Poem Analysis: The Boy Made Of Paper By Jasper Sole

The Boy Made of Paper is a poem composed by Jasper Sole. This brilliant piece eloquently portrays the emptiness of living without a mother.
Loss is a very distinct and disconcerting experience for everyone. Sole uses a boy to explore loss, and this emotion is powerfully reinforced through delicate and expressive language. The purpose of this poem is discreet until the fourth stanza where the reason behind the boy’s misery becomes blatantly clear; he is "a boy without a mother". There is, however, foreshadowing of the situation that only makes sense once the poem is reread. This is evident in the opening line of the poem; the boy is sitting “alone” each night. The brightness of the mother’s smile seems to be “fading”. She is gone, and the impact

on the boy is awful.
Repetition is a force in this poem. “The Boy Made of Paper” is the cunningly chosen title, and this paper image pervades the poem. The boy is being compared to a flimsy material therefore confirming his fragility. Certain language in this poem strengthens this connection, such as the boy having “parchment bones”. This boy has a “crinkled” mind and he is rustling in the wind. We as an audience can imagine the crinkling of a piece of paper and the sound that it makes when it rustles, giving the poem auditory depth and inviting the audience to connect with their senses.
The Boy Made of Paper is quite a short poem, consisting of 5 stanzas, each 5 lines each.

As this poem aims to communicate loss, Sole has incorporated an element of loss into each stanza. In the first, the boy is losing his ability to really feel the sun's warmth. We realise it is not physical warmth he needs; the warmth from his mother’s smile is what he desires. In the second stanza, the boy is losing the memory of how that extraordinary smile could illuminate his mind; this light "grew dimmer by the day, fading". In the third stanza, we see how much this is affecting the boy's emotions. He is weeping, tears falling down his frail cheeks and his "blotted resolve weakening"; he is losing his determination to carry on. In the penultimate stanza, Sole’s paper image culminates in a book. The boy becomes this book. Life with his mother was full of "wondrous tales" and "beautiful illustrations", but now that she is gone, these fond tales and illustrations are rubbing out to grey smudges, showing just how empty this boy’s life is now. The substance to his world is lost. Lastly, and possibly the most powerful loss of the stanzas, pages of this book/boy are blowing away in the wind. This boy loses whole parts of himself, letting them be torn from him by the bitterness of the world. They are torn one by one, seemingly slow and it can only be imagined how ghastly this loss is for the boy. The poet causes the empathetic reader to feel enormous

sorrow.
Sole creates strong imagery using impressive metaphors and detailed, descriptive language. The sun becomes a “conflagrant giant” and here exaggeration is used to show this boy cannot be warmed by anything anymore. The chiffon of his cheeks is transparent, leaving the boy without substance, although the softness of chiffon betrays his vulnerability. These tangible details show the extent of the boy’s loss. I especially like the lighthouse metaphor. For this poor little boy, its beacon was his mother’s smile, shining across the distance for him. How sad that this symbol of outreach no longer reaches him. It is interesting that neither a conflagrant sun, nor a lighthouse beacon can light up his dark world now. Sole’s juxtaposition of paper and ideas of “diaphonous” and “chiffon” add texture, a soft envelope holding this brittle paper boy together.
Jasper Sole discovered poetry when he was 18, and uses the pseudonym ‘Vex Darkly’ for his online postings.

The New Zealand born poet (Goodreads, 2015) is known for his ever-changing style and his talented ability to compose beautiful literature from a range of different topics (Amazon, 2015). This poem is a very heart-wrenching piece. Sole has taken an experience that many people have gone through and portrayed it through a young, innocent child. The child being the vessel in this case causes a deep stir of emotions from an empathetic audience, seemingly intensified because we realise this boy is young and faces more difficulties growing up without a mother rather than losing her as an adult. Because of Sole's clear approach to describing the boy's emotions, I see a small insight as to what life would be like when losing a parent. I think it would be extremely hard to move on from an experience like this, especially at a young age that I assume this boy is from the way he is portrayed. He is not old enough to focus on remembering the memories of his mother; he lets the thought of her blow away focusing instead on how empty it makes him feel. I think Sole portrays very accurately what I assume all children would feel when losing a parent; fragile, lost, vulnerable and empty.
The Boy Made of Paper is a very successful piece, Sole uses striking language and dramatic imagery to communicate feelings to the reader that they themselves may not have experienced. After reading this poem,

however, they may have a great idea as to how hard it can be to get through a situation of loss.