Poetry 3rd Block
Oct 22

"Vermin""

What do you want to be when you grow up?"
What child cries out, "An Exterminator!"?
One dilligent student in Mrs. Taylor's class will get an ant farm for Christmas,
but he'll not see industry; he'll see dither. "
The ant sets an example for us all," wrote Max Beerbohm, a master of dawdle,
"but it is not a good one."

Those children don't hope to outlast the doldrums of school
only to heft great weights and work in squads and die for their queen.
Well, neither did we.
And we knew what we didn't want to be:
the ones we looked down on, the lambs of God,
blander than snow and slow to be cruel.


I chose these line breaks because I saw rhis poem as a conversation. This writer is conveying the innocence of the young and was society has turned economic prosper into. Success and money have begun ot take over the thoughts of prospective students, whereas innocent young children depend on their creative dreams. These breaks reveal the conversation and thoughts of these young children, their dreams, and the apparent need for economic succes on current society. The breaks also show the detachment from the thought of merely concentrating on money and success. I always put a break between the negative and positive outlooks because I thought the writer would want this clearly separated for comparison and contrast to what he percieves as life's true pleasures.


-- William Matthewsfrom

The New Yorker, 1997.