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AP Success - AP English Literature Poetry Analysis: Two Poems About the Coming of Spring

Question 1

Essay

These two poems both describe the coming of spring.

Read the poems 'Spring and All' by William Carlos Williams and 'For Jane Meyers' by Louise Glück carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you compare and contrast the poets’ presentations of spring, paying particular attention to the tone and the use of imagery in both poems. How do these elements contribute to the overall depiction of the season and its impact on the speakers and their perception of life?

In your response you should do the following:
• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation.
• Select and use evidence from both poems to support your line of reasoning.
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument

Source 1.1

"Spring and All" by William Carlos Williams:

By the road to the contagious hospital

under the surge of the blue

mottled clouds driven from the

northeast—a cold wind. Beyond,

the waste of broad, muddy fields

brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water

the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish

purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy

stuff of bushes and small trees

with dead, brown leaves under them

leafless vines—

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish

dazed spring approaches—

They enter the new world naked,

cold, uncertain of all

save that they enter. All about them

the cold, familiar wind—

Now the grass, tomorrow

the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

One by one the objects are defined—

It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of

entrance—Still, the profound change

has come upon them: rooted they

grip down and begin to awaken

"For Jane Meyers" by Louise Glück:

Sap rises from the sodden ditch

glues two green ears to the dead

birch twig. Perilous beauty—

and already Jane is digging out

her colored tennis shoes,

one mauve, one yellow, like large crocuses.

And by the laundromat

the Bartletts In their tidy yard—

as though it were not -

wearying, wearying

to hear in the bushes

the mild harping of the breeze,

the daffodils flocking and honking—

Look how the bluet* falls apart, mud

pockets the seed.

Months, years, then the dull blade of the wind.

It is spring I We are going to die I

And now April raises up her plaque of flowers

and the heart

expands to admit its adversary.

*bluet: a wild flower with bluish blossoms

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