Slam+Poetry

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** Undivided Attention **

// by Taylor Mali //

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 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 note of a concerto played on the edge of the seat, the edge of tears, the edge of eight stories up going over— it’s a piano being pushed out of a window and lowered down onto a flatbed truck!—and I’m trying to teach math in the building across the street.

Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned? All the greatest common factors are delivered by long‐necked cranes and flatbed trucks or come through everything, even air. Like snow.

See, snow falls for the first time every year, and every year my students rush to the window as if snow were more interesting than math, which, of course, it is.

So please.

Let me teach like a Steinway, spinning slowly in April air, so almost-­‐falling, so hinderingly dangling from the neck of the movers’ crane. So on the edge of losing everything.

Let me teach like the first snow, falling.

To me the overall theme of this poem is about teachers and the "hardships" they have to go through whilst teaching a class. Taylor Mali talks about the comparisons between math and snow, which in a stereotypical way of thinking wouldn't make sense to compare the two. But he's just explaining how when it starts to snow, the students in his class all rush to the window and don't care about the math he's trying to teach. He needs their "Undivided Attention". The reasons I chose this poem are: 1. It was easy for me to understand, and figure out the basic theme without difficulty. 2. It brought a blunt message to me that made me think about how a teachers job might be like. 3. I enjoyed the relations between real-life scenarios. Like as mentioned in the poem. "It's a piano being pushed out of a window, and lowered down onto a flatbed truck! And I'm trying to teach math in the building across the street." This line made me think about how a teacher might struggle with getting their students attention when there's distractions.

Good use of quotes to support your response. Watch out for sentence fragments. 27/36