Analyzing The Broadcaster's Poem By Alden Nowlan

“’ But this is merely a negative definition of the value of education’” (23-24). Mark Halliday wrote “The Value of Education” from a first person standpoint. The introduction and the use of “I” demonstrates the poem is about the speaker. Likewise, the speaker uses imagery, self-recognition, and his own personal thoughts throughout the poem. He goes on throughout the poem stating external confrontations he is not doing because he is in the library receiving an education and reading books. With this in mind, the speaker goes on to convey images in your head to show a realization of things he could be doing if he were not in the library getting an education.

Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

Clint Smith is a writer, teacher, and doctoral candidate in Education at Harvard University with a concentration in Culture, Institutions, and Society. Smith Clint wrote a poem called “Something You should Know.” The poem is about an early job he had in a Petsmart. The poet allows the readers into his personal life, but before he had trouble opening up to people and his work. Moreover, Clint wrote an insight in the poem about relying in anything to feel safe and he says it is the most terrifying thing any person can do.

The Poem “Introduction to Poetry” is by Billy Collins, an English poet, and it is about how teachers often force students to over-analyze poetry and to try decipher every possible meaning portrayed throughout the poem rather than allowing the students to form their own interpretation of the poem based on their own experiences.

Take a minute to imagine “Men looking like they had been/attacked repeatedly by a succession /of wild animals,” “never/ ending blasted field of corpses,” and “throats half gone, /eyes bleeding, raw meat heaped/ in piles.” These are the vividly, grotesque images Edward Mayes describes to readers in his poem, “University of Iowa Hospital, 1976.” Before even reading the poem, the title gave me a preconceived idea of what the poem might be about. “University of Iowa Hospital, 1976” describes what an extreme version of what I expected the poem to be about. The images I

The Vacuum by Howard Nemerov talks about a widower and his late wife, and how he uses the vacuum as a symbol for her death. The poem expresses deep sorrow and sadness that derive from the loneliness of the speaker, after his other half’s passing away. Nemerov attempts to take his readers on a grief-stricken journey, by strategically employing figurative language (mainly personification, metaphor, simile, and alliteration), fractured rhyme schemes and turns in stanza breaks in the poem.

Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.

It is then made evident that they are doing so in the dark as they need to create light via bonfire and lamp. It becomes clear with the line “their paddled hands reaching to pull the ball/ back to the table” just what they are doing: playing ping pong. Line four provides an interesting line, and stanza, break in “they bend”, continuing with “and brace their legs” in line five. Mesa breaks the line in this way to keep her readers on their toes, as it is one motion carried through two lines. The speaker then reinforces the poem’s beginning statement, declaring that she watches these two men every night. She struggles to see the ball, due to the fact these boys are playing ping pong during a snowfall. These lines provide a surprise to the reader, as it is in no sense usual to play outdoor table tennis in the snow. The next line uses a new voice to describe a common phenomenon: “Between the seeing and not being seen”. Mesa provides use of double meaning here, as the “not being seen” has two possible explanations. It could either describe her not being able to see the ball as it floats through the night, or the players who do not see her as she watches them through her window. The next line employs another interesting break, as it ends on just the word “maybe”. Mesa reinforces the feeling of uncertainty the narrator faces, and passes it on to the reader with this particular break. Then, the slightest background is provided on the speaker, as she recalls a memory while watching the two men play. The surprise of the ball out of dark causes her to remember one of her past lovers she suddenly encountered at the deli counter of a shop one time. With the language equipped, it can be drawn that their relationship did not work out. As well as that she possibly still possesses feelings for this

During the act of describing a situation, like the base runners in a baseball game, it is importuned to be clear and concise. In the “Who’s On First” clip this was not the case. The main issue is the three base runners all have names that have other meanings in the English language. Who, What, and I DONT KNOW can all be interpreted in a different way rather than names. If Costello started his story with “Here are the guys name, Who, What, and I DON’T KNOW” and then told Abbott the order of the base runners there would be no confusion. Being clear at the beginning with the names would be the best option for situations such as this, but then again it wouldn’t have been funning.

Poetry can be divided up into different forms, more easily expressing an author’s emotions and intent with their poetry. For analyzing purposes I chose the poems Self-Help by Michael Ryan, Ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali, Psalm 150 by Jericho Brown, and Emergency by Michael Dylan Welch.

Notes on Theme Development: Standardized testing is always a hot topic, constantly debated by schools, students, parents, and basically the whole entire world. While this might sound like a typical biography of overdramatic teen angst and stress, I chose to focus on a theme that encompasses the injustices and flaws behind the ACT and the entire American educational and economic systems. Throughout my work, I explore that devastating cycle that plagues the less fortunate, as well as the obvious advantages gifted to the wealthy. Additionally, this brings me to one of my main focal points; ACT scores are negatively affected by socioeconomic status, which ultimately makes the rich richer and the poor are never able to break out of poverty. Also, throughout my piece, I thread in the idea that there is too much emphasis placed upon ACT scores, and how the test does not truly expose a student’s intelligence. Overall, as I delved deeper into this project, it became apparent to me that there are so many flaws with standardized testing, and the educational

As humans, we tend to anthropomorphize and attach ourselves to animals and objects because of the joy or escape that they bring to our sometimes complicated daily life. We also have a hard time letting things go after the event is over or after the person or animal has left us. Earl by Louis Jenkins and Listen by Miller Williams both detail how humans attach to things and live in denial because of things that are out of our control. The poems also show how humans try to cope with the denial. In Earl, the people of Sitka were attached to the Seals and in Listen, the person has attached himself to playing with the dog but couldn't get over the fact that what was once there was not and was easily forgotten.

Poetry is a reduced dialect that communicates complex emotions. To comprehend the numerous implications of a ballad, perusers must analyze its words and expressing from the points of view of beat, sound, pictures, clear importance, and suggested meaning. Perusers then need to sort out reactions to the verse into a consistent, point-by-point clarification. Poetry utilizes structures and traditions to propose differential translation to words, or to summon emotive reactions. Gadgets, for example, sound similarity, similar sounding word usage, likeness in sound and cadence are at times used to accomplish musical or incantatory impacts.

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” declared by an influential leader Martin Luther King Jr. As a soldier againsts unfairness, King strongly states that people should fight for freedom. Driven by human nature, humans are always chasing freedom. In “A Century Later,” the Pakistan-born British poet Imtiaz Dharker uses the poetic devices of symbolism, diction, and allusion to explore how perseverance drives freedom.