Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Breaking Up a Poem

"Vermin"

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
What child cries out,
"An Exterminator!"?
One dilligent student in Mrs. Taylor's class
will get an ant farm for Christmas,
but he'll not see industry;
he'll see dither.
"The ant sets an example for us all,"
wrote Max Beerbohm,
a master of dawdle,
"but it is not a good one."
Those children don't hope
to outlast the doldrums of school
only to heft great weights and work in squads
and die for their queen.
Well, neither did we.
And we knew what we didn't want to be:
the ones we looked down on,
the lambs of God,
blander than snow
and slow to be cruel.

-- William Matthewsfrom The New Yorker, 1997.


The way I broke up this poem was simple. I began a new line whenever i thought the idea or tone changed. I broke it up so that it looks how it is spoken. I always began a new line whenever there was a period or a quote and I also look for different descriptions and separated them, such as "blander than snow" and "slow to be cruel". I feel that this way makes the poem a lot easier to read and understand then if different ideas were crammed into one line.

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