The Haiku: A Typical Bandwagon Fan

In the poem, “Ex – Basketball Player” by john Updike, (which is a narrative poem) illustrates the nature of life on how life is potentially is seen has a mirror to other people’s life, especially people who play sports. Life is the physical and mental experience of an individual. An

Baseball Dirt in the air, swirling Like a funnel cloud Cracks Everywhere Off the Bat they go Soaring slow Catching flight Flying high, like an airplane Hearing, the crack of the bat Seeing, it lifting up and taking flight Diving I try to help it land Tasting the warm, fresh grass Feeling, the ball thump my mitt Tasting the air of victory Baseball

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

In Juggler, the first stanza of the poem discusses the concept of how “a ball will bounce but less and less.”(Line 1). The narrator considers this to be sorrowful, saying, “It’s not a light-hearted thing, resents its own resilience.” (Line 2). “Resents its own resilience” - an example of figurative language - successfully characterizes how they primarily find how the ball continues to repeatedly spring back up despite the fact that it would rather settle down as troublesome. The speaker utilizes figurative language, saying in lines 3 and 4, “Falling is what it loves, and the earth falls so in our hearts form brilliance, settles and is forgot.” Here the narrator is drawing a comparison to how humans lose their own fascination with day to day activities as things “settle and forgot.” Finally, at the end of the stanza the speaker introduces the titular juggler. The poem states how life requires a person who practices such an intriguing and eccentric task such as juggling in order to unsettle the status quo, as the poem states in lines 6 and 7, “It takes a sky-blue juggler to shake our gravity up.” The first stanza reveals essentially the speakers feelings towards how he himself is disdainful of how the things that were once captivating and awe-inspiring now bore humans as they slowly begin to adapt to these kinds of functions.

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

The Boys Who Want to Play in the MLB Two boys named Josh and Harold were going to a Cardinals game. When they were walking

Flick Webb possess hopes and dreams that unexpectedly vanished, and even now he still reminisces about the glory days. It is difficult to let go, and once still dwell on memories once had. Many athletes have that dream to become something great, some inherit a bright future; however, many do not. In John Updike’s poem “Ex Basketball Player,” Flick Webb was once that star basketball player, who didn’t inherit that bright future, as a consequence works at a mediocre job. In “Ex Basketball Player,” Updike utilizes imagery to dramatize conflict among Flick’s past success with his present failure.

Being an athlete myself, I understanding this idea of being on top of the world and never wanting to come down. In this A.E. Housman poem this theme is taken to its full extent. Never coming down and losing your fame is death in “To an Athlete Dying Young”. Not

In the poem, “To an Athlete Dying Young,” by A.E. Housman, there is a standout athlete that is very well known for his achievements throughout his town. He won his town the race and was hoisted home shoulder-high by the townspeople. However, some time later, he is being hoisted home

Analyze the speaker’s attitude (tone) toward the subject: This poem is basically an address to a young athlete who once received the praise and glory of his town because of his victory. However, now he is being remembered in a different way, because he is being held high in his own funeral procession. The spekaer however argues that the athlete was lucky to have died, as he went out at his best moment in life and will not live to see his name forgotten with time. Because he died at his strongest, he will be able to amaze the dead with his beauty that will never fade.

In the first stanza of the poem, the attitude of fame for the narrator seemed joyful and full of happiness: “Man and boy stood cheering by/ And home we brought you shoulder-high” (3-4). It seemed like an athlete had won a

Whatif In the poem “Whatif” by Shel Silverstein the speaker discusses all the whatifs he thinks about as he lies in his bed at night. The poem first shows the speaker who appears to be thinking at night but ends up thinking about “whatifs” instead of happy thoughts. He

Whether by going to a soccer game, or even reading a wife’s poems, because everyone wants the support of their loved ones, especially while pursuing their dreams. This is a poem that cannot be taken at face value. Lockward took traditional poetic elements such as rhyme, sound, and stanzas and put a unique spin on them. Her use of rhyme doesn’t follow the “traditional” guidelines and that is very refreshing. The rhymes she uses do not leap out when read, this poem but must be carefully consider and studied, which is fantastic.

The stadium shrinks like a dark street. Why does the slum work? The rainy truck quickly sells the girl. All cars drive small, noisy streets. Grow quickly like a dead skyscraper. Wish to make a bead into a paper mache. Stadium has a scary lawn chair within 1st base and heat. No nets... Where was the protection then? Ever