POEMS MADE EASY.
In my previous post ,I tried to give some tips on how to analyse a poem but I thought it wise to add an example for better understanding.
So in the previous post,I tried to explain the speaker,the setting and lastly the form of a poem. These parameters are the first thing to take into consideration when analysing a poem.
Let's get to understand their importance with the below poem.
The potentials.
The potentials.
The more I screamed
The more you say later
Please not now,am busy
It is impossible.
Forgetting that impossibility
Is not in success dictionary.
The worst bullet you shot at me
Was your bullet of inferiority complex
Oh how joyous I was
When I realised you nursed me
I ran towards your abode
To continue the journey with you
Running to your chamber
I met the last enemy
The enemy I called death.
He told me your life is up,
So with every potential knit inside of you.
So am dying with you now
Poor and evil soul you are.
I look around to see friends
I saw family members
At your bed sides crying
That you are passing away
But they fail to realise
That they are just not loosing you
But loosing us
Although we seems invisible
Because you never gave is life
When you had the chance.
I am the book , you never wrote
The places you never visited
The songs you never sang
Dramas you never acted
Poems you never developed.
Intentions that never became inventions
Dreams that died as dreams
I was your potentials
When you were alive
Now I die with you.
Ok guys let's start with the analysis.
First we consider the speaker.who is the speaker in the above poem? Whose voice are you hearing in your head? Is it the voice of the writer or is the writer speaking through personae,real or imagined?
These are the first question you have to answer.
When you read the above poem within the first and second stanza without getting to the end,one may just conclude that the voice is that of the speaker.
Within stanza 3 ,4 and 5 a novice Wil just see it that the writer is going to die perhaps making some last statement.
Well you may be literally right but it is more beyond the literary meaning.
When you take time to read the poem over and over,you would realise that it was something within a dying poet or someone that is speaking.
This can be grasp from stanza two line " when I realised you nursed me " this was an idea ,a dream or an ambition which the dying person has thought of over time.
Stanza 3 line 2" so with every of my potential knit inside of you" this lay credence that potential was the speaker. He isn't happy that the man did not get to develop him when he was full of life and had the chance to develop his potentials.
From the last stanza ,you would get to understand plainly that those potentials he failed to develop are not happy as they are dying because once a man dies,his goals, potentials and ambition dies with him.
From the last stanza you will also understand that the dying man was just wishing to be successful but he fails to work to actualize this dreams. This can be seen in stanza 5 line 1" intentions that never become inventions.
The next thing to consider after the speaker is the setting that is the place where it happened. Is it in the past,in the present or the future?
So from the choice of words used in the poem,you would realise that the setting is in the present probably on the hospital bed.
The next to consider is the form of the poem.
From my previous post,I mentioned forms of poems.the above poem has no regularly pattern,rhyme or Meter ,hence it is said to be a free verse poem because its form is its irregularity.
IF I HAVE REALLY EXPLAINED WELL, DO GIVE ME A THUMBS UP IN THE COMMENT SECTION AND DON'T FORGET TO FOLLOW ME AS I BRING MORE POEMS TO YOU AND ITS ANALYSIS.
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