Poetry

The Number One Question

Katie Wolfe

When are we ever going to use this is in real life?

That is the number one question,

Papers are shuffled out,

Erasers start to dance across pages,

Frustrations boiling like a volcano,

Nervous glances are exchanged throughout the room,

Hands shoot in to the air like rockets

The delightfully, wicked teacher calls on the student,

The student mumbles those few fateful words….

“When are we ever going to use this in real life?”

And BANG the teacher turns in to a raging animal,

So angry, the students gaze in horror,

As the teacher does everything but answer the question,

Growing smaller by the minute,

 The student shrinks in to his desk,

And continues to do the assignment,

Accepting the lack of an answer.

Explanations

1.       The line including the “hands shooting in to the air like rockets” gives the reader an image of rocket ships taking off and students raising their hands .

2.       “Erasers dancing across the pages” gives erasers a humanistic quality which in this case is dancing. When inanimate objects are given humanistic qualities it is called personification.

3.       “Growing smaller” is an oxymoron.  Growing normally means getting bigger, when paired with smaller it becomes an oxymoron.

4.       “Frustrations boiling like a volcano” is an example of a simile. In order for something to be a simile two things have two be joined using like or as.

5.       “BANG” is an onomatopoeia because bang is not only a word but a sound as well.

6.       My word choice could be considered different when I compare teachers to raging animals. This is an example of diction which is basically what words the author decides to use in the writing.

7.       An Antithesis is a comparison of two directly opposite things. I used “delightfully, wicked teacher” because delightful and wicked are opposites.