Passage Letter from Brooklyn
Letter from Brooklyn
by Jacob Scheier
I can already see how this will end.
How I will grow tired of the bridge’s
steep incline, and the absent-minded tourists
wandering into the bicycle path.
The weather will turn cold.
But that all happens later.
For now it is the early edge of fall,
leaves green still while the air narrows,
is slightly crisp, almost grazing
the hair of my arm like a passing stranger,
as though the air has been forced into intimacy
by the brevity of daylight.
But when it starts darkening at 4,
this closeness, I know, will be a felt distance,
like someone drawing your attention
to their lack of intimacy.
These days I am still walking at a cathedral pace
beneath the branches bending across avenues,
brownstones like rows of lived-in chapels,
like a pop-up picture book I could have had as a child,
but didn’t. How Brooklyn makes me nostalgic
for the moment I am walking inside of.
These late afternoons filled
with a loneliness that makes me feel
distinctly myself, and an awareness
of how rare that is.
“Letter from Brooklyn” from LETTER FROM BROOKLYN: POEMS by Jacob Scheier, published by ECW Press. Copyright © 2013 by Jacob Scheier All rights reserved.
brevity: briefness
cathedral: meditative
chapels: private places of prayer or worship
nostalgic: yearning for the past
Question
The poet develops the speaker’s point of view by
- Aproviding details about the speaker’s longing to be in a different place.
- Bshowing the speaker’s sense of unease about the passing seasons.
- Cincluding details about the speaker’s hope that life will remain unchanged.
- Dshowing the speaker’s desire to treasure and appreciate the changes taking place.
Show the answer
Correct answer: D
The question asks how the poet develops the speaker’s point of view.
A. Incorrect. The speaker concedes that at some point, Brooklyn will become tiresome (lines 2–4). However, the bulk of the poem reveals the speaker’s appreciation for experiencing Brooklyn, not a desire to be in some other place.
B. Incorrect. Cold weather is inevitable, and the speaker is well aware of this future shift as well as the change in attitude it will bring. Nevertheless, the speaker does not focus on this future but rather embraces the current season, describing it in vivid detail.
C. Incorrect. The speaker is not hopeful that life will remain unchanged. Rather, the speaker accepts and appreciates the seasonal changes that occur.
D. CORRECT. The speaker’s point of view is largely positive and appreciative of the shift in seasons. This point of view is developed by language that shows a close connection between the speaker and the setting. For example, the speaker uses words such as “intimacy” (line 11) and “closeness” (line 14) and the description of the “pop-up picture book” (line 20). Finally, the conclusion emphasizes the point of view: “These late afternoons filled / with a loneliness that makes me feel / distinctly myself, and an awareness / of how rare that is” (lines 23–26).
Question analysis
This point-of-view question asks how the poet develops the speaker’s point of view in “Letter from Brooklyn,” in which the speaker walks through the city at the start of fall knowing that colder, darker days lie ahead. The speaker’s thoughts move between the present and the future, so students must weigh the whole poem, and each choice names a different attitude.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Typical grade 7 point-of-view questions focus on one passage or stanza. This one asks for the speaker’s attitude across a whole poem of shifting moods, and several choices rest on real lines, so judging the overall view takes more than typical grade 7 work.
- Estimated difficulty
- Hard: combines ideas, needs a plan, and has more than one tempting wrong answer.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- Evidence in several places moderate
- Reading between the lines moderate
- Every choice must be checked minor
- Evidence
- Answered from the whole text
- Reading level
- Passage: 217 words (a poem; reading level not measured); question and choices: about grade 7, 54 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
The poem opens by predicting its own end and returns to the coming dark in lines 13–16, so a reader who weighs those lines heavily finds unease, and the speaker does feel some. But the speaker turns back to the present each time, with “But that all happens later” and “These days I am still walking,” and the closing lines call the moment rare. The point of view is a wish to savor what is passing, and only a choice that fits the whole poem, not its most anxious lines, matches it.
Evidence in several places moderate Working it out
The point of view has to hold from line 1 to line 26 while the poem swings between the future, tiring of the bridge and darkening at 4, and the present walk under the branches. (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990; Gorin & Embretson, 2006)
Reading between the lines moderate Working it out
No line names the speaker’s attitude; it has to be drawn from “For now,” the walk “at a cathedral pace,” the nostalgia “for the moment I am walking inside of” and “how rare that is.” (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Every choice must be checked minor Choosing the answer
Three wrong choices rest on real lines, tiring of the bridge’s “steep incline,” the “felt distance” of line 14 and the nostalgia of lines 21–22, so each must be weighed against the whole poem. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987)
Strategy: Sum up in one sentence how the speaker feels about the present walk and about the season ahead, then pick the choice that holds true from the first line to the last.
Traps
- Wrong tone or attitude: Misjudges the tone, attitude or point of view, such as reading admiration as criticism, or taking a character's or subject's feelings for the author's.
- Reads too much in: A reasonable-sounding conclusion that goes further than the text allows.
- Twists what the text says: Uses the text's topic and ideas but changes what it says: who did it, how much, when, or why.
The wrong answers, classified
A Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Turns the forecast that the speaker “will grow tired” of the bridge and the tourists into a present longing to be elsewhere, though the rest of the poem savors Brooklyn’s streets.
B Wrong tone or attitude (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Fixes on the coming cold and the “felt distance” of lines 13–16, real notes of unease, and takes them for the whole view, though “But that all happens later” sets the future aside.
C Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Reads nostalgia “for the moment I am walking inside of” as a wish that nothing change, though the speaker opens by accepting “how this will end” and treasures the moment because it passes.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This asks about point of view: how the speaker, the voice talking in the poem, feels about what is happening. The question is about the whole poem, not a few lines. So follow the speaker’s feelings from line 1 to line 26. The right choice must fit all of it.
Follow the speaker’s thoughts
The poem moves back and forth in time. Lines 1–5 look ahead: “I can already see how this will end.” The speaker will tire of the bridge, and “The weather will turn cold.” Line 6 turns back: “But that all happens later.” Lines 7–12 describe the cool air of early fall. Lines 13–16 look ahead again, to days that get dark at 4 o’clock. Line 17 returns to now: “These days I am still walking at a cathedral pace.”
See how the speaker treats now
The glossary says cathedral means “meditative,” or calm and thoughtful. The speaker walks slowly to take everything in. Brownstones look “like a pop-up picture book.” Lines 21–22 say “How Brooklyn makes me nostalgic / for the moment I am walking inside of.” Nostalgic means “yearning for the past.” Yet the speaker longs for right now. In the last lines, even the loneliness of late afternoon is welcome. It makes the speaker feel “distinctly myself,” and aware “of how rare that is.”
Put the point of view in words
The speaker knows this season will end. That is why each moment matters. The speaker notices the first signs of fall, like the crisp air, and savors them. To treasure something is to value it highly. So the speaker wants to treasure and appreciate the changes happening now.
Check each choice
- A does not fit. Lines 2–4 say the speaker will tire of the bridge someday. But the speaker enjoys Brooklyn now and never wishes to be elsewhere.
- B does not fit. Lines 13–16 show some unease about the dark days ahead. But each time, the speaker turns back to the present.
- C does not fit. The speaker knows from line 1 that this will end, and treasures the moment because it will pass.
- D fits. The speaker savors the early-fall walk while it lasts.
Watch out: B rests on real lines: the closeness the speaker feels now “will be a felt distance” (line 14). But that is one part of the poem, not the whole view.
Choose the answer
The speaker knows the season will change and holds on to each moment of it. So the answer is D, “showing the speaker’s desire to treasure and appreciate the changes taking place.”
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
B is the closest wrong choice, because lines 13–16 do show unease. But each time the poem looks ahead, the speaker turns back to now: “But that all happens later” and “These days I am still walking.” The poem ends by calling the moment rare. The main feeling is a wish to treasure the present, which is D.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Letter from Brooklyn” as printed (page 50)
