Poem Analysis: To You By Kenneth Koch

The poem To You by Kenneth Koch

The poem “To You” by Kenneth Koch is a romantic love poem that the persona uses to express his deep love to his love. The title of the poem “To You” further reveals how the persona treasures his love. He directly addresses her and showers her with deep and romantic emotional feelings. The poem is radiant and possesses high spirits as well as the rare moods in which inspiration, affection, and happiness are the same, since they reflect how you feel. At the end of the poem, there is unity between sunlight and the attention of the lover. This depicts the persona’s world. That is, the water that is heart is swimming in. this further portrays love to him, as a pathway and a necessity from which he derives his joy and happiness.

By comparing his love with “a sheriff searching for a walnut”, the persona implies that his love for “You” is all he needs and he is out to do anything at any cost to attain that love back.

To the persona, the love is so crucial, no wonder he compares it with a walnut that is expected to solve a murder case that has never been solved for several years. This also serves to depict the patience that the persona has put in his quest to love his beloved “You.” By comparing the precious walnut, the persona seeks to imply that his love towards his lover is by itself a relief to most of the problems he may encounter. It is this love that liberates and frees him from the painful and unfavorable experiences of life.
The expression “red /
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Roof in her heart” is not only puzzling but also emphasizes the extent of the deep love that exists between the murderer and the persona of the poem.

This expression means that the persona forgets the murderer, or that the murderer forgets himself, and the gap that is left is filled with love. Here, the persona envisages building a life with his lover. The persona also hopes that in love, they can endure all the challenges of life and emerge as victors. To him, they can live even beyond old age happily and with much freedom, provided they are bonded together in love. This implication is made vivid in the line, “For this we live a thousand years. For this we love, and we live because we love.” By celebrating that they are not inside a bottle, the persona appreciates the role of freedom in loving. He therefore advocates for a love that has no boundaries. A love hat is pure and deep from the heart. He means that it is such kind of love that can live to endure all the barriers in life, leading to a peaceful and a happy

coexistence.
The lines “I love you as a Kid searches for a goat” denotes the zeal and determination which the persona employs in his affection towards his lover. It is this intense love that drives him crazy. The power of love is also emphasized in this line. Love is being compared to “shirttails in the wind”. It hence has the power to sweep an individual emotionally, hence making the persona “crazy.”
The persona is also portrayed as being at peace whenever his lover is around.
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He compares the feeling with a wind blowing from a big blue sea. This further implies that the presence of his lover brings him a “cooling effect” like the one brought by the winds being described in the poem. The persona demonstrates his beautiful life with his lover by comparing the feeling to a sea so deep and shiny. Here, the depth of the sea is symbolically used. It symbolizes the intense level of affection that the persona has towards his lover who brings joy and happiness to him. The persona is ready to use any means to reach and to be in touch with his lover. He compares this imagination with cycling across Africa, searching for that rare kind of his soul mate. He yearns to be always connected to his lover, even in his heart. This demonstrates the surpassing and surprising quality of joy that emanates from love.
The persona raises his concern about trust in their relationship. His thoughts are harmonized by the mere feeling that his lover is trustworthy. He compares this feeling with that of a path that leads him to where he would wish to be, close to his lover. In the end of the poem, the persona tries to posit that he loves “You” all the time, from sunset, to sunrise, and to sunset again. The first thing he appears to think of in the morning upon waking up, is nothing but his lover. This is made clear in the last two lines of the poem, “I love you best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun receives me in the questions which you always pose”