The vivid imagery in “Sea Fever” helps establish the poem’s setting, tone, and point of view. Aside from conveying a multi-sensory depiction of the sea, the imagery reveals the speaker’s extreme familiarity with and fondness for the sea. His loving descriptions of life on the ocean establish the passionate, yearning tone of the poem. Have students identify examples of imagery in the poem with the help of storyboards. You can direct students to find particular types of imagery (visual, auditory, or tactile for this poem) or simply ask them to label the examples that they find.
"a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking"
"the sea gulls crying"
"the flung spray and the blown spume"
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Student Instructions
Create a storyboard depicting the different types of imagery in "Sea Fever".