Schoolsville/Billy Collins - Assignment Example

due: Schoolsville /Billy Collins The poem Schoolsville by Billy Collins describes some recognizable school experiences like the memories the persona has about the boy who always raised his hand in class and also the girl who signed papers with her lipstick. The poet of Schoolsville chose the title because he compares the school to a town in that the school has people of different characters just like a town. The word ville means town or city. The poet combined the word school and ville to come up with the term Schoolville.

The students do not go far from home after graduating, and they can be seen around the town either working or hanging around so the title could be taken to show the town as an extension of the school. The speaker of the poem is a retired school teacher. The persona speaks about his gone teaching days and shows affection by stating those students who have gone thru his hands proudly and suggests that they could even makeup a town due to their numbers. He has discovered memories of the students he taught and can recall specific characters of the students like the boy who raised his hand always.

The last two stanzas point to the fact that the persona is fantasizing. The persona seems have a created a world of himself. At one time, he says he is the mayor and at the same time says occasionally says that students take to him term papers. He also says that he never leaves the house because the car deflates on the driveway something that is not possible for the position of the mayor. The poet has used humor in the poem. For example, the poet says that their grades are sewn into their garments and also that students hand in their assignments fifteen years later.

The poem can be used to begin a definition by explaining the meaning of the word or constituent words if it is a compound noun like schoolville to mean the school town.Work citedCollins, Billy. Aimless love: new and selected poems. New York: Random House PublishingGroup, 2013. Print.