Richard Wilbur's Mind

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The poem “Mind” is one of those that one may have to read more than once to truly understand. Richard Wilbur did an incredible job in discussing the way a normal mind may work. The mind is something that people take for granted. He writes that the mind is like a bat that beats in caverns alone. This is to remind people that one’s mind is completely theirs, and absolutely no one else can enter it. One may think about anything and dream boundlessly. The mind can explore itself, knowing the limit into how far to go out into the unknown. The first quatrain is actually very straight forward. It starts comparing the mind to a bat and how they both react. “So… Wilbur is being a little disingenuous in referring to his poem as a simile. That said, the whole of the poem is really no more than the working out of Wilbur’s initial simile, The Mind is like a bat” (Poemshape.com) Some start to question if the cavern that the bat is in is supposed to be compared to consciousness that the mind is in. Having this comparison actually helps us get a better understanding of this poem. In the last two lines of the first quatrain the poet talks about ‘contriving by a kind of senseless wit, not to conclude against a wall of stone’. This means that the speaker says that the bat, like the mind, is surrounded and continues to create scenarios that are pointless and in a …show more content…

“The bat has to need to falter or explore,” this line means to me that since the Wilbur is comparing the bat to the mind, he is meaning that he is afraid to let the mind explore. This is many people that know there limits and are scared to see what is in the beyond. Our minds are there for us to explore though, to dream without limits. This is exactly what the bat is afraid to do. The bat knows its way around the cavern and he is safe and secure in it. This is the way the mind can be, not wanting to venture out into the

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