Embrace

1. Embrace Billy Collins

2. Poem You know the parlor trick. Wrap your arms around your own body and from the back it looks like someone is embracing you, her hands grasping your shirt, her fingernails teasing your neck. From the front it is another story. You never looked so alone, Your crossed elbows and screwy grin. You could be waiting for a tailor To fit you for a straitjacket, One that would hold you really tight.

3. Reaction and speaker • First thought of story “behind the white picket fence.” • “The bully and the nerd.” • Judging people 1) first glance 2) appearances 3) take a closer look a) both sides of the story • Sad, disturbed people 1) straightjacket 2) screwy grin • Speaker - could go two ways a) the author b) someone else

4. I saw no alliteration or similes. • Uses a lot of imagery 1) fingernails teasing your neck 2) crossed elbows and screwy grin. • Metaphor “to fit you for a straitjacket” • “Situational irony involves a certain strangeness between what a person does and how, unaware to that person, things actually are.” 1) expected result

5. Style and tone • Collins uses second person 1) uses you know the parlor trick. 2) seems like he’s talking to you. Describing what “you” would look like. • Tone -ridiculing- making fun of - loneliness

6. Lonesome Night By Hermann HesseYou brothers, who are mine,Poor people, near and far,Longing for every star,Dream of relief from pain,You, stumbling dumbAt night, as pale stars break,Lift your thin hands for someHope, and suffer, and wake,Poor muddling commonplace,You sailors who must liveUnstarred by hopelessness,We share a single face.Give me my welcome back. Tired Sex By Chana Bloch We're trying to strike a match in a matchbookthat has lain all winter under the woodpile: damp sulphuron sodden cardboard.I catch myself yawning. Through the window I watch that sparrow the cat keeps batting around. Like turning the pages of a book the teacher assigned --You ought to read it, she said.It's great literature.