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The theme of this poem is about a high school basketball star that has become less successful in the

The young man in the poem loses his identity as he develops into the ruthless world of adulthood with its dehumanizing competition of ‘money-hungry, back-stabbing’ and ‘so-and-so.’ These exaggerated words and clichés

The poem tells the story of the life of the former high school basketball standout, Flick Webb and his fall from grace and fame. The speaker takes us on a journey through Flick’s life, beginning with the main street in town, developing to Flick’s fall from fame to his lowly job, and then ends by telling us of his menial daily habits. He was once the best basketball player in his area. However, he has since his fall from grace he is now just a lowly gas attendant who checks oil, and changes flat tires for a living.

The poem maintains a specific structure that organizes six lines into each stanza and places major verbs in the beginning of each line, which allows the speaker to describe a different part of the juggler’s performance for each stanza and place emphasis on the actions of the juggler to underscore the amazement the speaker feels. The first stanza describes how gravity usually works, but introduces the juggler’s power to defy this gravity, while the second stanza describes how the juggler moves the balls around in order to show this superhuman power. The poem reaches its climax in the fourth stanza, ending the performance of the juggler, and the last stanza describes how even though the act is over, the juggler has left a sense of awe and inspiration into the speaker. This specific organization helps the speaker transition his feeling of the performance from the beginning to the end, successfully showing the juggler has left him in wonder. Furthermore, in the second stanza, Richard Wilbur places the verbs, “Learning,” “Grazing,” “Cling,” and “Swinging” in the beginning of each line, putting the emphasis on those words and pausing for a moment before going into the important verbs (9,10,11,12). This syntax helps the poet describe what makes the speaker so amazed by the juggler, the specific and graceful movement of the juggler as he throws the balls up and down the air.

The use of imagery to depict a Golden Age is evident in John Updike’s poem “Ex-Basketball Player.” This piece of poetry tells the story of a man named Flick Webb, who works at a garage pumping gas and repairing cars. As the poem continues, we learn that Flick once was an incredible basketball player; he holds the county record for points in a season. However, after high school, he never continued with his abilities, and never studied another trade. There is one stanza of the piece—the third stanza—that focuses on Webb’s ball-playing days. Updike describes his incredible abilities with beautiful language, comparing Flick’s hands to “wild birds” in the sense that they were delicate yet impressively skilled; as the poet describes them later on,

Smith, Paul. A Reader’s Guide to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co. 1989. Print.

In the beginning stanza, the speaker’s use of personification reveals the tone of a grim and melancholy existence. “A ball will bounce, but less and less. It’s not/ A light-hearted thing, resents its own resilience./ Falling is what it loves” (lines 2-3). The speaker can be compared to the ball which begrudgingly bounces back time after time. This can be viewed as the speaker’s own perception on his stance in life. The speaker’s boredom

Remember that boy in high school that was the star of the basketball team? He still holds most of the records for the team. He scored more points than anyone else in the school’s history. He never studied much because he was an athlete. His basketball skills were going to take him places. But high school ended and there are no more games to be played. Where is that former all-star now? In his poem “Ex-Basketball Player,” John Updike examines the life of a former high school basketball star. Flick Webb was a local hero, and he loved basketball. He never studied much in school or learned a trade because he was a talented athlete. Now years later, the only job Flick can find is working at the local gas station. He used to be a star, but now

Stanza 4- When the poet is older he will tell this story of the choice he needed to make. He made the less popular choice, and took the road many others don’t take, and that changed his life.

In contrast to the imagery used by Housman, Updike stresses the athlete’s fading glory as the athlete has lived past his triumphant days. As “To An Athlete Dying Young” begins the poem through the imagery that shows the athlete’s success and his gain of honor, whereas “Ex-Basketball Player” indicates that the athlete’s life is no longer filled with glory. The road leading to the place where he works shares with the readers how meaningless and empty the athlete’s life has become as the road “runs past the high-school lot, bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off” (2). Flick, the subject of the poem, has had his years of glory when he played for his high school since he had the skills and talent to break records. He had extra talent that made him become one with the basketball and handle it like no one else could as “his hands were like wild birds” (18). Although Flick had his glorious years, unlike the athlete in “To An Athlete Dying Young” Flick’s glory does not last because he now “checks oil, and changes flats” (20). “To An Athlete Dying Young” emphasizes that it is better

Stanza 4 is about how money is necessary for life. It “holds your head above the water” and it “makes both ends meet”. “feathers a nest” means that you are

On order to effectively analyze “The Writer,” one might look to the Advanced Placement format, for instance, to best understand the meaning of Wilbur’s poem.

This stanza a few repeats of literary devices we've already seen in earlier stanzas. Line 30 has another example of assonance using the words "around" and "frowns". Another repeat of a literary device is in line 33 with internal rhyme; "You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you". There are two examples of metaphors with "the chrome horse" in line 34 and line 35, "who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat". These strange, difficult to understand lyrics are very common in Dylan songs. Sometimes entire songs are made up of these vague metaphors, such as "It's All Right Ma, I'm Only Bleeding," and "It's a Hard Rain That's Gonna Fall".

In the next stanza, the line "Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay", the poet is now using imagery with the waters, however it can also be a metaphorical representation of life due to

The first verse of the song shares the troubled relationship between the father and son, when it said, “he came to the world in the usual way, but there were planes to catch and bills to pay. He learned to walk while I was away.” This verse explained that he was away on some type of career to make money for the family, and provide for the son financially. However, he wasn’t able to spend quality time with him, and missed important milestones in his life, such as taking his first steps. His career obviously came before his son and family, and he made excuses for that. Then it finishes with the chorus, which says, “when you