No title as yet.. by Felicity F

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No title as yet..

by Felicity F

Posted: 16 February 2010
Word Count: 25
Summary: a little verse.

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I have a heart in my chest,
it beats a little toll of death,
gasping, timorous, sighing -
the sinew of its love is dying.

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James Graham at 11:37 on 19 February 2010 Report this post

Hi Felicity - In a poem as short as this, every word seems to carry an extra charge of meaning and energy. If one word is ‘flat’ - redundant or unnecessary - it’s even more noticeable than perhaps it would be in a long poem. Having said that, I can see only one ‘flat’ word here. I don’t think ‘tired’ needs to be stated, because it can be inferred, and something else should replace it in the middle of that short list. I’m not sure what, maybe something to do with fear or apprehension, or with regret. A word that takes the reader by surprise more than ‘tired’ does. There would be room rhythmically for a longer word, up to four syllables, such as ‘apprehensive’.

In the rest of the poem the words do have a ‘charge’. The first line seems to express surprise - I wasn’t very aware of my heart before now, it was just there, I took it for granted, but now I’ve ‘discovered’ it because suddenly I’m more aware of mortality. The heartbeat being a countdown to death, or like a death knell, is a telling image. The fact that it’s a ‘little’ toll suggests a sense of our relative insignificance as individuals. The last line is maybe the strongest, with ‘sinew’ suggesting the physical heart as a muscle, but also a ‘love’ that has been strong and resilient but now is weak. ‘Love’ is intriguing - we don’t need to be told what kind of love this is, whether it’s love of another person (eros) which is now over, or love of life itself, or love of the world and humanity (agapé); it’s good that all the meanings of ‘love’ should be contained in it, and that it remains ambiguous.

I’m trying to think about the sort of title you might give it, but it’s not easy. You don’t want one that narrows down the possibilities of meaning - for example, some readers might see in this poem a lament for a broken relationship, but if the title were, say, ‘End of an affair’ (not a title you would consider, I’m sure) then that would be that, cut and dried. As it is, untitled, that meaning can be found in it, but the reader has to accept that there are other levels of meaning too. Occasionally poets use the title ‘Poem’ - the least specific - but it often looks like a cop-out. There might as well be no title at all. (Sometimes the poet gets away with ‘Poem’ if it seems to say to the reader, ‘I choose not to give you a key to this poem; use your own key’). I think your title should be one that doesn’t give a key to the poem. I do have an impression that it’s about a new feeling, a beginning or onset, a sudden change - maybe something along these lines.

This must be a record for a long comment on a short poem - but there’s quite a lot in it and quite a lot to say about it.

James.

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