Johnny Liu
5/19/2016
Meaning of things in the world
There is always a "how" and a "why" for a thing to exist in the world. Weeks ago, I started to 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, and he didn’t focus on one specific topic, the poem I choose is about 11 pairs of relative things in our life, but most 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 are the same, and the last line is a conclusion. "12 Lines Poem" written by David uses 11 pairs of compare or contrast words to show that all situations and objects in the world have two sides, and people need to face both sides of them to live strong and real.
The meanings of the poem are 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, the poem talks about, “For every Heaven, there is a Hell; For every moment there is a now”(12 lines poem). Many people in the world are 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 something darkness things behind it. There may have capitation behind succeed; there may have lies behind the 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) Nothing 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 of 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 everything has its reason to exist our world. “For every push, there is a pull. For every fall there is a fool”(12 lines poem). Everything 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 thing on a single side; we can’t learn a thing 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 makes kind of meter in the poem, the first 11 lines both start with a “For”. This is kind of a repetition in the poem, this makes the poem be easy to remember and also easy to read. The emotion of this poem can be different dependent on different people, for me I think it kind of inspires 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. There are two relative things describe in every line of the first 11 lines, their relationship is different, some are the opposite to each other like heaven and hell; some is one exist because of the other one like pull and push. The poet uses two things compare each other 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.
There is also a ryhmth scheme in this poem, which is ABAB,CDCD,EFEF. This give a poem a feel of clear and strict. The number 1 line and the number 5 line in the poem is questions, and I found out that the follow lines of those two questions line are the answers to those two question. So I think the two questions in this poem separate the poem into two parts, and the answer kind of lead out the finally conclusion sentence of the poem. The first part of the poem portraies that everything in the world has a why, and the sencond part of the poem pritraies that everything in the world has a how.
“12 Lines Poem” is a simple poem, it doesn't have complicated language, it doesn't have long or hard words, but it use it special to show there are two critical ideas. 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 the scare. When we face them, 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 thing, 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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