Country Rebel

Curmano
Language Arts P.5
4 April 2016

Bike Ride With Older Boys

A quote about friendships states that A friendship isnt about who youve known
the longest. Its about who walked into your life, said Im here for you and proved it.The poem
Bike Ride With Older Boys by Laura Kasischke is about a girl who wanted to hangout with
boys and they never showed up. Through various poetic devices and an emotional tone the
author presents the theme that people try so hard to be someone theyre not.
The poetic devices in Laura Kasischke poem Bike Ride With Older Boysenhance the
theme of the poem. In the poem the author writes, I'm not as dumb as they think i am
(Kasischke 26-27). The writer uses this diction as a poetic device to describe how the girl feels
when the boys don't show up. As she sits and waits for the boys, she imagines everything that
could have happened. The author used visual imagery in the poem so that you can feel the pain
of the cuts and wounds after she falls when she writes, bits of glass and gravel ground into my
knees (36-37). You can just see the pain she must have felt and the look of the cuts and blood.
The way that she describes the wounds is referring to the pain that she feels inside and the hurt.
These examples of diction and visual imagery tell how the poem was enhanced.
The tone of the poem Bike Ride With Older Boys is a combination of sad and amused.
The author used amused to show the up side when she said Still watching outside smokes a
cigarette (46-47). She wasn't happy when the boys ditched her but she got older and now looks
back at the boys being childish and was kinda happy they didnt show up. The boys are going
nowhere in life and she has a future. The depression shows the sadness in her thoughts I will
never love myself again (38). She thinks that its her fault that the boys didnt show up. She
thinks its because the way she looks. The combination of her emotions that changed over time
give the tone of the poem more emphasis.
Being someone you're not can keep you from finding the real you that you are supposed
to be. The emotional rollercoaster that the author conveyed in the poem sends a message that
friends can make you who you are.

Work cited
"20 Quotes That Show What Friendship Truly Means." Lifehack RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr.
2016.
"Poetry 180A Poem a Day for American High Schools, Hosted by Billy Collins, U.S. Poet
Laureate, 2001-2003." Poetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High Schools, a Project from Poet
Laureate Billy Collins (The Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress). Billy Collins,
n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.