Address your response to any of the other topics, just not the one you chose for your main post.
- Your main post should be about 150-200 words and should include specific references and details (paraphrases or direct quotes with MLA documentation) to the assigned reading.
- Provide your own commentary–your opinion, observations, commentary on connections to current issues/texts, etc. You can refer to movies, tv, other cultural experiences, and observations too.
READ: Poems on Work and Money
Dana Gioia, “Money” (920)
Toni Hoagland, “America” (921)
Jan Beatty, “My Father Teaches Me to Dream” (922)
Michael Chitwood, “Men Throwing Bricks” (923)
Baron Wormser, “Labor” (924)
Ted Kooser, “Laundry” (925)
David Ignatow, “The Jobholder” (925)
Joyce Sutphen, “Guys Like That” (926)
Marge Piercy, “To Be of Use” (927)
Link to the book :
https://u1lib.org/book/7225236/e895f5
There was indeed a poem that immediately grabbed my attention. That poem was “Guys Like That.” Sutphen gives readers a reminder of the costs entailed in becoming rich. Naturally, it’s not a monetary cost. Sutphen wrote, “Guys who look like that — / so clean and cool — are quietly moving / money across the border, cooking books, / making deals that leave some people / rich and some people poorer” (“Guys Like That”, ll. 14-18). What Sutphen is saying is the cost of becoming that rich, the ones people admire and aspire to be like, is humanity and empathy.
With rare exceptions, becoming so wealthy as to, “Drive very nice cars” means a person has to be willing to disregard other human beings along the way (Sutphen, “Guys Like That”, l. 1). In the beginning of the poem, it almost seems as if Sutphen is making the case for these sorts of men being similar to every other man, but as the writing progresses, so to does Sutphen’s criticisms of these men.
Being rich is a fairly common goal in the United States. It’s part of the American Dream, to be so wealthy you can afford what you like, when you like. People overestimate the amount of wealth needed to have this lifestyle, and in fact, after a certain point, money can no longer provide happiness. It simply becomes excess. Someone buys four vehicles because they can. Someone buys a yacht because they can. The items don’t bring further joy to their life, it’s simply a collection, and, as Sutphen points out, the real cost of men like them owning these items is the suffering of their fellow human beings.
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