Poetry Can Be Effective on Many Levels. on the One Hand, It Can Be Beautiful to Read Or

Poetry can be effective on many levels. On the one hand, it can be beautiful to read or have a pleasing sound. However, most poems have a larger idea, or a theme. The theme of a poem is not just “what it is about” but its connection to something larger than itself. An effective poem should help the reader come to a conclusion about one of the big questions of human existence such as our relationship to each other or to nature. Two major themes of poetry are nature and death. Examining poems by different authors can help us to understand the range of different approaches to these themes.

Two poems about the relationship of humans to nature are Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold and Carmel Point by Robinson Jeffers. Both poems are written from the perspective of a narrator standing on or overlooking a rocky beach or cliff. In both cases, the poets are struck by how the coming and going of the tide is a metaphor for human existence, In Carmel Point, Jeffers says that the beach used to be pristine and pastoral, but now it’s been taken over (“defaced”) by homes. At the very beginning of the poem he sets the tone to show that he thinks the place is worse for the coming of humans. On the other hand: he sees that the sea is oblivious to humans (“does it care? Not faintly. It has all time.”) Compared to the eternity of nature, people are somewhat irrelevant. Jeffers says that people shouldn’t be so self-centered, and should focus on larger things, because we are basically like a tide that comes and goes from the earth.

Matthew Arnold addresses some of the same themes, but comes to a different conclusion. He actually thinks that the tide is sad, because it reminds him of the “turbid ebb and flow of human misery.” He talks about how people from the beginning of time have looked at the tide coming and going and have probably had the same thoughts, again bringing home the idea that humanity is like a cycle or a wave that continually comes and goes. In the end, though, he concludes that love is the answer to despair. Even though he thinks the world is full of misery, he tells his love that they should “be true to one another” to try to override the despair of the world and the sense of aloneness.

Another common theme of poetry is death. Two poems that address this theme are John Donne’s “Death be not Proud” and Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for death”. In both poems, Death is personified. However, in the first, Donne describes how humans overcome death. In the second, Dickinson shows that Death is inevitable and that essentially all of life is a journey towards eventual death. In the first poem, Donne addresses Death directly. He says that Death should not be proud, and that Death has not in fact actually killed anyone. He says while people’s bodies may die, death actually “delivers” their souls. Because he believes in the immortal soul, he says that “one short sleep past, we wake eternally”. In other words, in Donne’s point of view, Death is more like sleep than a permanent state, and the important thing is eternal life in heaven.

Dickinson, on the other hand, takes a completely different approach. She sees death as completely inevitable. She says that she couldn’t stop for death, so he “stopped for me” – that is, whether or not she wanted to go, she had no choice. She uses a metaphor of a journey to show her youth (with the metaphor of children at school) and her later life (“fields of grazing grain”), and finally her elderly years and death (“we passed the setting sun”). She uses the symbolism of a house to describe her gravesite (“a house that seemed a swelling of the ground”). There’s no suggestion of any kind of afterlife, heaven, or “release” of her soul as in the Donne poem: we understand that the narrator is just simply dead, and that she feels that her life was a constant journey toward that state.

Poetry is used in many ways to show different themes important to people. The four poems here are in very different styles and approaches. Where the Jeffers poem reflects on the modern world with suburban houses, the Arnold poem looks back in time. The Donne poem is formal and structured, where the Dickinson poem is looser in form but uses a controlling metaphor to get her point across. Even with different forms and approaches, all four poets are able to deliver their themes of larger ideas through poetry.