Please read the following poem by Elizabeth Jennings. Write a short essay explaining the meaning of the poem. Next, write a few sentences explaining the significance of the use of enjambment in the poem.
Answers
I keep my answers small and keep them near;
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bulwark to my fear.
The huge abstractions I keep from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved
Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.
Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, I still hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow
And all the great conclusions coming near.
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bulwark to my fear.
The huge abstractions I keep from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved
Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.
Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, I still hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow
And all the great conclusions coming near.
In this philosophical poem, the author, Elizabeth Jennings, is addressing the subject of knowledge. She says that she focuses her time and energy in dwelling on the “small answers” in life so that they form a “bulwark against the “big answers” and more importantly, the “fear” that accompanies these “big answers”. However, the author asserts that the “big answers clamored to be moved/ Into my [her] life.” This phrase is used to state that that truth, or the answers to the “big questions”, exists despite her best attempts to censure them from her life. The author then abruptly concludes the poem by saying, “Big answers striving for their overthrow/ and all the great conclusions coming near.” The author is saying that all these questions continue, and will continue, to need answers especially because the end of time, where truth will be revealed, is constantly approaching.
ReplyDeleteThe enjambment of the poem is used to build suspense. It builds the momentum of the poem by naturally causing the reader to pursue the remainder of the grammatical phrase on the next line. It also helps add to the avoiding and frantic tone of the author.
Excellent job, Chandler!
ReplyDeleteIn her poem “Answers,” Elizabeth Jennings confronts the dual battle she fights: one against the outside pressures of life, and one against herself. The two sides of her personality, meekness and audacity, struggle against each other for the ability to dictate her actions and responses. She describes her life by referencing “questions” and “answers,” crises and their related resolutions, respectively. In the beginning of the work, she illustrates her defense against the significant tests in life by using temporary answers, but they only allowed her to keep a firm hold of her fear and to continue avoiding the “huge abstractions” and “big answers” clamoring to be acknowledged as weapons. The smaller ones may be able to hold the troubles back, but they could never totally prevail. Jennings recognizes, somewhere in her conscience, the true, lasting solutions to whatever problems plague her. However, she knows, or believes, them to be too radical either to work or to be accepted. She fears the unknown results to her actions so those thoughts are locked away in her mind, “[kept] from the light.” Still, her “great conclusions” strive to overthrow her petty obstructions and to break through her cowardice so that she can confront her problems head on.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to influencing the flow of the poem, enjambment draws attention to key words and phrases critical to the meaning on “Answers.” In the first stanza, Jennings first uses enjambment to highlight the contract between “Big questions” and “Small answers.” Immediately, the vast difference between those two descriptions becomes clear to reader and imparts the unlikelihood of something small actually resolving something large in a lasting way. The author knows her methods are unrealistic, and yet she stubbornly clings to the safe known rather than the fearful unknown. Another example of enjambment occurs in the fourth stanza: “Even when all small answers build up to/ Protection of my spirit…” Here, the technique draws attention to Jennings’ specific diction in “Protection.” “Protection” fills two roles; one is to signal the actual act of defense that her small answers are building up for, and the other is to imply the need for protection. In almost any situation, an object or person is only protected when it has significant value and only if there is a need to defend it. By using this word, Jennings reveals the extent of her fear. Obviously, she values her spirit, but she only wants to build up walls around it because she feels that her own audacious thoughts present a legitimate threat significant enough to change her whole approach to life.
Awesome analysis, Katie. Very insightful and well written!
DeleteIn her poem "Answers," Elizabeth Jennings explains her fear of answering all of the big questions in life. Moreover, her fear is so great that she dwells in all of the small questions in order to avoid answering the much bigger ones. Regardless of her efforts, Jennings recognizes that these big questions cannot be avoided forever. In fact, she concludes that these questions will need answers due to the fact that the end of her time is nearing more and more every day.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Jennings utilizes enjambment to create a tone of apprehension and dubiety, which is necessary to emphasize her fears of answering big questions. For example, she states, "Their great audacity/ Shouted to be acknowledged and believed." Although she is trying her best to pander in all of the small questions, she is unable to avoid the big, unanswered questions.
Excellent analysis and spot on!
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