Before The Sidewalk End

Someone has stopped by the side of a road that leads to a hospital, and he or she is looking at the landscape. This person (the speaker of the poem) begins by describing the scene: the dead plants that cover everything at the end of winter. Then, the poem shifts, and the speaker describes the coming of spring, imagining how new life will emerge from this landscape as it begins to wake

In On Turning Ten by Billy Collins the literary devices that are used to express the theme of aging are word choice, figurative language and symbolism. The word choices that has been put together shows that the narrator is maturing. An example of this was when the narrator says “but now if I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees. And bleed.” (Collins 31) . The word choice that is used to describe how the character falls is an advanced way for a child to explain how reality is hitting her at this age. Billy Collins used symbolism by comparing herself falling on the ground to the real world. In the quote mentioned above the author is explaining that when she gets older failing in life is not what is used to be, but now she bleeds and is experiencing real life. In this quote it is showing the theme of aging because it is a point of realization in this character's life that she is no longer a child. Lastly another literary device that was used is figurative language, Colins used similes to enhance the theme of again. The narrator explains how she is feeling upset and she is saying this to herself “as she walk[s] through the universe in [her] sneakers” (Collins 21). The usage of similes in this context is having the character compare sadness to walking through the universe which is lonely and sad. All three of these literary devices show that throughput the short poem the character is having a reflective moment on her life where

The line ‘driven like stakes into the earth’ is a simile and can be interpreted in two different ways. It can be seen as the fact that man is trying to build a city of impermanence, and the other is the literal meaning of mans crucification of the earth with buildings. Robert Gray also uses contrasting juxtaposition of imagery extensively in the poem. ‘On a highway over the marshland...cars like skulls, that is rolling in its sand dunes.’ This not only emphasises humankind’s assault on nature and the urbanisation that is contaminating natural spaces, but also compares the two landscapes as existing together. It once again forces the responder to visualise the situation, one of which they may be able to relate too and question life’s morals. The poem shows the destructive nature of mans actions, which is an issue in society that is prevalent.

Within the second stanza, the symbolism of black smoke, dark streets, and asphalt flowers, prompts the reader to feel smothered by urbanization and industrialization. This was most evident within the juxtaposition of asphalt and flower, which shows urbanization has gone so far whereas its replaced nature

The speaker of the poem compares growing up to “a kind of measles of the spirit”(5) and a “chicken pox of the soul”(7). Comparing growing up to one of these awful diseases expresses how negatively the speaker feels about growing up. These two metaphors emphasize how growing up affects the person’s spirit and soul, almost trying to change them into a new person. Since the chicken pox and measles are a harm to the immune system, growing up is considered a harm to childhood. Also, the speaker mentions that he will “skin [his] knees”(31) on “the sidewalks of life”(32).

In this poem, I believe the theme is that you have to jump at an opportunity when you get it, or you may never get that opportunity again. Moving on to the tone of the poem, I believe that it is wistful, and that the speaker might be looking back on his days, and realizing that he taking the other road might have made all of the difference in his life. There is very good diction in this poem, as some words express Frost’s feeling more than other’s would’ve. For example, in the line “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” (1), Frost really emphasizes the two roads separating from each other. In another line “In leaves no step had trodden black” (12), trodden is a more appropriate than another word such as crushed or pulverized, because it is the past form of trod, or to step in something, and gives an image of human feet stepping on the freshly fallen leaves.

“There is a place where the sidewalk ends, And before the street begins, “My thought on Stanza 1,and,2 is that where there is beginning, there is an ending. In stanza three and four its meaning is every day that we live, some are happy, and filled with joy. Life is filled with many joys especially in our childhood. When we got excited about little things, for example our grandma giving us a peppermint when we came to visit. As in stanza six “a peppermint wind” represents a favorite childhood memory or our childhood in general. When we can remember the smell of the peppermints in its wrapper. The beginning of the poem seems to be happy joyful time, the next two stanzas in the poem don’t seem as happy, in the following paragraph I will be discussing what that

This makes it so the earth has to clean up after the humans, as the grass is in this poem. Similarly, the grass talks about piling and shoveling the bodies up high and then says, “Let me work.” As for concrete

The first stanza describes the “place where the sidewalk ends”, using euphoric words, such as “moon-bird” (5) and “peppermint wind” (6), to evoke a dreamy, content mood. The use of euphony assists in portraying the indulgences of childhood, appealing to senses dulled in adulthood as humanity grows too arrogant to revel in these simple pleasures. The second stanza is a quick transition to describing the “street”. A street is a place for commute, work, and responsibility and in the poem, the speaker uses of cacophony to connote this street as negative, dark, and dreary. With this, one can presume that the “street” symbolizes the adult world.

arguably the best poem of all time. In just three short but powerful stanzas, Silverstein is able to

and that he believes them. The poem also translates into how living in the city is toilsome and that the city is unrelenting. On the other hand it shows how the city can be prosperous and happy with the city’s disadvantages. in the second half of the poem it’s telling how nomatter what is wrong with the city, the people are still proud of who they are.

The night symbolized death, and the walk was the person's journey to find their lost life. This poem was somewhat disturbing to me. I thought of a lost soul, thirsting to finish a mission that was not completed in life. Frost depicts death in a frightening manner with the contents of this piece of work.

That it is very dark and sad with all the plants and trees dying, this is making him rethink the decision of leaving that trip. The trip describes his happiness and now he has to make this decision to either be happy or stay at his stopping place home, that he will most likely become depressed by the seasons. In the end of the ambiguous poem he is trying to decided if he wants to stay or leave and go back. “To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?”

The poem begins with a literal fork in the road. Almost automatically Frost allows us to picture ourselves as the subject of the poem. His vivid imagery describes how the road looks with the leaves turning colors during the fall season “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” () we are transported into the poem. Due to the beauty of both paths the speaker wants to travel both roads but he understands that is not possible. The man in the poem does not want to stay a long time in the middle of the two roads so he knows he has to make a choice soon. He begins to examine the roads closely and one seems like the better option but he chooses the other one despite peering onto the path of the seemingly better choice .

Like “The Road Not Taken”, in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, the speaker has to make a big decision in his life. He has to choose between isolation and social obligation. At first glance, this poem might denote stopping in the woods to escape the hustle and bustle of city life. Different symbols in this poem though reveal that stop in the poem could be referring to death. In this phrase “Between the woods and frozen lake”, the wood becomes a symbol of life where frozen lake signifies death. When the speaker reaches the woods, he finds a world offering perfect, quiet and solitude, existing side by side with the realization that there is also another world, a world of people and social obligation. Both