After turning in the rough draft, I received feedback from peers and my instructor about some things that I needed to change in my essay. I really am so grateful for what peer reviews and instructor feedback time has done for me and my writing and learning process. I have learned how to be able to hear criticism without it being negative. I ended up changing some of my grammar issues, some of my "I" statements to more general statements, and gave more detail about feelings that developed throughout the poem. This is my polished draft below. I actually learned so much about poetry while doing this essay! I was very surprised! For someone who has always said they simply don't understand poetry, it was a great learning experience for me!
Here are a few of the feedback comments that I received from my instructor:
- Avoid “I believe” kinds of sentences in essays. Just make the statement. An essay is, by definition, the writer’s ideas.
- Tell us more. How is this relevant? Can you relate it more closely to your thesis statement and/or the meaning of the poem?
A Familiar Feeling
In his poem “Stop All the Clocks, Cut Off the Telephone,” W.H. Auden gives a very raw view of heartbreak while also showing all the beautiful parts that, in my eyes, make up a good poem. I believe that a good poem is one in which you can clearly see a theme, story, and structure, but also hear the language and sound being used. There is an overall theme of heartbreak in this poem and modern day reader will find that they can relate to a lot of the feeling expressed throughout this poem.
It is apparent that the love of Auden’s life has died. We can see this when Auden writes, “I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong” (12). The identity of this person is unknown, but we do assume that the person was a male based on the fact that Auden writes “He” in line 6. The death of this man is what leads the speaker to the point where they just want the whole world to stop. In other words, nothings matters anymore “for nothing now can ever come to any good” (Auden 16). The poem’s sad tone has helped it become very popular over the years. Tim Cornwell wrote an article for The Scotsman Newspaper in which he interviewed Nicholas Jenkins about Auden and this poem. Jenkins stated that “at a practical level that poem is now read at tens of thousands of funerals,” (7). The theme of grief is very present in this story. To some this may be a depressing theme and story, but I believe that it’s also a similar feeling that most people can relate to.
This poem follows a fixed form because it has a pattern of lines and stanzas. It is divided into neat parts. There are four stanzas, each with four lines, making up sixteen lines total in the poem. The parts are all similar to each other in that they are all discussing things around the speaker stopping after the death of the love of their life. With each stanza that you read, the speaker seems to get more depressed. At the beginning the speaker just wants to stop the clocks, but then we reach the end of the poem where it seems that they have nothing left, and Auden writes “The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; / Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; / Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; / For nothing now can ever come to any good” (13-16). The structure that Auden gives this poem really gives the poem a great flow.
Auden uses very rich imagery in the second stanza by writing “Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead / Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead,” (5-6). In using words like moaning and scribbling, Auden evokes the senses and gives the reader the ability to actually be able to hear the aeroplanes and see the message in the sky. Auden also used all of the figures of speech in this poem. Auden writes in the third stanza “He was my North, my South, my East and West,” (9). That line really helps the reader understand how much this man truly meant to the speaker. He was their everything. This also bring me to symbolism. Using words like this, and having them mean more than one thing, helps to really get the point across to the reader. I read an overview essay by Jeannine Johnson of Auden’s poem in which she elaborates on this by stating "Even more than this, the lover was ‘my talk, my song,’ identifying him with speech, language, and poetry, which are all of immeasurable value to a poet. The lover was the tool by which the poet expressed and understood himself, and now that tool is gone” (par 7). The use of this language from the author really helps to convey the meaning and the feeling of sadness of the poem.
After using handouts and videos from my instructor, I determined that “Stop All The Clocks, Cut Off The Telephone” has an iambic rhythm and is an iambic pentameter. This poem does have a pattern of rhyme. The first two lines and the last two lines of the stanzas have rhyming words, therefore the poem contains assonance. The way that the sound of all the lines of the poem work together, and the rhythm that they all create really brings the poem together. It makes it all sound cohesive. It makes the poem flow so well and to me, that makes it easier to not only read, but also to understand.
When we first started this poem explication in my class I was honestly very nervous. I thought that I didn’t understand poetry. As it turned out, I really just needed to learn how to break it all down piece by piece to understand it, and this was the perfect poem to help me do that. Once I found out that I could relate to these feeling of sadness felt by this speaker it was easy to separate everything and see a theme, story, and structure, but also hear the language and sound being used. I really enjoyed not only learning about this poem, but all that I learned about this author and his life. I look forward to reading more of his work in the future.
Works Cited
Auden, W.H. “Stop All the Clocks Turn Cut Off the Telephone.” “Poetry Choices,” edited by Jennifer Atkins-Gordeeva, UA- Pulaski Technical College, 21 Jan. 2021. Course Handout.
Cornwell, Tim. "Stop the Clocks for a Centenary: [SATURDAY MAGAZINE Edition]."The Scotsman, Feb 17, 2007, pp. 21. ProQuest, https://search-proquest-com.uaptc.idm.oclc.org/newspapers/stop-clocks-centenary/docview/327177604/se-2?accountid=39906.
Johnson, Jeannine. "Overview of 'Funeral Blues'." Poetry for Students, edited by Michael L. LaBlanc, vol. 10, Gale, 2001. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420031217/LitRC?u=lftla_pultch&sid=LitRC&xid=90dac0b9. Accessed 11 Feb. 2021.
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