Preview

Laura Kasischke Near Misses Summary

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
250 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Laura Kasischke Near Misses Summary
The poem Near Misses by Laura Kasischke is about how she realizes she has no control over whether she lives or dies and is grateful to be alive. The poem starts with all the times she nearly missed death. These stanzas are very literal, except for the line “something spinning and made of history” in the third stanza. This resembles the later parts of this poem. After the stanzas explaining the times she nearly missed death, the poem changes slightly. It is a lot less literal, using much more imagery, metaphors, and personification. This part of the poem also states that she is a “middle-aged woman scanning the cans on the grocery store shelf.” This stanza is primarily focused on the present. The last stanza however, focuses more on the future

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Mrs. Sarah was a slave in Westmoreland County, and conducted an interview with Archibald Hill. She describes that she did not have an overseer for her labor, in which he expected them to do good work. If they didn’t complete the work, he was at liberty to whip them. She also describes her first time getting whipped as very unpleasant when she didn’t know how to do the labor. Garner was born in Tennessee and her mother, Jula, was born in Virginia. Garner’s husband, Theodore, was born in Blackground, and married him when she was eighteen. Her master bought him and his mother when he was 8 years old. Garner also had two brothers.…

    • 527 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Tiny Bubbles Lab

    • 362 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A number of different variables, such as the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide solution or the temperature at which the reaction occurs, can affect the rate at which yeast breaks down hydrogen peroxide. To prove this we first tested the solution with 3% concentration of peroxide, the paper that was soaked in yeast rose in 1.7 seconds. After that we changed our concentration to 2.25%, 1.5%, and .75% of hydrogen peroxide to see the effects it had on the amount of time it took the felt to completely drop and rise. On 2.25% it took 2.8 seconds, 1.5% took 3.2 seconds, and .75% took 3.9 seconds.…

    • 362 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    On a side note, this poem struck me because I feel that all too often we think our lives are so hard forgetting what past generations have gone through. Poems like this are a type of reality check for…

    • 275 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Summary Of Sasha Kramer

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages

    It would be fair to say Sasha Kramer has a potty mouth. Almost since arriving in Haiti over ten years ago,…

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    What Ken believes about creativity that it is a process of having original ideas with value because you can't be creative if you don't do something.…

    • 528 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    First stanza takes on more of a somber mood. Death equals loss. Catherine Davis villanelle piece reflect upon how we all generally deal or except death when it comes. She sets off her tone/response with the first two lines in the first stanza with an absolute statement that, “After a time, all losses are the same”, which she implies that no matter the type of loss, time is the ultimate healer. Although through the next line Davis takes on more of a pessimistic, but realistic view on when we lose something (death) “one more thing lost is one thing less to lose”. On the other hand she views death as a rebirth of innocence/equality as,” we go stripped…

    • 399 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Though Lucinda Matlock and George Gray lived completely different lives, both offer valuable lessons. George realizes after death that he missed out on many great things life offered. Lucinda lived life day by day, loving others and experiencing life’s pleasures. When the end of life for her was near, she was completely content. From both poems, one is left with the understanding that life is simply too short not to take chances. Living life in fear, and never experiencing love, sorrow, or accomplishments can leave one with an enormous amount of regret in the…

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Emily Dickinson, a chief figure in American literature, wrote hundreds of poems in her lifetime using unusual syntax and form. Several if not all her poems revolved around themes of nature, illness, love, and death. Dickinson’s poem, Because I could not stop for Death, a lyric with a jarring volta conflates several themes with an air of ambiguity leaving multiple interpretations open for analysis. Whether death is a lover and immortality their chaperone, a deceiver and seducer of the speaker to lead her to demise, or a timely truth of life, literary devices such as syntax, selection of detail, and diction throughout the poem support and enable these different understandings to stand alone.…

    • 113 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    A commonly asked question concerning poetry is asked many a time. Do poems have any relevance in today’s society? The French poet Paul Valery said during his prime that poems are “the unique intersection of language and state of mind." It is shown in everyday life through communication between people, expressing oneself, music as well as basic marketing. Poetry has evolved to show different sides of every coin yet also remains quite similar in modern times. Emily Dickinson’s ‘’There is Another Sky’’ and Shel Silverstein’s ‘’ Where the Sidewalk Ends’’ highlight the similarities between poems today in terms of theme, content/imagery and technique as well as the subtle and vast differences concerning the topic surrounding death.…

    • 1560 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although love hurts it is still worth waiting for. "If certain, when this life was out, /That your and mine should be," this suggest that love still lives on even after death. "But now, all ignorant of the length/Of time's uncertain wing, /It goads me, like the goblin bee, /That will not state its sting." This metaphor set a mood of uncertainty of when love is going to come. It hurts waiting for love, but not knowing when love comes hurt even more.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Her outlook on the situation is that, as long as you try to continue living to the fullest, you will enjoy every day that you have, because you are not guaranteed tomorrow. I think that her view on life can be used by every person, because people that do have the ability to go and do things often times don’t, they choose instead to sit at home or complain about the things that really do not matter all that much at all. If people were willing to live each day like it was their last, people would have a greater appreciation of things like their health and their family and…

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pass or Fail Poem

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages

    There are always obtiscals in life that we face. In this poem it says "No matter how you succed awake, asleep there is a test waiting to be failed" (1252). Yes this can be realted to school but I see that in life no matter what you do there is always a test that you can either fail or pass. We mite not relize that they are tests but each and eveyday god gives us test that we can either pass or fail. They are almost the same as test in school because if you fail you can be punished for them with bad grades, and in life you can be punished with consequences. The author said " The dream beckons with two dull pencils, but you havent even taken the course"(1252). I can relate this to life because with a dream all you have at first is a dream starteing from sctract not knoowing what can happen. Two dull pencils can relate to this because you do not know what your getting yourself into and the trails that come along the way can be very dull . Of course you dont know what can happen because you havent lived your future and thats a course itself.…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    English Essay

    • 1896 Words
    • 8 Pages

    deaths within her life. As she remembers these moments she is drawn back to her old life mentally and eventually physically as well.…

    • 1896 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the poem continues, the mood gradually lightens up. The author uses melancholy views of death to write a poem that is, in fact, about life and its beauty. She lists many things that she wants to achieve in life. Not material things, but personal things. For instance, when death comes to her, she wants to be able to say that she was "a bride married to amazement…taking life into [her] arms". She says, " I want to step through the door or curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness." Here she states that although she does not want to dwell on the fact that her life will someday come to an end, it is perfectly normal to wonder about death.…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Lover's Lover Diction

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In this poem, the evening has set upon the urban neighborhood as the speaker embarks on a walk. He see a crowd of people and hears a lover singing to his beloved and his song portrays that his love will never cease. The clocks, however, showcase a contradictory attitude through the use of their diction by insinuating that love will end because the lovers’ lives will as well. Throughout the poem, the lovers remain naively optimistic while the clocks take a cynical point of view toward love and time. The author of this poem demonstrates device usage such as metaphors, personification, and symbolism in effort to reveal the idea that one should live each day as if were his/her last.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays