Revised Poems

Poems are used to describe how people feel about a situation or what that person believes in. Also it helps that poet to alleviate on his/her emotions and maybe express some things in a creative way that could help the audience or reader learn something new in such a detailed manner. In John Donne’s, “A Valediction” Forbidding Mourning,” it depicts how normal peoples’ love is so boring and sublunary, but on the other hand his love is unbreakable and celestial. Then in Judith Minty’s “Conjoined,” it represents a marriage poem, and shows how love is like conjoined twins who go through some complications during their journey. Both of the authors demonstrate this through imagery, simile, and diction.

Imagery gives off the illusion of what is expected to be seen in the time of the event and how it is being portrayed. For example, from “Conjoined,” “The onion in my cupboard, a monster, actually two joined under one transparent skin,” is an easy illustration and can actually capture the reader to see how a twin can be attached through the image of an onion. She wants that hard detail of how inseparable twins and lovers could be and are meant to be together. However, being attached to one another could cause some problems and like a “monster” there shall be some difficulties along the way. Along with that, in “A Valediction,” he explains how “they be two, they are two so as stiff twin compasses are two; thy soul, the fix foot, makes no show to move, but doth, of th’other do,” illustrates how his love would be linked to that of a twin and how it should be identical to that. Not only that, but there is an immense type of level of how his love is so strong because he uses the imagination of how each lover should be like twins with sync movements and actions. It is with such delight that these two authors use imagery because it helps create scenery which helps to understand the poem in a simple way but also entertaining and keeps the audience satisfied.

Furthermore, the simile in this mostly tells how they portray love in their own point of view. Such as, from Judith’s poem, there is “an accident, like the two-headed calf rooted in one body, fighting to suck at its mother’s teats; or like those other freaks, Chang and Eng, twins joined at the chest by skin and muscle, doomed to live, even make love, together for sixty years,” which actually gives the idea of how conjoined twins seriously have it hard, which is what happens in a marriage. There will be hard times where couples fight and bicker but that is what has to be endured when they make a decision to live together for the rest of their lives. Yet again, married couples are definitely like Chang and Eng or the two-headed calf, inseparable and always challenging themselves to each obstacle that comes their way in order to live a life that they chose or was given to them. Also, from John Donne’s poem, “A breach, but an expansion like gold to airy thinness beat,” is how lovely his relationship would be and how he compares it to gold really shows how important his feelings are. Compatible to the air how lightly his love carries is such a beautiful way to describe the feelings of such a spiritual emotion that goes on and on. Also when he mentions how it beats makes it seem like a never ending devotion to his anonymous aficionada. These are indeed great views of similes and the way it is being revealed has a great impact on the meaning of each poem.

Last but not least, diction, which boosts each description or line that is being unveiled and has a hard effect on what the author really wants to be understood. For example, in the marriage poem, “Do you feel the skin that binds us together as we move, heavy in this house?” The word heavy is such a magnificent strategy of describing how the twins feel as they move together. It aids the fact that with a couple when they move along side by side and work together, there will be more heavy loads of bills, laundry, and responsibility, but with each moving step, they are there together to lean against when times are tough. There will always be a person next to them whenever each one of them falls, and it is one of the benefits of being conjoined twins or a married couple. In comparison to that, John’s poem has the stanza that states “Dulls sublunary lover’ love (whose soul is sense) cannot admit absence, because it doth remove those things which elemented it.” So much diction in there, like elemented, absence, and sublunary that honestly makes this poem worth reading and shows how normal lovers are missing the spice in their relationship. Not only that, but “dull sublunary” just shows how boring and uninterested the love is in some conditions with certain people who find it unworthy to feel and embrace the natural way of love. The energy and spark that keeps it moving is gone and the elements needed in a good couple is vanished from what is being informed from this piece of information.

Even though the two poems had different ways of revealing love and affection, they both conquered the gist of it all. It was all so heart-warming but also humorous to read which gave the poem some creativity. The literary devices in these immensely had an impact on how everything was told, the meaning behind it, and how it was understood; which definitely concludes that love is like a battlefield but also could be rewarding in the end if all goes well.