Love Poem By Billy Collins

1. Can you paraphrase the poem?

- This poem is written from a wife to her husband saying that his love is everything she needs and there’s nothing in the world that she would trade it for, even for money. She expresses how much she values him and her feelings towards him.

2. Who is the speaker (persona) in the poem? How would you describe this persona?

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3. What is the speaker’s tone? Which words reveal this tone? Is the poem ironic?

- The tone of the poem is affectionate because she shows her love towards her husband through this poem. Words that reveal this tone is “prize” meaning that she values his love. Another word that describes the tone would be “repay”, she’s saying that there is no way she can recompense his love with anything else.

This poem
4. What heavily connotative words are used? What words have unusual or special
meanings? Are any words or phrases repeated? If so, why? Which words do you need to look up?
- The author provides connotative words, such as, “repay” which is a metaphor where the author compares love to an object that can be used as a gift. The author uses anaphora like “If ever” to express how much she loves and values her husband. Words that were hard to understand and had to look up would be “the East”, “quench”, and “ought”.
5. What images does the poet use? How do the images relate to one another? Do these
Images form a unified pattern (a motif) throughout the poem?
- The author uses imagery throughout the entire poem, for example, in line 1 “If ever two were one, then surely we”. The author compares her, and her husband’s love to other couples, and that she and her husband are one. The images relate to one another because they express the love that she has for her husband. They do form a theme throughout the poem which is