Making Connections TJ and MP
Garrett Baker

What roles might each of the characters play?

What do the characters have in common?

What makes the characters different from one another?

What statement or message does each of these poems reveal about life?

"Journey"

"My Papa's Waltz"

Runner

Child

Both

"Journey"

Dislikes their roles in life so much that they decided to run away

"My Papa's Waltz"

Enjoys roles in life.

Come from bad families.

"Journey"

"My Papa's Waltz"

Situations can mean different things depending on how you look at them.

The only way to be happy is to take charge of your life

Have bad parents

Chooses to take action of their life

Does not take action to change problems

Massive self-responsibilities

"Determined to save / the only life you could / save"

"you left their voice behind"

"the voices around you kept shouting / their bad advice" (Journey)

"one day you finally knew / what you had to do"

"you left their voice behind"

"the voices around you kept shouting / their bad advice" (Journey)

"there was a new voice / which you slowly / recognized as you own"

"could make a small boy dizzy"

direct harm done to the narrator

"still clinging to your shirt"

"Waltzed me off to bed"

"my right ear scraped a buckle"

"You beat time on my head"

"my right ear scraped a buckle" (Waltz)

"You beat time on my head" (Waltz)

"You beat time on my head" (Waltz)

"my right ear scraped a buckle"

"we romped until the pans / slid from the kitchen shelf"

romp: to play roughly and energetically.

romp: engage in sexual activity, especially illicitly.