The Graduate
(Inspired by Naomi
Shihab Nye’s “The Travelling Onion”)
“We don`t need no
education, we don`t need no thought control, no dark sarcasms in the
classrooms.
Teacher, leave them kids alone. Hey, teacher! Leave them kids alone!” --Roger Waters
1. When I think of how much these graduates have endured
2. just to enter our world today. I could (I suppose)
sigh and forgive
3. all small unflattering transgressions,
4. tumbleweeds of student flotsam on the tabletops
5. and on the floor and on the bookshelves (as an empty
garbage can yawns nearby),
6. the way whining resonates--
7. excuses, complaints, non-sequitors multiplying
exponentially ad nauseam in the florescent air
8. leaving the curriculum to seep, just barely, in
between the cracks,
9. priorities revealed.
10. Futile it would be
11. to tell the graduates
12. that the moments and minutes and accumulated hours of
13. texting under the table, talking across the room,
complaining about a grade
14. will not satisfy their craving for knowledge of the
Sun King (as they admire the fountains at Versailles)
15. will not quench their thirst for a bank account’s
balance (after tuition, taxes and Tahiti)
16. will not season their father’s eulogy with just the
right
17. metaphorallusionanalogytone (How about that one,
e.e.?)
18. to capture years of love in three minutes or less.
19. How someday, they will comment
20. on a classroom
21. or a teacher (her scarves, perhaps, or sarcasm)
22. and what they learned
23. or didn’t.
24. Priorities reversed?
Kara Asmussen,
4/18.13
Epigraph (above
line 1): An epigraph is the use of a quotation at the beginning of a work that
hints at its theme. These song lyrics used here represent the students’ attitude
about education: that the teachers should stop bugging them and let them do
what they want. The poem that follow is a teacher’s reflection on this
perspective.
(2) Hyperbole:
Hyperbole is extreme exaggeration, often humorous. Once you read the whole poem
you realize that when she uses the word “endured,” the speaker of the poem, a
teacher, is being sarcastic--rolling her eyes at the perceived “hardships” of
students. (It is, you see, the teacher who endures.)
(5, 12) Polysyndeton:
Polysyndeton is the use of more conjunctions than is necessary or natural. The
rhetorical effect is to make the reader/listener understand that garbage is
everywhere except the garbage can. Because of the repeated conjunctions in line
5, the reader should sense “piling up” of the little bits of trash. Similarly,
in line 12, the time references "moments and minutes and accumulated hours" are stretched out thanks to the extra conjuctcions. The reader is meant to feel the lugubriousness of both the garbage and the wasted time.
(7, 13) Asyndeton, the opposite in a sense of his brother "Poly,"
is sentence construction in which elements are presented in a series without
conjunctions. The effect of the asyndeton in this sentence will make the
reader/listener hear the complaints (and later, in line 13, all the
infractions) in a rapid-fire, without pause succession. It makes them
physically experience the never-ending, annoying feeling that is denoted in the
word “ad nauseam” (7).
(7) Archaic Diction is
an old-fashioned or outdated choice of words. “Ad nauseam” is a Latin phrase
that means something has continued for so long it causes nausea. This word
choice supports the rhetorical effect of the sentence structure (aysyndeton, 7,
see above) and is also appropriate for the poem because the speaker is a
teacher who likes fun words.
(10) Inversion:
inverted word order; a variation of the typical subject verb sentence
structure. The use of inversion here puts emphasis on the word “futile.” The
speaker knows their poem’s message will fall on deaf ears now, but as this
stanza ends hopefully, maybe that will change.
(14-16) Anaphora: repetition
of words or phrases at the beginning of consecutive lines or sentences. The
three lines that begin with the phrase “will not” seek predict future events,
where actual curricular knowledge, heretofore absent from the poem itself, will
be useful in graduates’ life.
(17) Pacing: the
movement of a literary piece from one section to another. In this line the
elimination of the spaces speeds up the pacing of the line. It’s meant to be
read all at once, without a breath, as one word. The effect is the message that
there really is a lot to learn. [These are also terms from the writer's specific course, so there
you go!] Maybe the reader looks at the word and has to think about the different
terms all jammed together, making them actually think about the individual
terms and their meanings. (Sneaky, huh?)
(17) Apostrophe: directly
addressing an absent, imaginary, or personified abstract. e.e. cummings is the
author’s favorite poet. He frequently created his own words by joining them
together. (His “mudwonderful,” is particularly fitting right now!) This is also
a nod and a wink to the wonderful curriculum in language arts.
