Trains come and go

Authors note: this piece is a figurative language piece and the poem The Railway Train  by Emily Dickinson.

Figurative language comes from almost every piece of writing for as long as people can remember. Figurative language can be as little as a DRIP or something much more complicated like anaphora or personification. The poem that I think showed these best was The Railway Train by Emily Dickinson. The poem had sentences and phrases that made you start thinking and some that didn’t make sense.

Furthermore the author had wide variety of figurative language in the poem that included Allusions. The allusion from the poem was "And neigh like Boanerges"  which provides the reader with vivid imagery. This phrase gave me the impression that the train was a big train who moved loudly as if it was a god. The tone of the phrase keeps the reader feeling the same way as when they started reading the poem. It continues to give the impression that the train is majestic and powerful. 

Finally  this particular piece of writing had a lot of personification that gave the train somewhat human traits. First it says “and lick the valleys up” and since trains can’t lick it makes me think it’s going at tremendous speed. The second line of personification which was “and stop to feed itself at tanks” made me think, well trains can’t feed themselves so it kind of sounded like the poet was trying to say it was a hard working train.

Throughout the whole poem there was multiple examples of figurative language and gave the reader great imagery, it also made it easier for the reader to like the poem and not get board. The poem doesn’t have to make sense as long as you imagine the main character or object all the way through.

change is always an option

Author's Note: I wrote this as a character development piece on Trent and how he got his life back on track after being around violence for as long as he can remember, and he does it through basketball.

25% percent of kids failing school say it's because they have a bad home life, this could apply to Trent from the book Night Hoops. Whether it is his mother getting caught for the use of marijuana, or another crime committed by his brother, it seemed he could never get away. That reflected on him too, because he had no one to look up to but them, and that made him think it's ok to be a criminal. At 15, he already had a criminal record. He didn’t want to live this way, but he couldn’t find anything to keep him away from his family long enough to figure out how to turn his life around.

School was hard, but he had one passion that never changed; basketball. The varsity team tryouts were just around the corner, and Trent wanted in. Sure enough, he played well both sessions of the tryouts, and made the team first string. Trent became a better teammate, and his team became his second family. Overall, he became a better teammate and a better kid, and that had a positive influence on his family and friends, and with that, it helped their team win. 

Throughout the story, Trent grew as a basketball player and as a teammate. He found that his teammate lived down the street from him, so he played basketball with him every night throughout basketball’s long season.  Basketball kept Trent out of trouble and turned his attitude about life around and ultimately made him a better person and will make him a better man for the rest of his hopefully long life