Analysis Of Absence By Elizabeth Jennings

985 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Poetry comparative

The poem I am writing about is called ‘Absence’ and was written by British poet Elizabeth Jennings. The content of the poem signifies that it is about a loss, either in the form of a death of a loved one or the end to a romantic relationship. How the writer feels about this loss is portrayed by comparing the way she feels inside as being alien to what is going on around her, which seems to be life going on as normal for others.
Themes
The theme of this poem is portrayed in a very straight-forward way, as the writer opens the poem by talking about visiting the place where she had last met the person in which she is referring to throughout. This signifies the end of knowing this person, which as stated previously could either mean a death or
This is shown where is says “And nothing instructed me to forget” because if nothing around her has moved on from her last visit then how is she supposed to. This also highlights the fact that whoever she is talking about was of importance to her as she cannot move on or forget.
Further, in the second stanza, the theme of feeling grief due to a loss is implied again with her explanation that she cannot share the ecstasy in which the birds are singing around her. The feeling of pain becomes more and more prominent throughout the poem and she even questions how everything can go on so pleasurably around her, when her world is so painful.
In the third stanza, it seems that the theme of feeling pain takes over as it mentions that her surroundings seem to change, as though there had been an earthquake, due to thinking of the name of the person she has lost. This again relates back to the main theme of a loss of someone important as her world and the outside world now appear to mirror one another just by thinking about

Show More
Related

  • Analysis of Tracy K. Smith´s Life on Mars

    2420 Words  | 5 Pages

    As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...

    Read More

  • Robert Updike's The Great Scarf Of Birds

    428 Words  | 1 Pages

    As a way to end his last stanza, the speaker creates an image that surpasses his experiences. When the flock rises, the speaker identifies it as a lady’s gray silk scarf, which the woman has at first chosen, then rejected. As the woman carelessly tosses the scarf toward the chair the casual billow fades from view, like the birds. The last image connects nature with a last object in the poet's

    Read More

  • Nancy Cato's Poem 'The Dead Swagman'

    646 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are multiple examples of visual imagery in this poem. An example of a simile is “curled like a possum within the hollow trunk”. The effect this has is the way it creates an image for the reader to see how the man is sleeping. An example of personification is, “yet both belonged to the bush, and now are one”. The result this has is how it creates an emotion for the reader to feel

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Marilyn Dumont's 'When You Walk Through My Door'

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first stanza describes the depth of despair that the speaker is feeling, without further explanation on its causes. The short length of the lines add a sense of incompleteness and hesitance the speaker feels towards his/ her emotions. This is successful in sparking the interest of the readers, as it makes the readers wonder about the events that lead to these emotions. The second and third stanza describe the agony the speaker is in, and the long lines work to add a sense of longing and the outpouring emotion the speaker is struggling with. The last stanza, again structured with short lines, finally reveals the speaker 's innermost desire to "make love" to the person the speaker is in love

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Backyard Blues By Natasha Trethewey

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    The interpretations of what comes after death may vary greatly across literature, but one component remains constant: there will always be movement. In her collection Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey discusses the significance, permanence and meaning of death often. The topic is intimate and personal in her life, and inescapable in the general human experience. Part I of Native Guard hosts many of the most personal poems in the collection, and those very closely related to the death of Trethewey’s mother, and the exit of her mother’s presence from her life. In “Graveyard Blues”, Trethewey examines the definition of “home” as a place of lament, in contrast to the comforting meaning in the epitaph beginning Part I, and the significance

    Read More

  • The Drought Year By Hugh Wright

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    This gives the effect that although there is mass devastation, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, in this case for the eagle, the leftover remains of a carcass. However, as seen throughout the poem this isn’t the case for everyone and everything as the dead or dying clearly outnumber those prospering from the drought. This further adds to the miserable and discouraging mood of the poem. Other poetic devices are also used during the course of the

    Read More

  • My Papa's Waltz And The Ballad Of Birmingham Family Bonds

    1365 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although the little girl doesn’t listen to the mother the first time she eventually listens in the end. For example, in stanzas 1-4, the little girl asks if she can go to the Freedom March not once, but twice even after her mother had already denied her the first time. These stanzas show how the daughter is a little disobedient at first, but then is able to respect her mother’s wishes. In stanzas 5 and 6, as the little girl is getting ready the mother is happy and smiling because she knows that her little girl is going to be safe, or so she thinks. By these stanzas the reader is able to tell how happy the mother was because she thought her daughter would be safe by listening to her and not going to the March. The last two stanzas, 7 and 8, show that the mother senses something is wrong, she runs to the church to find nothing, but her daughter’s shoe. At this moment she realizes that her baby is gone. These stanzas symbolize that even though her daughter listened to her she still wasn’t safe and is now dead. The Shoe symbolizes the loss the mother is going through and her loss of hope as well. This poem shows how elastic the bond between the daughter and her mother is because the daughter respected her mother’s wish by not going to the March and although the daughter is now dead her mother will always have her in her heart. By her having her

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Forgiving My Father

    1041 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poem starts out with the daughter 's visit to her father and demand for money; an old memory is haunting the daughter. feeding off her anger. The daughter calls the father "a ghost [who] stood in [her] dreams," indicating that he is dead and she is now reliving an unpleasant childhood memory as she stands in front of his

    Read More

  • The Meaning of What Are Years? by Marianne Moore

    223 Words  | 1 Pages

    Moore begins the last stanza with an ambiguous “So”. Although one has a heightened awareness of mortality, one “behaves,” one keeps the ego disciplined. This is the same concept as that of the caged bird who, though held captive in a cruelly small space, continues to sing with all his heart. Despite the bird's lack of “satisfaction” because of his loss of flight and freedom, he knows “joy”.

    Read More

  • An Amateur’s Exploration of, “Because I could not stop for Death”

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...represent the stages of one’s life. She focuses on the most extreme sense of ends-death, and rejects it as final. What the poem arrived at is that some aspect of life or form of existence continues after death.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Imagery In Annabel Lee

    709 Words  | 2 Pages

    Stanzas one and two of the poem are full of imagery. The first stanza sets the scene for the poem “in a kingdom by the sea” (Poe 609) which makes you feel as if the story is going to have a “romantic” (Overview) feel to it. Then Annabel Lee comes into the story with “no other thought than to love and be loved by me” (Poe 609); This sentence is full of imagery in the sense that it makes you feel the immense capacity of love Annabel Lee had for the speaker if that was her only thought. In the second stanza the imagery takes a turn that shifts from loving and inviting to pain; The love between Annabel and the speaker was so strong that

    Read More

  • Exile

    658 Words  | 2 Pages

    The speaker struggles throughout the poem because she is leaving everything she has known behind, and she is going to a new land that she knows nothing about.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of One Art By Elizabeth Bishop

    970 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poem becomes personal on line 10 when she uses the first person and says “I lost my mother’s watch”. She is letting the reader know what she has lost in reality. Then she gets sidetracked to mention other things she has lost; she then mentions other things she has lost of much more importance such as houses, continents, realms, and cities, but then again mentions it was not so hard to lose those things. But in the end, mention the loss that really matters. She remembers the qualities of the lover she lost.

    Read More

  • Robert Frost's Home Burial

    1316 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ple. The way that Frost uses body language, shows how distant that the couple is becoming. There are many ways that people can handle grief, this poem is just one way that two people handle their lost. “Home Burial” also gives the “morbidness of death in these remote place; a women unable to take up her life again when her only child has died. The charming idyll” (Robyn V. Young, Editor, 195).

    Read More

  • The Differences and Similarities Between Caged Bird and Still I Rise

    1327 Words  | 3 Pages

    bird as the metaphor of the poem to get the message of the poem across

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Absence By Elizabeth Jennings

Open Document