Read the excerpt from billy collins's "man listening to disc." and if any of you are curious about where this aggregation, this whole battery-powered crew, is headed, let us just say that the real center of the universe, the only true point of view, is full of the hope that he, the hub of the cosmos with his hair blown sideways, will eventually make it all the way downtown. what message does collins convey in this excerpt? working downtown can be challenging. music is a positive distraction to the routine of daily life. curious people believe the world revolves around music. high volume is much better than low volume.

Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song,    better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.    laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.    laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man. (laugh and be merry/john masefield/public domain) which of these is the main idea of the poem?

Read the excerpts from “take the tortillas out of your poetry” and “speaking arabic.” my friend had concluded that if he took his language and culture out of his poetry, he stood a better chance of receiving a fellowship. he took out his native language, the poetic patois of our reality, the rich mixture of spanish, english, pachuco and street talk which we know so well. in other words, he took the tortillas out of his poetry, which is to say he took the soul out of his poetry. at a neighborhood fair in texas, somewhere between the german oom-pah sausage stand and the mexican gorditas booth, i overheard a young man say to his friend, “i wish i had a heritage. sometimes i feel—so lonely for one.” and the tall american trees were dangling their thick branches right down over his head. which best states how the structures of both excerpts support ideas about cultural diversity? each incorporates non-english words. each incorporates academic words. each incorporates offensive words. each incorporates nonsense words.

How can learning to use words effectively you achieve your goals ?