AMERICA By Tony Hoagland OBJECTIVES The class will

AMERICA By: Tony Hoagland

OBJECTIVES • The class will be able to determine and understand the author’s (Tony Hoagland) attitude. • The class will be able to interpret the author’s literary elements.

AMERICA Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison Whose walls are made of Radio. Shacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes Where you can’t tell the show from the commercials, And as I consider how to express how full of shit I think he is, He says that even when he’s driving to the mall in his Isuzu Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers, even then he feels Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds Of the thick satin quilt of America And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain, or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade,

AMERICA CONT’D And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night, It was not blood but money That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills Spilling from his wounds, and—this is the weird part—, He gasped “Thank god—those Ben Franklins were Clogging up my heart— And so I perish happily, Freed from that which kept me from my liberty”— Which was when I knew it was a dream, since my dad Would never speak in rhymed couplets,

AMERICA CONT’D And I look at the student with his acne and cell phone and phony ghetto clothes And I think, “I am asleep in America too, And I don’t know how to wake myself either, ” And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life: “I was listening to the cries of the past, When I should have been listening to the cries of the future. ” But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24 -hour cable Or what kind of nightmare it might be When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise run past you And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river Even while others are drowning underneath you And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters

• Marx- a United States comedian, in which one of four brothers made motion pictures together • Couplets- two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit. • Isuzu- a Japanese commercial vehicle and diesel engine manufacturing company headquarter in Tokyo, Japan.

INFORMATION ABOUT TONY HOAGLAND • Anthony “Tony” Day Hoagland • Born November 19, 1953 • Has written books such as “Hard Rain”, “Sweet Ruin”, “Donkey Gospel”, etc. • Has written other poems such as “A Color of the Sky”, “Grammar”, “Lucky”, “Jet”, etc.

OUR INTERPRETATION OF AMERICA • Line 1 Depicts individuality, How America see his as a prisoner in an orange jumpsuit. Most of Americans would see him and assume he had been in prison even though he never was • Line 2 America is not his place they are trying to imprison him • line 3 America pressures everyone to buy what they want use to buy • line 4 Every where we go there advertisement. When we watch a TV show 8 minutes of your average 30 minute episode is commercials and ads. • Line 5 The Author does not fully understand the individual whether or not if he is fake or not. He doesn't know what he is hiding.

OUR INTERPRETATION OF AMERICA • Line 6 -10 America disapproves of his image and actions so America makes his surroundings a prison for him. They simple imprison his mind to make people like he who resist buy and spend their money on the things America think they should buy. • line 11 & 12 The author notices how people put on a different personality to make themselves look better. This makes him wonder if the student is being honest or being phony for a grade. • Line 13 & 14 In America the typical father makes the money and that is his priority, therefore the author says that money is so important to his father that it runs through his veins as if it was apart of him. • Line 15 & 16 The author wants to stab his father in an attempt to stab America since his father worried about money more than anything • Line 17 & 18 Even in death his father was happy he had money, Which connects to how America only worries about money but ignores the death it causes

OUR INTERPRETATION OF • Line 19 & 20 Money is what chains us down and. AMERICA keeps us in • • • America so can buy what they want us to buy Line 21 & 22 The author clarify how he is unlike his father, but the author dreams of getting away from America and those imprisoned by it Line 23 - 26 What the Author describes is the image of America's teenager who wears the expensive clothes and owns the latest technology all of which is what America told them to do. Its hard to go against the system when u risk becoming a prisoner of the system so they really don't have much of a choice Line 27 & 28 When you listen to the cries of the past you can't move forward onto the future which is more important because we can control the future not the past. line 29 & 30 it is easier to the past instead of thinking of the future which is why most lean to listening to the cries of the past instead of the future simply because it is easier. Line 31 -36 As we the people of America drive in our expensive cars we see others not driving but suffering because they couldn't afford it we just do want America does and ignore them.