Billy Collins: A Great American Poet Essay examples -- Poetry Analysis

â€Å"I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (3); so begins a poem titled â€Å"Introduction To Poetry† by Billy Collins. â€Å"Introduction To Poetry† is, in fact, the introduction to a collection of poetry called Poetry 180, a program started by Collins during his time as poet laureate for the United States. The aim of this program is to get people, especially teenagers, interested in or reconnected with poetry. Collins selected an assortment of poems that are just fun to read and not meant to be discussed; he says in the forward to the collection, â€Å"High school is the focus of my program because all too often it is the place where poetry goes to die† (xvii). Collins was honored with the title of poet laureate in 2001 because of his own outstanding poetry. Billy Collins is considered by some to be the greatest American poet since Robert Frost because he connects with his read ers, he makes the mysterious ordinary, and he portrays the ordinary as mysterious. Billy Collins has been called â€Å"accessible without being [mundane]† (Pool, par.1). Collins is relatable because he takes situations that most people have been through and puts them into words that are at the same time comic and thought provoking. (Collins once said, â€Å"The perfect poem for me to write would be a poem in which the reader couldn’t tell at any point whether the poem was serious or humorous†). In the poem â€Å"Forgetfulness†, Collins describes the frantic feeling that comes when a fact floats out of the brain. The person experiencing this tragic but everyday occurrence struggles to bring it back, but â€Å"the memories [the person] used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little... ...riousness of this 10-year-old dealing with morality for the first time.† Words, objects, and events take on a deeper meaning through Billy Collins. Collins’ poems aren’t preachy or meant to teach a lesson; their purpose is to help readers be exposed to different ways of seeing things. Collins seems to go through life with his head slightly tilted; he finds amusement in both the ordinary and mysterious, and has a gift for being able to portray his insights in a way readers find accessible and often witty. Nothing is too lofty or insignificant for Collins to write about; he once said, â€Å"I think my work has to do with a sense that we are attempting, all the time, to create a logical, rational path through the day. To the left and right there are an amazing set of distractions that we usually can’t afford to follow. But the poet is willing to stop anywhere.†

Money Can Buy Happiness: The Question of Choice in Dreiser’s “The Second Choice” Essay

The United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was undergoing a drastic change. A war between its states had just concluded, enslaved people were granted freedom, immigrants from all over the world flocked to the country, and a bitter divide between rich and poor was beginning to form. The literature followed the same trajectory of the country and, as does most literature, became a mirror of the happenings across gender, race, and class. Many telling insights about the new construct of country post-Civil War could be found within these works. One such insight about the United States concerned the relationship between women and choice. During this new chapter of American history, women were making their voices known. Writers like Margaret Fuller, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were some of the most prominent female writers during this time and were large contributors to this new wave of literature. They blended feminine perspective with a form of literature that became extremely popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century: Realism. Feminine realism was so marketable that even male authors produced such writings. One such male author was Theodore Dreiser with his short story â€Å"The Second Choice. † Much can be inferred from this story, but mainly that while money can buy women’s happiness and the freedom to choose, true mobility and choice is something only accessible to rich, white men. The title of the work may give many readers the implication that Shirley, the protagonist, ultimately resigns to her fate and chooses Bart, her second choice for a mate. While that is a very valid interpretation, it certainly isn’t the only one. One reading into the title could suggest that Shirley is the second choice. Consider the opening pages of the story, which is Arthur’s, Shirley’s love, letter to Shirley. While Shirley is limited to her choices, Arthur has, and has made, many choices. He tells her, â€Å"But I’m too young to marry now. You know that, Shirley, don’t you? † He continues with, â€Å"Roxbaum–that’s my new employer–came to me and wanted to know if I would like an assistant overseership†¦ in Java (p. 1). † Within one paragraph of a letter, Arthur has already made two choices! Furthermore, the fact that he has even penned this letter to Shirley all the way from Pittsburgh shows the mobility and free range that he has. Dreiser perhaps was reminding his audience (which was largely composed of immigrant and/or lower class women) that despite the fierce feminist movement that had gripped the nation, equality between men and women was still grossly imbalanced. In the span of about forty pages, Arthur easily moves from West Leigh (the adjoining suburb), to Shirley’s town, to Pittsburgh to Java. However, for Shirley, West Leigh is the furthest she travels in the story, and even then, she was invited by a friend. It is only through another person that Shirley is able to move from one place to another. Another reading into both the title and plot is the question about class. Anatomy already puts half of the population at a disadvantage in attaining mobility, but class can also be a major hinderance to the freedoms of choice. In the beginning of the story, Shirley muses, â€Å"†¦ her parents, her work, her daily shuttling to and fro between the drug company for which she worked and this street and house–was typical of her life and what she was destined to endure always. † She continues her lament by comparing herself to other â€Å"girls [who] were so much more fortunate. They had fine clothes, fine homes, a world of pleasure and opportunity in which to move (4). † Shirley is very conscious of her position as a â€Å"have not† and yearns for that â€Å"world of pleasure and opportunity in which to move. † It is with this passage in mind that raises the question: Is Shirley really in love with Arthur or is she simply drawn to the opportunity and world he represents? A compelling case can be made for both, however, the question nor answer are as important as the result. Due to her gender and class, she will not have the chance to find out. Her gender and class are parts of Shirley’s identity that restrict her from movement. The choices that such confining circumstances allow are so limited, Shirley might as well have no choice at all. She can marry Bart, marry someone else, or spend her life alone. None of these choices include Arthur, so none of them will make her happy. Through this short story, Dreiser is making a statement about the position of lower class women in the feminist movement. Feminism does not include someone of Shirley’s status and gender. This was a movement strictly for the higher classes. Besides this, perhaps Dreiser is making an even broader statement about the suffrage movement. Indeed the suffrage movement was largely composed of genteel women, but much like Shirley, the only chance at more freedom and choice for any woman in this country is still through a man. Women’s right to vote and the right to make more independent decisions for themselves still must be approved by a federal government run exclusively by men. Regardless of any choice that Shirley (women) could have made, Arthur (men) still have the greatest mobility. Dreiser probably neither praises or condemns the feminist movement, but rather reminds his readers to keep things in their proper perspective and not to allow themselves to be carried away quite so quickly. No matter class or gender, true freedom is still only reserved to rich, white males.

The Movies That Rose From The Grave By Max Brooks - 860 Words

In the modern movie genre, horror movies accounts for very great proportion of the number of followers. Relevantly, the zombie film genre has been developed into a dominant part of mainstream horror, replacing the previous monster such as vampires and werewolves. In Max Brooks’s essay â€Å"The Movies That Rose From the Grave†, he offers his opinion that throughout the process of zombie film transformation, it increasingly captivates viewers while gradually generates the modern horror. Brooks’s essay should be an appropriate inclusion of a college textbook which explains the phenomenon of the â€Å"undead explosion† in various kinds of media, proving to the audiences with enthusiasm, interest, credibility and specific examples that zombie culture is resurrecting a formerly obsolete genre. Reading through the whole essay, there are many appealing strategies found in order to strengthen the essay academically. Brooks attracts the audience with a pathos-style strategy, giving specific movie examples to straighten up the essay. The movie Night of the Living Dead resonates the viewers with an image of a flesh-eating and harmful zombie figure instead of a harmless voodoo-created zombie, which makes the notion of zombies transformed into a horrifying figure, provoking the sense of fear of audience with emotional appeal. The revolutionary creation of zombie film was led by George A. Romero, the father of the entirely new horror genre. In his work, zombies are characterized as a form of undeadShow MoreRelatedOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pageslittle significance. But there is little agreement over when the twentieth century c.e. arrived, and there were several points both before the year 2000 (the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, the surge of globalization from the mid-1990s) and afterward (9/11, or the global recession of 2008) when one could quite plausibly argue that a new era had begun. A compelling case can be made for viewing the decades of the global scramble for colonies after 1870 as a predictableRead MoreStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 Pages10.5/12 ITC New Baskerville Std Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on the appropriate page within text. Copyright  © 2013, 2011, 2009, 2007, 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publication is protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrievalRead MoreProject Mgmt296381 Words   |  1186 Pageswith teaching awards from both the Oregon State University MBA program and the University of Oregon Executive MBA program. He has been a member of the Portland, Oregon, chapter of the Project Management Institute since 1984. In 1995 he worked as a Fulbright scholar with faculty at the Krakow Academy of Economics on modernizing Polish business education. In 2005 he was a visiting professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. He received a B.A. in psycho logy from Claremont McKenna College