<span>They'll / do great things if they're willing to dig</span>
Dove-twirl in the tall grass. End-of-summer glaze next door On the gloves and split ends of the conked magnolia tree. Work sounds: truck back-up-beep, wood tin-hammer, cicada, fire horn
<span>A. Poetry of Place</span>
My birthplace vanished, my citizenship earned, in league with stones of the earth, Ienter, without retreat or help from history, the days of no day, my earth of no earth, I re-enter the city in which I love you. And I never believed that the multitude of dreams and many words were vain.
D. Poetry of Family
On the days when the rest have failed you, let this much be yours— flies, dust, an unnameable odor, the two waiting baskets: one for the lemons and passion, the other for all you have lost. Both empty, it will come to your shoulder, breathe slowly against your bare arm. If you offer it hay, it will eat. Offered nothing, it will stand as long as you ask. The little bells of the bridle will hang beside you quietly, in the heat and the tree's thin shade. Do not let its sparse mane deceive you, or the way the left ear swivels into dream. This too is a gift of the gods. Calm and complete.
B. Poetry of Spirit
When the black snake flashed onto the morning road, and the truck could not swerve— death, that is how it happens. Now he lies looped and useless as an old bicycle tire. I stop the car and carry him into the bushes.
C. Poetry of Nature
Answer:
Alex Garland’s 2015 science fiction film Ex Machina follows a young programmer’s attempts to determine whether or not an android possesses a consciousness complicated enough to pass as human. The film is celebrated for its thought-provoking depiction of the anxiety over whether a nonhuman entity could mimic or exceed human abilities, but analyzing the early sections of the film, before artificial intelligence is even introduced, reveals a compelling examination of humans’ inability to articulate their thoughts and feelings. In its opening sequence, Ex Machina establishes that it’s not only about the difficulty of creating a machine that can effectively talk to humans, but about human beings who struggle to find ways to communicate with each other in an increasingly digital world.
The piece's opening introduces the film with a plot summary that doesn't give away too much and a brief summary of the critical conversation that has centered around the film. Then, however, it deviates from this conversation by suggesting that Ex Machina has things to say about humanity before non-human characters even appear. Off to a great start.
The film’s first establishing shots set the action in a busy modern office. A woman sits at a computer, absorbed in her screen. The camera looks at her through a glass wall, one of many in the shot. The reflections of passersby reflected in the glass and the workspace’s dim blue light make it difficult to determine how many rooms are depicted. The camera cuts to a few different young men typing on their phones, their bodies partially concealed both by people walking between them and the camera and by the stylized modern furniture that surrounds them. The fourth shot peeks over a computer monitor at a blonde man working with headphones in. A slight zoom toward his face suggests that this is an important character, and the cut to a point-of-view shot looking at his computer screen confirms this. We later learn that this is Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a young programmer whose perspective the film follows.
The rest of the sequence cuts between shots from Caleb’s P.O.V. and reaction shots of his face, as he receives and processes the news that he has won first prize in a staff competition. Shocked, Caleb dives for his cellphone and texts several people the news. Several people immediately respond with congratulatory messages, and after a moment the woman from the opening shot runs in to give him a hug. At this point, the other people in the room look up, smile, and start clapping, while Caleb smiles disbelievingly—perhaps even anxiously—and the camera subtly zooms in a bit closer. Throughout the entire sequence, there is no sound other than ambient electronic music that gets slightly louder and more textured as the sequence progresses. A jump cut to an aerial view of a glacial landscape ends the sequence and indicates that Caleb is very quickly transported into a very unfamiliar setting, implying that he will have difficulty adjusting to this sudden change in circumstances.
These paragraphs are mostly descriptive. They give readers the information they will need to understand the argument the piece is about to offer. While passages like this can risk becoming boring if they dwell on unimportant details, the author wisely limits herself to two paragraphs and maintains a driving pace through her prose style choices (like an almost exclusive reliance on active verbs).
