Taylor+Mali+-+Slam+Poetry

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__**Undivided Attention - Taylor Mali (KEY PHRASES IN BOLD)**__

A grand piano wrapped in quilted pads by movers, tied up with canvas straps like classical music's birthday gift to the criminally insane is gently nudged without its legs out an eighth-floor window on 62nd street. It dangles **spinning slowly in April air** from the neck of the movers' crane, Chopin-shiny black lacquer squares and dirty white crisscross patterns hanging **like the second-to-last** the edge of tears, the edge of eight stories up going over, it is a piano being pushed out of a window, and lowered down 8 stories onto a flatbed truck by a crane, and I'm trying to teach math in the building across the street.
 * note of a concerto played on the edge of the seat, **

All the greatest common factors are delivered by long-necked cranes and flatbed trucks <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">or come through everything, even air. <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Like snow. <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">See, snow falls for the first time every year, and every year <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">my students rush to the window <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">as if snow were more interesting than math, <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">which, of course, it is.
 * <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned? **

<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">So please. <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">spinning slowly in April air, <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">**so almost-falling**, so hinderingly <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">dangling from the neck of the movers' crane. <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">So on the edge of losing everything.
 * <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Let me teach like a Steinway, **
 * <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Let me teach like the new snow, falling. **


 * <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">--- **

**<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Poetic Devices: **
<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">-Hyperbole:

//<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">"So on the edge of losing everything." //

<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">-Metaphor:

//<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">"Let me teach like the new snow, falling." (ALSO A SIMILE) //

<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">-Imagery:

//<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">"Let me teach like the __first snow, falling.__" // //<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">"Chopin-__shiny black lacquer squares,__" // //<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">"It dangles spinning slowly in __<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">April air __<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">" //

<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">-Oxymoron:

//<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">"Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned" (ALSO A METAPHOR) //

<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">-Simile: //<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">"like the second to last note of a concerto played on the edge of the seat" //

//<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">--- //


 * <span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Theme of, "Undivided Attention": **

This poem has so much to offer to the imagination. After listening to it a few times, I've noticed that there is so much imagery in this poem, that I feel an artist could paint a perfect picture of the actions that take place. Taylor Mali also does a great job of hiding various metaphors and messages within the writing. For example, the line:

//<span style="color: #1f0000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">"Let me teach like the new snow, falling." //

Does not mean to teach like falling snow. He is saying if you can be so attentive to falling snow, why is it so difficult to stay the same with everything else. It is a good question, but also very difficult to answer.