The poem "To Be of Use" is about Marge Piercey's need to surround herself with
people who work hard at everything they do. People who work together for a common goal, but cry out for work that's real. When I first read this piece, it made sense to me, but
I could tell there was a hidden meaning. It seemed as if the stanzas didn't fit together as a
whole. So I used close reading skills o get to the real meaning. Then the true meaning
In today's life, it's necessary for a person to surround themselves with a positive
influence, even if it's not what we want to be doing , it still needs to be done well.
In this poem words are selected, and used to bring deep though to the readers
mind. Lines like "Botched it smears the hands crumbles to dust." (line 19) show how
words can paint a better picture, than a brush can at times. The word botched stands out
from the other words due to it's sepperation from the rest of the line by the comma. This
poem is a mixture of metaphors, and similes. These are used to create even more pictures
in the readers head, and they do quite the job as mentioned earlier. Comparing people to
seals, then seals to bouncing balls, giving the clearest smoothest picture in your head of
what she means. When she talks of dust crumbling in yours hands you can almost feel
the dust in your hands, and this helps to give even more clarity to the ,main idea of the
poem. Things like rhyme have been disregarded, but for exceptional reason, like to
provide a more serious feeling to show this poem, as something more than a joke or a
trivial matter. Although rhyme is disregarded, rhythm is present throughout the entirety,
and gives the poem quite a large amount of flow.
This poem seems to take the old and make it present and useful for today's society, using similes, and metaphors. Although the poem its self is qui
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