Title of Poem: These poems, she said

Type of Poem: Lyric/Ode

Author: Robert Bringhurst

Literal Meaning
After you read the poem, what does the literal meaning seem to be? What is happening in the poem?
This poem is about women empowerment. This poem is about the men who don’t treat women like they are equal.

Imagery
Pick out three uses of imagery and write them below (this will most likely be a phrase or line from the poem), then explain what the poet is trying to convey with this image. (include line citations)

1]. IMAGE: Which if they love love only the wide blue sky and the air (Line 17-18)

MEANING: The author is describing the sky using imagery

2]. IMAGE: Woven of water and logic (Line 14)

MEANING: The author is using imagery to describe the man’s hands

3]. IMAGE: As unmeant as elm leaves (Line 16-17)

MEANING: The author is using different describing words to emphasize the feeling in the poem
Lyric Qualities

Describe the sound of this poem. You will use terms like: internal rhyme, rhyme scheme, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and repetition. Find two specific lines or elements of the poem to discuss. List them and then tell what you think they mean.
(include line citations)

1]. Lyric Device: Repetition (Multiple lines) These poems, these poems, these poems
Meaning: The author uses repetition in this poem in multiple different lines. For example the author write “These poems” many times in the poem to emphasize it.

2]. Lyric Device: Synecdoche (Multiple lines) These are the poems of a man
Meaning: The author uses the work “man” to represent men as a whole

Figurative Meaning
Find at least two figurative devices and explain what they mean. You are looking for terms like: simile, metaphor, allusion, symbolism and personification.
(include line citations)

1]. Figurative Device: Simile (Page 12-13) These are the poems of a man with eyes like a drawknife
Meaning: This line is describing a man’s features using a Simile. The author is comparing the man’s eyes to a drawknife

2]. Figurative Device: Simile (Page 13-14)
Meaning: With hands like a pickpocket’s hands

3]. Figurative Device: Hyperbole (Line 16) These poems are as heartless as birdsong
Meaning: The author is over exaggerating when he writes “heartless”
Theme

What do you think is the message of this poem?
The message of this poem is trying to get the point across of how you should never settle for a man or anyone that takes you for granted.

These poems, these poems,
these poems, she said, are poems
with no love in them. These are the poems of a man
who would leave his wife and child because
they made noise in his study. These are the poems
of a man who would murder his mother to claim
the inheritance. These are the poems of a man
like Plato, she said, meaning something I did not
comprehend but which nevertheless
offended me. These are the poems of a man
who would rather sleep with himself than with women,
she said. These are the poems of a man
with eyes like a drawknife, with hands like a pickpocket’s
hands, woven of water and logic
and hunger, with no strand of love in them. These
poems are as heartless as birdsong, as unmeant
as elm leaves, which if they love love only
the wide blue sky and the air and the idea
of elm leaves. Self-love is an ending, she said,
and not a beginning. Love means love
of the thing sung, not of the song or the singing.
These poems, she said…
You are, he said,
beautiful.
That is not love, she said rightly.