Twenty-year Marriage By Ai Ogawa

The Essay:
This is a theme analysis essay on a poem given in the next page. Your essay must be 1000 words minimum, Word-processed, Times New Roman font, size 12, double spacing throughout the entire essay. Your essay must have an interesting title, a clear thesis statement with three subtopics included in the introduction, evidence and reasoning to support it throughout the body of the essay, and the significance of your analysis to an understanding of the poem. Supporting evidence may include quotes, your commentaries on the significance of the poem, your logical argument, and your quotations from different sources. You also need to include a Works Cited page, listing the poem and the anthology that contains the poem in MLA style, and any other sources if you do additional research and incorporate them using MLA style as well.
Introduction:
1. Introduce the poem by giving a brief summary of the poem.
2. Transition into explaining the general meaning of the poem.
3. THESIS STATEMENT: One or two sentences to express your interpretation of the theme with three subtopics included. Remember that a theme is the total meaning of the poem on you.
BODY (Patterns: 12221; 12323231; 12342342341):
1. In each of the three body paragraphs, topic sentence should be presented first, possibly with three minor subtopics included.
2. SUPPORTING EVIDENCE: If you work with the first poem, you can easily put together some details you can use to support your interpretation. If you work with the second poem, you need to be creative and imaginative in coming up with support. Whatever the situation you are in and whichever poem you work with, you must set up your own interpretation framework. It won’t be acceptable if you explain the poem line by line or stanza by stanza, or analyze symbolism or figurative language, or discuss the diction or syntactical features. However, these features can be used appropriately for supporting your argument of the theme within your own framework. Logical reasoning is a form of support in this assignment.
3. Remember the unique rules for quoting poetry if you want to quote directly from the poem:
1) Record lines of poetry by using the following: (line 12-15)
2) For the rest of the citations simply use (35-37)
3) Use a “/” to separate lines. A space is needed before and after the “/.”
4) Copy capital or small case letters as they are used in the original poem
4. COMMENTARY: For EACH Supporting Evidence, you must give COMMENTARY. Clearly explain how and why the evidence you present illustrates the narrator’s deepening insanity. Remember to spend more time explaining important thoughts, ideas, analysis, revelations, etc.
Conclusion:
1. Restate the Thesis Statement.
2. SO-WHAT: How does your analysis of the theme give the reader a deeper appreciation of the poem?
The Evaluation:
1. An interesting title
2. Strong thesis and adequate support
3. Correct format conventions (MLA)
4. Free from major grammar and mechanical errors and MUST be MLA formatted
Twenty-year Marriage By Ai Ogawa
You keep me waiting in a truck
with its one good wheel stuck in the ditch,
while you piss against the south side of a tree.
Hurry. I’ve got nothing on under my skirt tonight.
That still excites you, but this pickup has no windows
and the seat, one fake leather thigh,
pressed close to mine is cold.
I’m the same size, shape, make as twenty years ago,
but get inside me, start the engine;
you’ll have the strength, the will to move.
I’ll pull, you push, we’ll tear each other in half.
Come on, baby, lay me down on my back.
Pretend you don’t owe me a thing
and maybe we’ll roll out of here,
leaving the past stacked up behind us;
old newspapers nobody’s ever got to read again.