Poem:Is/Not
Love is not a profession genteel or otherwise sex is not dentistry the slick filling of aches and cavities you are not my doctor you are not my cure, nobody has that power, you are merely a fellow/traveler Give up this medical concern, buttoned, attentive, permit yourself anger and permit me mine which needs neither your approval nor your surprise which does not need to be made legal which is not against a disease but against you, which does not need to be understood or washed or cauterized, which needs instead to be said and said. Permit me the present tense. Margaret Atwood |
Explication: The Genre of this poem is love . The poem is negative, and is in couplets. The couplets can be two people instead of just one. A couplet is two lines of poetry that generally rhyme, have the same rhythm, and are usually about the same length. Rhymed couplets written in iambic pentameter are called heroic couplets.
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet who was born in 1939 and has been divorced. Her poems have been inspired by myths and fairy tales. Suffering is common for the female characters in Atwood’s poems, although they are never passive victims. This poem is about how she loves the person but he doesn’t get to tell her what to do. She makes her own decisions and does what she wants. He is just there to go along for the ride with her. It is also about how love doesn't always need to lead to marriage. There is some parallelism like couplet 3 with “you” and couplet 8 with “which”. There is also a lot of repetition with “is not” and “are not”. This poem also has alliteration with "n" and "s". The poem is also referential. This poem has two lines before each break which is called the couplet. They separate each couplet to give them more meaning. Having couplets that break also help enhance the repetition and allows for the stanza to operate on its own. This poem possibly has an extended metaphor which is conceit. The use of “is” is used a lot like with “ Love is not..” “sex is not..” and “which is not..” There is also a lot of images like “the slick filling of aches and cavities,” I can imagine someone holding their mouth in pain. “you are merely a fellow/traveler,” makes me picture a man walking along the streets. In this poem the conceit is medicine and journey. I believe that the author is trying to show that love is hard and showing it in a negative way. She is also telling the person she loves that she is her own person. He can’t tell her what she can’t and can do. We can see this when she talks about how he’s not her doctor, not her cure, he is just a fellow or traveler.I feel the poem does a good job showing the reader that love won’t stop her from being her own person. Throughout the poem she tells the guy what he’s not like “he’s not her doctor,” “he’s not her cure.” She also shows this well when she talks about how “he’s just a traveler” and how he has his anger and she has hers. |