Poetry Connections The ‘Soldier of Mictlan”, “Elliptical”, and “Fencecs”

1.What does the speaker’s little sister in “Fences” do to cause her mother to react?

2.In “Fences” what is the speaker’s attitude, or tone, toward the turistas? What details lead you to this response?

3.What differences do you see between the actions of the turistas and those of the speaker’s brother?

4.What fences might the poem’s title refer to? Are those fences literal or figurative, or both?

Mouths full of laughter,
the turistas come to the tall hotel
with suitcases full of dollars.

Every morning my brother makes
the cool beach new for them.
With a wooden board he smooths
away all footprints.

I peek through the cactus fence
and watch the women rub oil
sweeter than honey into their arms and legs
while their children jump waves
or sip drinks from long straws,
coconut white, mango yellow.

Once my little sister
ran barefoot across the hot sand
for a taste.

My mother roared like the ocean,
“No. No. It’s their beach.
It’s their beach.”

Select the correct text in the passage. which sentence in this excerpt from abraham lincoln's second inaugural address conveys that he wanted the us civil war to end as soon as possible? neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. both read the same bible and pray to the same god, and each invokes his aid against the other. it may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just inging their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. the prayers of both could not be answered. that of neither has been answered fully. the almighty has his own purposes. "woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh" if we shall suppose that american slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of god, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both north and south this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living god always ascribe to him? fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. yet, if god wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether." reset next