What is the meaning of the poem fifteen?
The short poem tells the story of a fifteen-year-old who comes across a seemingly abandoned motorcycle and makes a choice about what to do with it. "Fifteen" is a poetic retelling an experience the narrator had at age 15.
What is the theme of the poem fifteen by William Stafford?
William Stafford’s poem “Fifteen” has strong themes of youth, morality and coming of age. The short poem tells the story of a fifteen-year-old who comes across a seemingly abandoned motorcycle and makes a choice about what to do with it. “Fifteen” is a poetic retelling an experience the narrator had at age 15.
What is the principal conflict in the poem fifteen?
Similarly, what is the principal conflict in fifteen? Situation: An eager 15 year old boy wants to ride a motorcycle and live the freedom of adults. There is an internal conflict in the poem, and this is symbolically shown with a motorcycle. The boy is conflicted by this chose of freedom.
What is the meaning of the poem 15 by William Blake?
“Fifteen” is a poetic retelling an experience the narrator had at age 15. It is thematically focused on youth, maturity, responsibility, honesty, and coming of age. The poem opens with a summer setting on a road, where the narrator comes across “a motorcycle with engine running as it lay on its side.”
What is the overall theme of the poem?
Theme is the lesson or message of the poem. Does the poem have something to say about life or human nature? That message would be the theme, and there can be more than one theme for a single poem, even something as short as 'We Real Cool'!
What is the principal conflict in fifteen?
There is an internal conflict in the poem, and this is symbolically shown with a motorcycle. The boy is conflicted by this chose of freedom. He has to decide whether or not to have freedom or wait for freedom.
Why did William Stafford write the poem fifteen?
As an adult, William Stafford wrote this poem about a vivid memory of something that occurred when he was fifteen. The whole experience took place in less than 10 minutes, yet it embodied so many things for Stafford— at first excitement and adventure, then realization of his own youth and inexperience.
How is the motorcycle personified in fifteen?
This is personification because the headlights are dim and it looks as if the motorcycle is acting shy. This is an example of a metaphor in which the poet compares the motorcycle to a friend. "I was fifteen."
What does the motorcycle represent in fifteen?
In the third stanza of "Fifteen," what does the speaker imagine doing with the motorcycle? He was imagining that he could ride the motorcycle and find the end of a road. What does the motorcycle represent to the speaker? His aspirations and what he can reach in life in the future.
How is sadness signified in the poem Tonight I can write the saddest lines?
He is now at some distance from the relationship and so acknowledges, “tonight I can write the saddest lines,” suggesting that the pain he suffered after losing his lover had previously prevented any reminiscences or descriptions of it.
What impact is created by the repetition of Tonight I can write the saddest lines?
One example of repetition is the title phrase ("Tonight I can write the saddest lines"), which repeats three times throughout, creating a cadence and circular movement to the poem, almost like a beating drum. This suggests the way the poet is coming back to the same thoughts of his lost love again and again.
What effect is created by the last line in the poem fifteen?
The last line of the poem stands alone, just as the boy does on the road when the motorbike owner has roared away. The comma before the word 'fifteen' focuses our attention on the word. It reminds us of the boy's keen awareness of his youth and his desire to be old enough to ride a bike.
How does the speaker help the owner of the motorcycle?
In the speaker's fantasy, he saw himself riding the motorcycle into the sunset but in reality he realizes that if there is a motorcycle with its engines running lying on the ground, there must be a rider too and looks for him and helps him out.
What is figurative language?
Figurative language makes meaning by asking the reader or listener to understand something by virtue of its relation to some other thing, action, or image. Figurative language can be contrasted with literal language, which describes something explicitly rather than by reference to something else.
What does the 2 finger motorcycle wave mean?
The two-finger motorcycle wave is often a way of telling your fellow riders to stay safe, BikeBandit explains. Those two fingers pointed down symbolize keeping your bike's two wheels on the ground. But regardless of the specific variant, the wave is a way to express solidarity with other riders, Cycle World explains.
What does the motorcycle hand signal mean?
Left Turn: Left arm & hand extending left, palm facing down. Right Turn: Left arm out, bent at 90 degree angle, fist clenched. Speed Up: Left arm extended straight out, palm facing up, swing upward. Slow Down: Left arm extended straight out, palm facing down, swing down to your side.
What does it mean when motorcycle wave?
The initial meaning may not be completely clear, but nowadays, the biker's wave is known as a sign of respect for other riders. This is seen as a way to acknowledge your fellow riders on the road and let them know that someone else is looking out for them.
What does it mean when a motorcyclist holds up two fingers?
The rider was acknowledging the driver's considerate safe driving efforts while the motorcycle passed. … The two-finger salute is actually a peace sign. That's how we motorcyclists wave to say thank you for making room for us to split lanes.
What is the theme of the poem "Fifteen"?
These poems, like most of Stafford’s, are set in the landscape of the American West, and particularly the Northwest. “Fifteen” is generally considered one of the finest poems in the collection, and typifies Stafford’s sparse and simple narrative style, his friendly and conversational tone, his theme of self-reconciliation and regeneration through self-questioning and the process of discovery.
How many lines are in the poem "Fifteen"?
“Fifteen” is like a traditional poem in its formalist, symmetrical division into four stanzas of five lines each, and the final line. It is unlike traditional poetry in that the poem employs no consistent accented meter such as iamb, trochee, dactyl, or anapest; but is written, instead, in a free-verse narrative style. It contains its own felt rhythms, with the accents varied within each line. The poem has no formal rhyme scheme, but organically connects the ideas and images in the various stanzas through use of the phrase “I was fifteen” at the end of the first three stanzas and, again, echoing and reinforcing it in the final line. The poem also contains internal slant-rhyme such as in “South” and “found” in lines 1 and 2, and in “ran” and “hand” in line 19. The poem also contains alliteration, where words near each other begin with the same letter or sound, such as the “b” sound in “bridge” and “back” in lines 1 and 2, and the “s” sound in “South,” “seventeenth,” and “summer” in lines 1 and 2. Stafford consciously controls the poem’s rhythm by choosing where to break the lines. Where the sentences continue on to the next line, the line is called enjambed, and where the sentence ends at the end of a line, the line is called end-stopped.
What is the final line of the poem?
The final line solidifies the ideas and tensions of the entire poem. It makes us feel the impact of the roaring away of the cycle rider through use of the word “stood”; it is as though the boy has become fastened to the ground unable to move, paralyzed by his own youth, while the cycle, as the symbol of high adventure, roars away from him. We are aware that the persona, who is now an adult looking back on this experience, is still affected by his memory of it, and that the experience might still act to motivate the persona to find new roads in the world and in his imagination.
How old is the boy in the poem "The Motorcycle"?
Although this poem does not give us any background information about the fifteen-year-old boy, we can safely guess, from his excitement about finding the motorcycle, that he had found his life lacking. Another boy might have imagined showing his discovery off to his friends in order to increase his social standing, or selling it in order to increase his financial standing, but this boy dreams of escaping—leaving his current situation behind and taking his chances with the unknown. At the beginning of the third stanza, the boy’s vague plan is stated as “We could find the end of a road”—indicating a desolate place where no one else would be interested in going to or coming from—and it continues with “meet / the sky on out Seventeenth.” The exaggeration of meeting the sky indicates how far the boy is willing to go to escape his current situation, while the mention of a local street, and not a very high-numbered one at that, shows the boy to be weak in imagination and unable to fantasize about a truly exotic locale.
What is Robert Frost's unique view of nature and the world around him?
unique view of nature and the world around him in the delicate art of poetry. His direct and easy-to-read poems made him one of the most recognized poets in the country. Robert Frost had the ability to make his poems accessible to anyone reading them. His use of everyday vocabulary and traditional form of poetry made it easy for readers, although translating them is not as easy. Robert Frost's poems are very connotative in nature, making them very profound to read. Frost
What is the mother any distance about?
text “Mother any distance” by Simon Armitage is about a child and his mother. As the poem goes on we see the nature change of the mother and child’s relationship grow. As the son gets older and becomes more independent he wants to leave the birds nest. But the mother doesn’t want to fully let go of her child. As the reader of his poem I was placed into the poem as I am a teenager and can relate back to this poem personally. Being a teenager and having that parent and child relationship helped me
Fifteen
South of the bridge on Seventeenth I found back of the willows one summer day a motorcycle with engine running as it lay on its side, ticking over slowly in the high grass.
Paraphrasing
A kid of the age of 15 finds a motorcycle still running on the side of the road. Her admires the bike and picks it up, giving into his temptation, even though he's scared still. While he's wheeling it out, he finds the owner recovering from a crash. The kid helps the owner back onto the bike, and the owner calls him a good man before driving off.
Thursday, 7 March 2013
"Fifteen" by William stanford is a poem about a 15 year old boy saw a biker crash on seventeenth street. The narrator is speaking to his family or maybe friends and telling them about a tragic accident.
analysis for fifteen by William Stafford
"Fifteen" by William stanford is a poem about a 15 year old boy saw a biker crash on seventeenth street. The narrator is speaking to his family or maybe friends and telling them about a tragic accident.
