The Cage

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“‘Pillars […] for the future to come’: Engaging with The Cage Through Poetry”

In this activity, students will research, analyze, and read aloud select poetry dealing with the trauma of the Holocaust, a subgenre of poetry that is often as painful and horrific as it is beautiful. In doing so, students will connect in a more meaningful way with the The Cage’s themes of the power of Writing and Books and Humanity, among others.

Throughout The Cage, the written word—Riva’s love of books, but also her poetry—serves as a powerful force for helping Riva foster a sense of hope and remain connected to her humanity, even as she faces the most grisly and difficult circumstances as a young Jewish girl during the Holocaust.

Riva’s connection to the written word is part of a long, deep tradition of Jewish writers and thinkers, who use poetry and other writing to help cope with the atrocities they endured during the Holocaust. In the immediate aftermath of the war, poetry also helped survivors struggling to rebuild their lives to make sense of what happened to them.

In this activity, you will learn more about poetry written during and in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, following each of these steps.

• Research. Read through these poems written by Jewish authors during and after the Holocaust as a springboard for your research. As you look at the poems, seek out one poem that you’d like to highlight and present to the class. Keep in mind the core themes of The Cage, and look for poems that might speak to those themes, as well:

“The Butterfly” by Pavel Friedmann

“Shema” by Primo Levi

“Terezin” by Michael Flack

• Analyze. Analyze the poem you’ve selected. Answer the questions: (1) Who is speaking? (2) What is the style in which it is written? (3) What are the core symbols in the poem? and (4) What is this poem trying to say?
• Compare. Compare your chosen poem to Riva’s poetry in The Cage. How is it similar? How is it different? Describe the common themes, motifs, and any other similarities.
• Share. Form a group with others who have selected the same Holocaust poem to analyze. As a group, read the poems aloud—the new poem your group selected to highlight, and each poem of comparison from The Cage selected by your group’s members. With your group, share how reflecting on the poem gave you new insight into The Cage’s core messaging.

Teaching Suggestion: Particularly for the “Analyze” portion of this exercise, it may be helpful to review the basics of analyzing poetry in Teach for America’s “How to Analyze a Poem in 6 Steps.” This exercise, overall, connects students with the theme of Education, Writing, and Books, but the content of the poetry touches upon other themes in the book: Motherhood, Humanity, and Nature and Life Cycles. Be sure to review the core themes with students beforehand, so they will be primed to readily make these connections.

Differentiation Suggestion: For a more visual approach—or to engage any students who are struggling to see the value in poetry—prior to beginning the exercise, you can opt to play this video for the class created by Yad Vashem entitled Poetry in Holocaust Education: “Testimony” by Dan Pagis. In the video, there is a recitation of one of Dan Pagis’s poems along with a discussion/analysis of the poem “Testimony.” This discussion might be helpful in guiding students through their own analysis.