POETRY-06                                                  LR

OH, I WISH I’D LOOKED AFTER ME TEETH

      I.            Short Answer Type Questions:

1.     Mention some of the things the poet enjoyed eating. (Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth)

The poet enjoyed eating various sweets without caring for her teeth. She ate gobstoppers, lollies, liquorice, sherbet dabs and hard and brittle peanuts. These caused tooth decay and cavities.

2.     Why was the poet sad in the poem “Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth”?

The poet was said in the poem because she ate all kinds of sweets and never cared for her teeth. As a result, she had cavities in the mouth. So she had to visit the dentist for filling and undergo the drilling pain and fear.

3.     If I’d know I was paving the way. What had the narrator known what would she have done?

The narrator’s teeth were decayed she recollects the time when they were good. She says that if she had known that she was harming her teeth by eating those soft and hard sweets, she would have thrown them away. But now she can’t do anything.

4.     What made the narrator laugh and feel terrified in the end?

The narrator saw her mother’s false teeth being foamed in the water for cleaning. She laughed seeing them but the next moment she felt terrified she saw that her mother’s face teeth were beckoning them. It means the narrator feared that she also would have to have those false teeth one day. Her mother’s false teeth indicated this feeling.

5.     “If you got a tooth, you got a friend”. What do you understand by this line?

The statement means that teeth are like friends. They need to be taken care of like we take care of our friends. The importance of teeth is so much that we l act words to describe it. They are armaments of our personality and well-being like the friends who add joy to our life.

   II.            Long Answer Type Questions:

1.     How does the narrator in the poem regret over the damages of cavities, decay, etc, in her teeth?

The narrator states in the poem that she wished she had taken care of her teeth when she had more good teeth when she had more good teeth than cavities, decays etc now that she had those cavities. So she underwent drilling, etc, at the dentist’s. she regrets that she had to have the horrible experience when the dentist’s drill worked in her mouth-she wishes that she would have avoided all this had she stopped eating all kind of soft and hard sweets. These were like lollies, cadies, toffees, liquorices, sweet hard peanut etc… she wishes she must have looked after her teeth that fillings. It is obvious that due to eating all kinds of sweets she had more cavities. Only at this stage, did she regret her laps and neglect of her teeth. Her conscience was duly pricked. She did brush her teeth but casually hopping that she never left eating these sweets-so he had to sit in the dentist’s chair to have fillings. She also laughed at seeing her mother’s denture. She felt that it was beckoning to her. The beckoning meant that she would also have to have this when all her teeth had gone.

2.     What message does the poem “Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth” convey to the children? Support your answer.

The poem “Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth” is a poem which directs us to include a good sense of dental hygiene among children. The message conveyed in the poem is simple and clear. It is advisable to the grownups to help the children develop a good attitude towards their teeth. They should look after their teeth methodically. These should be a sense of sincerity in talking care of teeth be everyone. Careless in this regret can cause irreparable damage to one’s teeth. The whole poem expenses this idea very carefully. It sensitizes the children towards dental care by advising them against lolly licking and toffee chewing. In this way the message “teeth once gone can never be gained” is explained comvincingly  by the mention of ‘face  teeth’ of the narrator’s mother.