Expert: Clare Washbrook - 4/11/2006

Question
I am learning how to analyze poems, poetry was something my mother liked and since her death I had started writing a little. This is something I have little to no experience with. I picked an easy poem that I thought you could easily help me understand and analyze.

I dream, and my dreams are all broken;
I love and my loving is vain...
I speak, and the words are all spoken,
I look and see nothing but pain.

thanks
-Jack

Answer
I am not sure what you understand already; it is difficult to guage people's levels of comprehension without further information, so please excuse me if I explain basics which you are already familiar with.

At the most basic level, you can see that it is one stanza (verse) and has a traditional form.  The lines are of equal length and the metre (rhythm created by pauses and stresses on syllables) are the same in rhyming lines.  By this I mean that lines 1 and 3 have the same metre and form as well as rhyming with each other.  

The rhyme scheme is also very traditional - ABAB - alternate line rhyme.

The content;  simply put, the tone of the poem is pessimistic.  It is explaining a frame of mind where the poet (voice - which may or may not be the poet's own voice) feels that everything has gone wrong with his/her life and that all hope is lost.  If one cannot understand the meaning of a line then one can often work out the tone from the words used - broken, vain, nothing, pain.  It is a poem without hope.  The words used also imply that there is an acceptance of this, there is no anger or railing against the situation - it is merely stated as being so.  It also reveals what the speaker has been like before - he has had dreams and has loved, he has had a life but those experiences obviously ended badly and that has made him feel the way that he feels in this poem.  The fact that each line is almost a metaphor (by that I mean that it could be viewed as a metaphor or as a factual statement) reflects the conflict between emotional states - "I dream" vs. "my dreams are all broken".  Does the speaker stop dreaming?  Stop loving?  Or will he carry on regardless of the disappointments.  The implication is that he does not believe that things will ever be better and that this will always happen, but there is ambiguity about whether or not he gives up.  Each line is in the present tense, I dream instead of I dreamed, I love instead of I loved - the choice of using the present tense suggests that the speaker still dreams and loves despite having lost hope.  The interesting aspect of this is that there is no conclusion, no indication that behaviour will change.  He "sees nothing but pain" but will still carry on regardless of it - so does this mean that there is some hope hidden somewhere within his hopelessness that he just can't see?  

It may be that this is the writer's real voice.  I am unsure when Louis Lamour wrote this poem as he started out in poetry but moved on to novel writing.  However, he saw many horrors during his time in the war and he eventually died of cancer.  It is equally possible that he wrote it simply to express a depressed and hopeless perspective.

Analysing poetry;  poetry can be a very personal thing.  Although there is always an authorial intent (what the poet meant to say) there are also always other interpretations and poets have often been surprised at what readers have pulled out of poems that they didn't originally intend.  Poets do craft poems but they also access their subconscious during that crafting and reveal things which they were not aware of.  So, there really isn't any 'wrong' answer when interpreting poetry - obviously there is a technically 'right' one, but all training in poetry analysis is graded upon whether or not the reader can examine alternative interpretations.  So, my best advice in exploring poetry analysis is "don't get caught up in looking for the right answer".  Also, don't think that every question you raise about the poem needs a definite answer - as you can see above, often one simply has to acknowledge that a question is there and it adds to your understanding.

There are dozens of language websites on the internet which you could use to learn the conventions and terminology of poetry - simile, metaphor, enjambment etc.  These would be a good first stop, because they will teach you about aspects of poetry to look out for.  Also, make sure that you explore the poet a little too, their life may lend you a little insight into their writing.  For instance, if you were examining a Simon Armitage poem it would help to know that he usually explores the relationship between parent and child or with Robert Browning, that he was obsessed with Medieval Italian Politics (one cannot hope to understand the context of "My Last Duchess" without knowing about this obsession).

I hope that this has helped you a little.  Feel free to get back to me at any time about this poem, another or just general ideas on analysis.  I hope you enjoy this new interest.

best wishes,
C L Washbrook