems:

My Mother at Sixty-six
An Elementary School Classroom in Slum
A Thing of Beauty
A Roadside Stand
Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

also see:

ONLINE GRAMMAR QUIZZES with CERTIFICATES
CBSE: Curriculum Aligned Competency-Based Test Items EduDel Practice Papers for Class 3 to Class 8: 2022-23
ENGLISH GRAMMAR_1 ENGLISH GRAMMAR_2
USEFUL EXPRESSIONS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING

 

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