Ex-Basketball Player

Poetry Discussion

Part 1: Ex-Basketball Player

I hardly believed that this is a poem from its descriptive nature, and structure. The poem has long sentences that make sense on their own unlike many poems that have short lines breaking within the sentences. I feel that this poem depicts people who were best at what they did but ended up languishing in the society. The poem describes the life of Flick, once the best basketball player in his high school days. However, after high school, he works at a gas station. For such a person that everybody recognized his talent, I feel this was quite sad and a loss to his life as well as to the basketball industry. I also find the poem depicting how talented people languish in life because of short memories of the society. People will cheer you today, but never recognize or notice you when they find you languishing.

Despite this poem being in a narrative form and different from other poems, some poetry tools were used. For instance, at the first stanza as the poet explains that the Pearl Avenue does not run beyond a few blocks before it is cut short at the garage. This depicts Flick’s life of glamour that is cut short immediately after high school. The poet, Updike also uses several figures of speech such as personification where he says the ball loved Flick to highlight his talent, but now he is out of the game. Additionally, the final stanza describes his life at home, where he plays pinball and hardly talks much except nodding. Pinball game never changes, and the ball revolves around the same area. It can be quite monotonous, which I think explains the monotonous life of Flick after high school. It shows no hopes in him and symbolizes that he has not moved beyond where he left at high school, just as a pinball will never extend beyond its pattern. This also seems to depict his memories of high school.

Part 2: Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

In the poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” the speaker is pleading with all men to fight against death despite knowing that death is right. The speaker says that no one should take death gently. Rather, one should fight. I feel that this line suggests, despite death being right, no one should accept it with an open heart. He pleads with people who feel that old age is a time of accepting their demise by suggesting it is a time of thriving, and one should fight to live longer.

The speaker uses four kinds of groups of men differentiated by how they lived to show that everyone should fight against their death to live longer. He starts with wise men, suggesting that despite knowing that death is right, they feel their words have not made the mark they wanted, and fight to live. I feel that this compares the reader to wise men, urging them to fight against death. The same is evident with virtuous men, who are compared to the last wave. They too rage against death since they know their frail deeds might not have made the best mark.

The third group is of wild men who have wasted their life in things that they might not have been able to accomplish. They learn quite late, of how they have wasted their life but never accept death gently. The final group is of grave men, whom I feel the speaker refers to people who are aware death is knocking at their door. Describing their blind eyes could mean men who have accepted their fate and believing they will find a better life in the after life. However, he says they should also fight since they have reason to be alive. The speaker finally complements his father’s deeds, and urges that he should fight on and never accept death so easily.

Part 3: Golden Retrievals

Sarah starts her review of the poem by describing what the poem is all about and the meaning of the golden retriever as well his role. She explains the reason the retriever exists, suggesting it is for the sole purpose of retrieving his companion from dwelling in the past and the future (Mark 2012). To describe the retriever, she uses the pace of the poem that shows the excitement of a dog, which has no capability of concentrating much on one issue. She also makes a broad or general statement about the poem that describes it as a whole. This should be the purpose of the introduction paragraph. This manages to capture the reader, especially by the introduction of the dog in this paragraph. Further, she goes ahead to show how the dog will be used to illustrate the importance of living in the presence. This builds the suspense required to continue reading.

In the following paragraph, she talks about what the title of the poem suggests, and cites that the speaker is a dog. She describes what makes the speaker qualify as a dog. Considering a dog will have short live concentration the poem has to indicate this trough the fast pace. It is done through the sharp breaking of lines within the sentences to show the dog’s inability to hold one thing for long. From this paragraph, one can understand how the dog fits in to show the importance of living in the presence. She continues to show how the speaker sets the pace of the poem as well as how he views his human companion. She also manages to tell the reader how the dog plays its role, managing to show the relevance of the title of the poem. Finally, through comparing the dogs barking that is supposed to bring his human companion back to the presence with the Buddhism gong illustrates the figures of speech used, such as metaphor and rhyme. This provides a satisfactory explanation of the poem although it tends to rely too much on the narrative side of the speaker.

Work cited

Doty, Mark. “Golden Retrievals.” Golden Retrievals by Mark Doty. The Poetry Foundation, 2011. Web. 12 Aug. 2012.