Second, the ROUGH DRAFT of your second essay is due NEXT Wednesday (11/14). Because I will be making comments on them ASAP, absolutely NO late papers will be accepted. All rough drafts must be typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12 pt. font, with 1 inch margins. The rough draft will be worth two homework assignments.

For the essay, you will write an explication on the following poem: Howard Nemerov's "The Vacuum". The instructions for the explication are here: explication.essay.doc

Here is a copy of the poem.

The Vacuum

By Howard Nemerov 1920-1991 Howard Nemerov

The house is so quiet now
The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet,
Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth
Grinning into the floor, maybe at my
Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth.

I've lived this way long enough,
But when my old woman died her soul
Went into that vacuum cleaner, and I can't bear
To see the bag swell like a belly, eating the dust
And the woolen mice, and begin to howl

Because there is old filth everywhere
She used to crawl, in the corner and under the stair.
I know now how life is cheap as dirt,
And still the hungry, angry heart
Hangs on and howls, biting at air.