Richard Hague's Poem 'Directions For Resisting The SAT'
In the poem “Directions for Resisting the SAT” by Richard Hague, he talks about how everyone in high school has their own struggles that they go through at some point. Especially as a junior or senior when preparing for your future. Family members have given advice about what you should do with your life, attempting to guide you whether it’s helpful or not. We are supposed to know what we want to do for the rest of our lives by the time we are seventeen. This poem is the complete opposite of that. Its message is to do what you want to do. Society has created this idea and expectation that students must go to college in order to be successful. However, before even applying we are required to take the SAT to gauge how well we’ve done thus far. …show more content…
While breaking the poem down, line by line, the meaning is deeper. Students typically take the PSAT in October, and then they take the actual SAT in May the following year. The SAT is taken Saturday morning. For college students, Saturday morning is typically when they are sleeping in, or maybe even hungover from the previous night. The third line, “Do not observe the rules of gravity, commas, history” (Hague 513), he may be talking about how history doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter what history has said because it’s just history. It’s in the past. In the fifth line, “Lie about numbers” (Hague 513), the message is to fight to win. Success itself is a delusion. Between the fifth and sixth lines, Hague is saying to lie and blame success on luck, but if you’re having to lie about something, then it’s not really luck, is it? Maybe it’s not luck at all. It could just be opportunity, not skill. The line “Resign all clubs and committees” (Hague 513) is a joke about what colleges represent. College applications stress not only doing well academically, but to also participate outside of school in extracurricular activities to be well-rounded. It’s funny how on line eleven that Hague who is writing this poem in English, also says to speak nothing like it. I think the message of this line is to think for yourself, and to think not to prove something to
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