Poem – Back to my Arms
In the dark of the midnight,
Lay me, eyes open, lacking sleep in the night,
Thinking, taxing my mind, wandering the valleys,
You crisscross thoughts; within my thoughts are alleys,
Wanting to see, hold, and have you again as I remember with nostalgia,
The days when we had fun, in the tough terrains,
The travels, journeys, hikes, to bond, find, and magnify,
Your unconditional consideration to spare soft spots in your heart,
For a wretched man, who needed affection most, but messed, and lost one another
The happenings of the world, being subjects to life dictates,
Made us vulnerable to the temptation that drifted me off like a heavily-loaded truck
Veers off and kills everything on its way; our progress off the course,
I contemplate the words to use, to have you back, see,
To seize one of the ever freshest of roses of the world, and entangle back in my garden.
Analysis
The poem chosen for analysis is Back to My Arms to depict its period in time. There are distinct elements to consider in the analysis, which gives its period of publication and placement in the right era in human history. In doing so, some figurative concepts of poetry would be explored, including the theme, genre, versification, cultural content, and figures of speech. This section elaborates on the principal identifiers of the poem that qualifies it as a Romantic-era poem.
The theme of the poem and genre are the significant factors qualifying it to fit in the Romanticism era. Love is a commonly written subject by Roman poets, with expressions of emotions. The poet speaks of times when they were in love, expresses his feelings about the events that happened, and wishes to revise the same feelings again. He addresses how his mind was tasked in some sections, wishes to hold the love of his life again, and remembers her with nostalgia. Through various occurrences, the writer wishes he could revisit time to experience the same. One central feature of this poem is the formation, which resonates with the qualities of poems in the same era and culture (Oates 501). Poems with 14 lines are sonnets, the same appearance as the one published above. Most sonnets had the poet’s idea within the 14 lines, mixing up various features of writing and style.
The poetic form in poetry classifies a majority into their time in history through their differential features. In the poem, there are specific writing styles such as rhyming schemes, alliteration, consonance, irony, and similes. Back to My Arms has various forms of these expressions in different lines. Rhyming schemes include valleys, and alleys, midnight and tight. This is a type of rhyme scheme appearing at the end of two or more lines. Not all the syllables of the words sound the same, but the last two or three have a similar tone and sound. The first two have –alleys and the last two rhymes mentioned have –ight.
The other poetic device is a flashback; as the writer mentions show, he remembers with nostalgia. This is an expression of how he felt then and how he would like to bring in the same in the current time. A simile is the direct likening of one feature to another. Drifting off the road combines both a simile and imagery. Imagery is the image that a reader conjures up from the words used by a writer or poet. Music and art were typical characteristics of the romanticism era. Art was broad and consisted of songs, artwork, and poetry. These showed much intellectual orientation of the people living during that time. Those who could not write poems or songs engaged in artwork and paintings. For this, it shows the poet was brilliant and book-smart to manage writing the poem. The cultural context is the family unit, which people would develop with their loved ones during that time.
Finally, writing poetry varies from one region and time and has mixed messages to the people. Someone who lost his love and wished he could have it back wrote the poem Back to my Arms. He shows emotional imbalances, remembers with regrets, and asks the lover to reconsider their affair. The genre of love and theme classifies this as work in the romanticism period, added to the 14 lines that characterize the poem. Other poems’ qualities are in the stylistic devices used, such as similes, rhyming schemes, and imagery. Words such as alleys and valleys have a similar ending; they appear at the end of distinct lines to show an end rhyme. The direct poor control of the truck is evident in the severity of the accident caused, similar to the destruction that the lost affair had to the poet. The Romanticism era was full of such artwork from various intellects, which classifies it under the 1800 era when there was an increasing number of poets and artists with such expressions.
Work Cited
Oates, Carol J. “The Death Throes of Romanticism: The Poems of Sylvia Plath.” Scholarly Journals, vol.9, no.3.