"Shaving" is a 1998 poem by Richard Blanco in which the everyday act of shaving becomes an extended metaphor for time, memory, mortality, and the passage of life. It appeared on the 2022 AP Lit exam as the poetry analysis FRQ, asking how Blanco's literary elements convey the speaker's complex associations with shaving.
"Shaving" is a poem by Richard Blanco, published in 1998, in which the speaker reflects on the ordinary, repetitive act of shaving. The poem matters to AP Lit because it's a textbook case of an extended metaphor. Shaving isn't just shaving here. The comparison persists through the poem and gets expanded with additional images and details, which is exactly how the CED defines an extended metaphor. Through that sustained comparison, a mundane routine opens up into reflections on time, memory, mortality, and how a life accumulates.
The key move the poem makes (and the move you're expected to catch) is that a metaphor doesn't compare whole objects, it compares specific traits. Shaving is daily, repetitive, physical, and tied to growing up and growing older. Those particular qualities are what let Blanco map a bathroom ritual onto the passage of a life. When you analyze the poem, your job is to name which traits are being transferred and what figurative meaning or perspective that transfer creates.
"Shaving" lives in Unit 5: Structure & Figurative Language in Poetry, specifically Topic 5.4: Identifying and interpreting extended metaphors, and supports learning objective AP Lit 5.4.A (identify and explain the function of a metaphor). The essential knowledge behind that LO is basically a roadmap for reading this poem. Comparisons focus on traits, not whole objects. They convey figurative meaning and a perspective, not just literal meaning. And an extended metaphor is built when the comparison persists and gets expanded through additional details, similes, and images. "Shaving" does all three, which is why College Board picked it for a real exam. If you can explain how the shaving metaphor functions in this poem, you've proven you can do the central skill of Topic 5.4.
Keep studying AP® English Literature Unit 5
Extended Metaphor / Topic 5.4 (Unit 5)
"Shaving" is the poster child for this topic. The comparison between shaving and the passage of life doesn't appear once and vanish. It persists and grows through added images, which is the literal CED definition of an extended metaphor.
Figurative Meaning (Unit 5)
The poem only works because shaving carries meaning beyond the literal act. When you argue the poem is "about" mortality or memory, you're interpreting figurative meaning, which is the payoff skill of Unit 5.
"The Road Not Taken" (Unit 5)
Frost's poem is the other classic extended-metaphor anchor. Both poems take one concrete situation (a fork in a path, a morning shave) and sustain it as a vehicle for a life-sized idea. Comparing them is great practice for seeing how the same device produces different perspectives.
"Shaving" appeared on the 2022 AP Lit exam as the poetry analysis free-response question (40 minutes, one-third of your essay section score). The prompt told you the speaker writes about the act of shaving and asked you to analyze how Blanco uses literary elements and techniques to convey the speaker's complex experience. That word "complex" is doing real work. A high-scoring essay doesn't just say "shaving represents time passing." It builds a defensible thesis, then traces how specific details extend the metaphor and what perspective the comparison transmits. In multiple choice, a poem like this would generate questions about what the metaphor compares, which traits are transferred, and how a particular image expands the comparison. Practicing with "Shaving" is practicing for whatever extended-metaphor poem shows up on your exam.
Both are extended-metaphor poems you'll see attached to Topic 5.4, so it's easy to blur them together. "The Road Not Taken" is Robert Frost (early 20th century) using two diverging paths to explore choice. "Shaving" is Richard Blanco (1998) using a daily grooming ritual to explore time, memory, and mortality. The device is the same; the subjects, eras, and the perspectives the metaphors transmit are different. On the exam, keep the poet-poem pairings straight and, more importantly, be ready to explain what each specific metaphor does, not just that one exists.
"Shaving" is a 1998 poem by Richard Blanco in which the act of shaving works as an extended metaphor for time, memory, mortality, and the passage of life.
It was the poetry analysis FRQ on the 2022 AP Lit exam, which asked how Blanco's literary elements convey the speaker's complex experience of shaving.
Per AP Lit 5.4.A, metaphors compare specific traits, not whole objects, so strong analysis names which qualities of shaving (repetition, routine, physical change) map onto a human life.
An extended metaphor persists through parts of or an entire text and expands through additional details, similes, and images, and "Shaving" models exactly that structure.
Interpreting the metaphor means moving past literal meaning to the figurative meaning and perspective the comparison transmits, which is the core skill of Topic 5.4.
On the surface, it's a poem (published 1998) about a speaker reflecting on the act of shaving. Figuratively, the sustained comparison turns that daily ritual into an extended metaphor for time, memory, mortality, and the passage of life.
Yes. It was Question 1 of the 2022 AP Lit free-response section, the 40-minute poetry analysis essay worth one-third of your total essay score. The prompt asked how Blanco uses literary elements and techniques to convey the speaker's complex experience.
No. The literal subject is shaving, but the metaphor's function is the point. The CED is explicit that comparisons convey figurative meaning and transmit a perspective, so an essay that stays at "the speaker shaves" misses the entire analytical task.
Both are extended-metaphor poems tied to Topic 5.4, but Frost's poem uses diverging paths to explore choice, while Blanco's 1998 poem uses a daily routine to explore time and mortality. Same device, different vehicle, different perspective.
An extended metaphor exists when the comparison between a main subject and a comparison subject persists through parts of or all of a text and expands through additional details and images. In "Shaving," the comparison between the ritual and a life keeps developing across the poem rather than appearing once.
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