All American Poems by Dickman and This is Our Youth by Lonergan - Admission/Application Essay Example

Task Compare and contrast the shared themes in All American Poems and This is Our Youth. The poems provide different experiences on the troubles that the young people undergo in their pursuit to transform from being children to being adults. The poems have immense value to the readers, as well as the potential adults or the adults to be since, it provides a clear depiction of the problems that they would soon be handling. The poems provide the real situation on the ground as the young people try to identify and familiarize themselves with the real adult life. The various themes found in the two poems have a little can be compared and contrasted in various parts of the poems. The play takes place in an apartment located in New York City and concerns two acquaintances. The first one being a young adult at the age of twenty two and the person that the father pays rent for and the other young adult who has lifted fifteen thousand dollars from his parent (Lonergan). The two young adults have just left out of school, and have been entangled into the life of most people at that particular time. On the other side, they have opposed the limiting or restrictive life that the parents have imposed on them leading to a conflict of interest. The story gets even more intricate when a young woman comes into their life. The young woman connives with Dennis the character whose father pays for his rent and indulges the other young man by the name Warren into the complications that are brought about by human associations. The associations have more orientation towards loyalty as well as betrayal. The author provides more focus on the efforts that one of the friends, Dennis put in order to convince his friend to return the money to his father (Lonergan). The author gives the mental picture of the struggles that young people to undergo in their bid to become adults as well as to resist the limitations forced on them by their guardians. In the first act of the poem, Warren is chased away from their house because in the recent times, he has been smoking a lot of marijuana. He moves to Dennis’s house with his belongings, and soon after the arrival, Dennis gets excited since he notices that his friend has some marijuana with him. Warren gives Dennis some money he owed him although he admits to have stolen some money from his parents (Lonergan). Dennis does not get amused by the stealing since the money belongs to an associate of Warren’s father who is a gangster. Dennis insists on kicking Warren out of his apartment because he gets worried that the associate may come for them, but he cannot since Warren has nowhere to live. Dennis blames Warren due to the bad habit that he has and that makes him not to have many friends. Warren tells Dennis that he steals the money as a payment because his father made him to leave his house. Warren provides details of his life at that instance, and he manages to convince his friend that he allows him to stay at the apartment for some time. Later, Warren enquires about Jessica who happens to be a friend to Dennis‘s girlfriend but Dennis warns that Jessica way above Warren’s class (Lonergan). With the money that Warren stole, he gives a suggestion that they should book a hotel room and party. The two young men suggest selling the toys that Warren had in his luggage as a way of replacing the money that they spend during the party at the hotel. However, in the middle of making suggestions, Dennis suggests that they should instead vend cocaine. The two young women come and later they young men go out to collect some cocaine, as well as some drink for the party. Jessica and Warren make some arguments on various issues such as the plans for their lives and later proceed to familial issues and Jessica gets to approve of Warren (Lonergan). The two get to do a lot together and even smoke marijuana, but later Jessica inquires about Warren liking for her. Warren assures Jessica of his liking and even invites her for a sleep over at a hotel room. Later that morning, Dennis wakes up to arguments with his girlfriend Valerie over the broken statue however, he has managed to get the cocaine as they had earlier planned. The previous night, Jessica and Warren had sex but in the morning, Jessica seems so dull that it worried Warren. The four teenagers had spent about one thousand dollar for the night alone, and they get worried that they will not manage to raise the money before Warren father came to reclaim his money. The two therefore settle at selling cocaine, as well as the toys, to come up with the sum. Jessica rings the doorbell and the two panic a lot as they think that Warren’s father has come for the money however, their shock ends when they recognize that it is Jessica. Jessica cannot not hang out with Warren, since her mother did not take it so well after her spending the night away from home (Lonergan). Jessica was not impressed by the fact that Dennis already knew what happen later that night, and she gets annoyed about it but, Warren offer anything for her to forgive him. Jessica asks for the baseball cap belonging to Warren’s grandfather (Lonergan). However, Warren is not so impressed to give her the cap, but he tries to hind it. The two argue about the cap, and this sees Jessica leave the house annoyed. Warren’s father later calls but Warren is bold enough therefore, he admits to stealing the money. Dennis learns of the death of the drug dealer who sold him the drugs, and he gets devastated (Lonergan). Then Dennis feels that he should get over the drugs and try something worth. The play ends with Dennis arguing with Warren since Warren thinks that Dennis is not for him, which makes Dennis to weep. In ‘All American poems’, the poems are seen as straight forwarded to the readers but also to some aspect they seem terribly accessible unlike for other writers. In the poem love, many leaders would just speed read since the writer kept on moving into different ideas to arrive at a better definition of love understood by all. He uses various parts of the mental picture to create a clear image of what he tries to describe. In the Mysterious Human Heart, Dickman has concern on the objects and abstraction. Dickman has the capacity to unite two different things into one homogenous part as he places the abstractions beside elegant imagery. In Slow Dance, Dickman further continues to give the description on slow wind and the desires. He is more focused on the consciousness than the individual lines of the poem. All the poems in the book can be characterized by images created on the reader’s mind, metaphors and practical jokes that pleasure more than educate. The poems by Dickman have been described as hearty, earthly and have been stuffed so much to bring pleasure to the readers. Love has been discussed in the two poems where in, ‘This is Our Youth’, the depiction of love has not come out clear to the readers. Love has a different meaning in that context as we see in the two books. In ‘All American Poems’, the author gives or brings us extremely close to understanding love through the use of images and abstractions. In ‘This is Our Youth’, the character are not aware what they are doing and cannot understand that love waits, that love comes from within. The theme of love has been painted to cause suffering in both books, for example,” a love that can be translated into any language: I hope you do not suffer.” (Dickman) Is an extract from ‘All American Poems’. In the ‘This is Our Youth’, Warren get a request to give Jessica a cap that belongs to his grandfather. Suffering can be seen in the way Warren reacts but can also be seen in Jessica when she says, “I do not think we can. Im all out of baseball hats." (Lonergan) The love been talk about seems to be the mature love in All American Poem context unlike in the other book in which the love comes out of lust or sexual desires. The fact that Dickman talks says “we fall in love at weddings and auctions, over glasses of wine in Italian restaurants “(Dickman) comes as a clear depiction of maturity. The two people in love do everything together in All American Poems unlike in the other play where there is no show of commitments. In both books, the two people in love have the desires to cuddle each other and even kiss given a chance as illustrated by the various part of the script. Works cited Dickman, Matthew. All American Poem. New York, NY: American Poetry Review, September 1, 2008. Print. Lonergan, Kenneth. This is our Youth. New York, NY: Overlook TP, January 31, 2000. Print. Read More