Poetry Place Collected Poems

My Wife the Morning Sunshine

My Wife the morning sunshine Poet’s Corner

My wife
Brightens up
The room

Like the morning sunshine
Driving away
My dark nightmares
 
Filling me with love
Peace and happiness
Like an angel

Sent to me
From the love of Gods
To rescue me

The poem is a compact, condensed structure of language which is smaller, more formal, more patterned, and more complicated than prose. It is an architecture of lines and shapes, scenes and stories, but it is also an experience that engages the reader’s senses, emotions, and understanding of life.

The poet uses the realities of colors and shapes, sounds, smells, touch, and feelings to create single, clear, intense images through precise meanings of words and guidance of grammar.

The poem is a complex ordering of relationships and experiences, taking unrelated things (images, objects, qualities, ideas) and putting them together to reveal that they are related after all--something new and unexpected about the nature of things. In addition to literal, specific images, the poet has several other tools, known collectively as figurative imagery, at his/her disposal:

1. A simile is a plainly stated comparison that says one thing is like another thing. For example, “Superman was as fast as a speeding bullet.”

2. A metaphor is a direct statement of assumed likeness. For example, “She is my sunshine.”

3. A symbol is a physical thing which represents something else, like the flag is used to represent our nation or a wedding ring represents the vows of marriage.

4. Personification is the endowment of some thing or idea with the characteristics of a person, thus making an abstract idea concrete, as in “Time has gobbled up my life.”

5. Allegory is the use of the entire poem to compare two things, where the pattern of what is named and what is represented holds throughout the piece, developing the equivalence point by point:

Like a ship, that through the ocean wide,
By conduct of some star doth make her way,
Whenas a storm hath dimmed her trusty guide,
Out of her course doth wander far astray;
So I, whose star, that wont with her bright ray,
Me to direct, with clouds is overcast,
Do wander now in darkness and dismay,
Through hidden perils round about me placed.
Yet hope I well, that when this storm is past
My Helice, the lodestar of my life,
Will shine again, and look on me at last,
With lovely light to clear my cloudy grief.
Till then I wander carefull comfortless,
In secret sorrow and sad pensiveness.

~”Like As a Ship” by Edmund Spencer

Another layer of the poem is the sound and rhythm. The pulse and harmony of sound are more than just decorative devices. They are the life of the poem as the arrangements of syllables, as well as punctuation and the quality of sound produce a thread that helps to make the pieces fit together as a unit, becoming both engaging and revealing.

The pattern of visual presentation is also important in conveying the intended communication to the reader. The length of the lines--short, intense lines or longer, fluid lines--can establish a tone which will reinforce the message. The organization of stanzas also contributes to the overall effect, as well as the general shape of the poem itself.

Finally, there is the dimension of meaning. The intricate relationship of the physical beat and melody of the lines, sensations of images created in the reader’s mind, the emotion, and the understanding that comes through a specific ordering of events produce a spark of sudden recognition of some universal truth.

A poem should not describe or tell, but should suggest and awaken, through any thought or feeling possible, a sharp consciousness of life, humanity, and the universe. Beauty is not a static substance which can be isolated, but consists in the way things are put together and react upon each other.

ASSIGNMENT: Write a poem about some characteristic of someone you know, using the various techniques discussed to make the reader experience a reaction to those qualities.