Johnny Liu
5/19/2016
Poem Analysis of 12 Line Poem
Weeks ago, I started memorize a poem called “12 Line Poem”, it is written by Gordon David. He is not a famous poet, his poems are about everything in his life, he didn’t focus on one specific topic, the poem I choose is about 11 pairs of relative things in our life, but mostly people only look at one side of the 11 pairs of thing. The structure of the poem is kind of interesting, because the first 11 lines in the poem is the same, and the last line is an conclusion. The reason why I chose this poem is because the argument in the poem attracts me a lot, it uses 11 pair of things to show that behind every thing should be another things behind it, it may not as positive as the other one, but they actually exist in the world, people just afraid to look at them.
The meaning in the poem is very critical. It lines up 11 pairs of things which exist in the world with another thing on the opposite side of it , for example, in the poem it talks about, “For every Heaven, there is a Hell; For every moment there is a now”(12 lines poem). Many people in the world is afraid to face the things which behind the good things. I can’t deny that look at the good things in the world is a good thought, but we can’t be Blind optimism. “For every truth there is a lie”(12 lines poem), many beautiful things has somethings darkness things behind it. There may has captation behind succeed; there may has lies behind truth. There are not only positive things in the world but also many things seem negative which against the good things, we shouldn't be afraid to look those negative things, we need to accept them. When will those things appear? “When every day we face our fears.”(12 lines poem) Nothings is horrible in our life, the way to face those negative things is to give ourselves a goal to reach the positive things in our life. We would have motivation when we try to get away from the negative things. This would be the deeper meaning for this poem, the suffer meaning is the negative things would appear when we face our fear. We don’t need to be afraid of anything, we can’t let the them beat us, we need to be strong in our life, when we are not afraid of anything, we will be the strongest in the world. Many time, the things beat us is the deepest afraid in our heart.
There is another meaning in the poem is everythings has its reason to exist our world. “For every push, there is a pull. For every fall there is a fool”(12 lines poem). Everythings has a reason to exist, a person would never fall without a reason, he should be careless when he fall, this is same as a person would never succeed without hard work. On one side of the door people need to pull the door to open it, on the other side people should push to open it. In our life, we can’t only look at one things on a single side; we can’t learn a things without knowing the reason of why the things happen. It is very hard to do these in our life, so we need to think more, this is one of the reasons why some people can get succeed in the world. Think more; think carefully; look things carefully, sound easy but hard to do it consistently.
The structure of this poem is easy, the structure of the first 11 lines is the same, there are two parts in each line, which make kind of meter in the poem, the first 11 lines both start with an “For”. This is kind of a repetition in the poem, this make the poem be easy to remember and also easy to read. The emotion of this poem is dependent on different people, for me I think it kind of inspire people in the end part, I would read the last sentence harder and louder, and the last sentence is also a conclusion to the whole poem. The last sentence is the most important sentence in the poem, so it is different of the pattern for the first 11 lines. There are two relative things describe in every line of the first 11 lines, their relationship is different, some is the opposite to each other like heaven and hell; some is one exist because of the other one like pull and push. Although the poem doesn't have rhythm in his poem, the poet uses two things in each line to make a contract to help the reader easy to remember his poem. This it is the special in this poem, not only rhythm scheme make the poem be easy to read, some specific structure, and meter pattern also can do it.
“12 Lines Poem” is a simple poem, it doesn't have complicated language, it doesn't have long or hard words, but there is two critical ideas inside the poem. There are something exist in the world which many people don't want to face, or admit their existence, because those things don't show as good as the other things, those things are inside their fear. Everything has their reason to exist, when people face their fear, those “bad” things would appear, in front of those “bad” things, we must be strong instead of scare. When we face they, they won't be scared anymore, they can be the motivation for us to get the great things in the world. Second, behind every beautiful things, there should be some things behind them, behinds every smile, there are tears; behinds succeed their are hard work and fail, everything in the world should have a hard process to show its beautiful in the world.
Cite
Gordon David, “12 Lines Poem”.
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