A Poison Tree Analysis

The poem is written in free verse, offers no type of rhyme scheme, and in one long stanza. This contributes to

Jane Hirshfield connects to nature at her home in Marin County, California this is where she gets her inspiration for her poems. Hirshfield published “Tree” in 2000 as a free verse poem, divided into 4 stanzas and 4 sentences to convey the nature world. The poem represents a “young redwood” (line 2) growing near a house, near a kitchen window. The redwood is already scraping against the window frame of the house, reminding the reader of the “foolish” (line 1) idea of letting it grow there. Humans were created to be one with nature, but as they evolved as a species, they were obligated to choose between the materialistic world or the world of nature.

It creates a mood that readers can understand. Williams does a wonderful job contrasting death and life; his use of “attiring” and “disattiring” basically narrates how trees lose their leaves, leaving them “clothless”, but then the branches are preparing for what’s to come--their rebirth in the coming season. The liquid moon makes me think that he’s trying to create irony; the moon is liquid, as if melted, even though it’s winter time and everything is supposed to be frozen. The irony is subtle, yet very impactful when you notice it. Perhaps the long branches represent the strength of the trees despite the harsh environment around them. The buds can be seen as children being prepared by their parents for what’s to come, possible teaching them what to do and what not to do so that they can survive the winter and bloom in the spring. Like letting a child go off to college after years of care so that they can become their own person. The “wise trees” have experience, an experience that they have to share with their “buds”. The wise stand sleeping in the cold to take their last breath and let their children take their places. This poem is very meaningful because Williams creates a very important similarity between the trees and humans. Readers can relate because most parents go through the stage of letting their children go and letting them continue what they

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

The theme of the poem is loss. The seasons changing and turning impure are signs of that. Personification is used to express those words better in the poem. Personification is used on the word nature to help describe

The main character Melinda has stopped growing and changing, which leads to her being depressed. This is shown when Melinda states, “My tree is hopeless” (page 152). This quote does not only tell how Melinda changes due to being quiet, but it also relates to the speaker in “A Poison Tree”. These two stories relate because in “A Poison Tree” the speakers identity is also changing just like Melindas, and he also suffers in the end from not speaking up by becoming evil. Melinda feels that she is the “screwed-up ninth-grader” by not talking at all, which made others think she needed “professional help” (Page 105 & 153). This tells the reader that Melinda thinks the is useless and also an outcast. This is the “poison” that Melinda drinks and the poison that the speaker drink in “A Poison Tree” makes them evil. Even though these are two different emotions they still got poisoned from not engaging in conversations. The use of “poison” indicates that both main characters can be effected from something so toxic that it can change there whole perspective of the

In the first stanza(,) rhyme is used to point out the emotional state of the speakers outlook,

Throughout the poem, there is heavy use of metaphor for “poem”. For example, in the first stanza, “I ask them to

     The structure of the last three stanzas leaves us hanging from each one. If there was a song to this as music would rise in volume and pitch at each of the final stanza lines. If you read the poem right, the lines seem to echo in your head and slow your progress to the next stanza.

First the explanation of the poem would be the starting ground into really analyzing what this is about. Do Not Go Gentle

This is where I got frustrated with trying to understand the poem. I personally think of nature I think of peace and tranquility and I originally thought that the poem had a peaceful vibe to it. However, I started to analyze the poem while looking at the “Glossary of Traditional Symbols in Western Literature”. This glossary helped me break down some of the ideas to get a better understanding. The first word I decided to look at was the world blackbird, when you break the word down, the word black basically means sad and really bad things and the word bird means freedom, the complete opposite of sorrow and death. After I had looked at each part of the poem and then looked at it as a whole I notice two different tones to the poems story. The poem start off talking of aging, death, and obstacles, then it transitions to accomplishments, calmness, harmony, and purity. To conclude, I believe that every poem can have more then one type of tone and it is important to keep an open mind while reading

William Blake was a painter, engraver and poet of the Romantic era, who lived and worked in London. Many of Blake’s famous poems reside in his published collection of poems titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience. This collection portrays the two different states of the human soul, good and evil. Many poems in the Songs of Innocence have a counterpart poem in the Songs of Experience. The poem “A Poison Tree” is found in the Songs of Experience and it delves into the mind of man tainted with sin and corruption that comes with experience. In a simple and creative style, the religious theology of the Fall of Man is brought to life. The poem tells the story of how man fell from a state of innocence to impurity, focusing on the harmful repercussions of suppressed anger. Blake utilities many literary devices to successfully characterizes anger as an antagonist with taunting power.

Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than

The poem “A Poison Tree” by William Blake discusses human nature’s true form. Someone who is furious with a friend would obviously want to mend the friendship, so they let their anger simmer. However, someone who is upset with an enemy has no reason to tell him or herself to not be mad because all they are to you is an enemy. Therefore, your hatred eventually takes over and you do something dreadful. This literary composition shows the readers how anger can take a toll in two different directions. The poet writes with such ease, that it makes us readers believe he’s gone through it already.

Nature was a theme factoring in many of his works and Blake associates nature with different elements in these poems and we find that nature is seen in communion with God in the introductory poem and throughout these poems Blake points out the relationship and harmony between Man and Nature, children and Nature and he also talks about sex in Nature in `The Blossom'.