Literature

Themes of Love

In Linda Pastan 's Love Poem , the love described here is about the kind of love a man or woman feels toward another . It is the state of being in love . Pastan 's poem likened this love feeling ' to an unstoppable natural force as if one is being swept down a creek during spring thaw (Clausson , 1999 ,

.19 . This means that that the one who is in love will have a hard time controlling his feelings in the same way that a twig or leaf cannot fight the current

that controls its movement down the creek . The author 's main message of the poem is the power of this unstoppable force caused by love and she effectively conveyed that message not only in words or meaning but also in the form that she used in the poem . According to Clausson (1999 , author of Finding the Right Form for your Poem , Pastan 's poem not only described love as an unstoppable force of nature but that the poem itself was the creek ' that was instrumental for the force . Pastan transformed the poem itself into as headlong as a creek ' by making the reader experience as if he was being swept down the creek while reading the poem . Clausson added that Pastan was able to achieve this by narrowing the poem and disregarding any punctuation . Since the poem was written narrowly , the reader 's eyes shifted down fast and because it had no punctuations , the reader read without stopping to catch his breath so that in effect , he was as if being swept down the creek ' while reading . Therefore , what is being derived here is that the reader experiences the unnatural force of being in love as he read the poem According to Clausson , this is a masterful use of form by a poet . To prove her point , Clauson rewrite the poem by adding punctuations in it (without changing or adding words

To illustrate , Pastan 's poem was written this way (taken from Writer 1999 , Vol . 114 Issue 4

I want to write you

a love poem as headlong

as our creek

after thaw

when we stand

on its dangerous

banks and watch it carry

with it every twig

every dry leaf and branch

in its path

every scruple

when we see it

so swollen

with runoff

that even as we watch

we must grab each

other or

get our shoes

soaked we must

grab each other

Clauson 's New Version (taken from Writer 1999 , Vol . 114 Issue 4

I want to write you a love poem

as headlong as our creek after thaw

when we stand on its dangerous banks

and watch it carry with it every twig

every dry leaf and branch in its path

every scruple

when we see it so swollen with runoff

that even as we watch

we must grab each other and step back

We must grab each other

or get our shoes soaked

We must grab each other

Clausson said...