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Treasure or Regret: Analyzing the Poetry Elements of "Letting G :@?span>
"Letting Go" is a poem written by Daryl Hine, a Canadian poet. As implied by the title of the poem, the author talks about the scenario in whichthe speaker is letting go of his lover, although he still loves his lover very much. Daryl Hine was born in 1936 in British Columbia, and has lived in the United States since 1967. His early poems, more formal and tightly constructed, are famous for theirfeatures of philosophy and subjects like history, art, and literature. However, "Letting Go" was first published in 1990 in Daryl Hine's book, Postscripts, and thus, this poem about love and remembrance does not belong to those early poems. His recent poems are indifferent forms andin an open style ("William Daryl Hine").In Contemporary Poetry Review, Bill Coyle called Hine "simply one of the best poets of Eros and of the wonder, touched with fear that it can provoke (Coyle, Bill)".I believe that "Letting Go" is a poem that can support Coyle's statement.According to the Contemporary Poetry Review by Bill Coyle, he mentioned that Daryl Hine is homosexual (Coyle, Bill). Therefore, it is possible that the author is trying to express his experience and feeling of letting go of his partner through this poem. Referring to this, I assume that the lover of the speaker is male. In the poem, the speaker is in pain about letting go of his lover, and he thinks about the goodness of his loverremorsefully.The speaker does not treasure the present, until he lamentsits passing.He experiences that everything seems much better afterhe has lost it.
The poem begins with two powerful sentences implying the strongest emotional energy in the first stanza: "I loved you first the time I saw you last, /I knew you best before I let you go" (Hine line 1-2). The first two lines show that the speaker regrets leaving his lover. The speaker finally realizes how much he loves him and how well he knowshim; however, it is too late, since the speaker has decided to leave.The pulls of the first two lines are balanced and the meters are both iambic pentameters. This gives the poem a couplet and a resounding effect. The author uses end-stopped line breaks at the end of these two lines, which strengthens the resounding effect. In lines 2 and 3, the poem expresses what is happening during their last hour together. "All the misapprehensions of the past" (3)between the speaker and the lover are"dissipated" (4)within that period of time. The word, "dissipated" (4), createsan imagerythat all the misunderstandings between the speaker and the lover is disappeared naturally like gases.
In line 5 and 6, "Naked to the human eye you lay/ Candid as a cadaver on the couch" (5-6),the author provides the scene of the poem in order to involve the reader in the emotion. The lover is trying to keep the speaker with him. This also shows that he is still in love with the speaker. The author uses "cadaver" as the vehicle to describe the coldness and the deadness of the speaker's feeling toward the lover. This simile helps the reader to foresee the tenor. However, the feeling is supposed to be warm and energetic since the speaker still loves him, in accordance with the first two lines; this creates an extreme contrast between the logical and actual situations. These linesreveal the fact of the matter by creating a more concrete imagery for the reader. In lines 7 and 8, the poem explains the matter more deeply.The sentence, "I could have slept on" (7-8), reinforces the emotional energy of the entire first stanza; while "but I went away" gives the reader animpression about the ending of the scene. The word "ashamed," shows that the speaker might have done something wrong that cannot be easily made up for, and "afraid to almost touch" discloses how serious the matter is.The pulls of the lines 7 and 8 are also balanced and the meters are both iambic pentameters, which enhances the resounding effect again. The author uses enjambed line breaks in lines 5, 6, and 7. This creates a sense of discomfort and forward motion.
The second stanza of the poem mainly describesthememory of how perfect the lover was in the eye of the speaker. The speaker further reveals his last memory of hislover in order to compliment him:
Lost, you seemed the only vivid thing
In a world made moribund and flat
By worldliness. Renunciations bring
Their own reward, apparently, like that
Last look of yours, ironical or tender,
A valediction and a benediction,
Which endless reruns will not soon surrender,
The indispensable, improper fiction
Of your unforgettable perfection. (9-17)
In lines9 and 10, the author uses "vivid" and "moribund and flat" to create contrast imagery in order to emphasize how the lover brightened the speaker'sworld. The author uses enjambed line breaks in line9 through line 12, which significantly creates a tension as well as a sense of disorder.The author uses numerous nominalizations of words in the second stanza, such as "renunciations" (11), "valediction" (12), "benediction" (12), and "perfections" (17). This greatly decreases the energy and the images of the poem, since the reader can only see the concept that provoked but not an action or verb. The author does this on purpose to create a "letting go" feeling by weakening the emotional energy to conclude the poem. The speaker delivers his good-bye to him by thinking of his last look that he gives him. The last two lines, "The indispensable, improper fiction/ Of your unforgettable perfection" (16-17), demonstrates how his look reflects who he is.The author creates an imagery that the feeling of the speaker fades away eventually at the end of the poem.
Overall, there are no regular meter structures in the entire poem. However, the rhyme scheme of this poem is regular. The first and third line of each quatrain rhyme as well as the second and fourth. The final couplet also rhymes. There are four quatrains, which connect the ideas in the poem. The ending couplet in line 16 and 17 indicates a conclusion. The rhyme scheme of the poem makes itmore organized when expressing the main idea. For instance, the first stanza of the poem mainly talks about the scene when the speaker and the lover are together, while the second stanza talks about the speaker's impression of his lover. The rhyme scheme makes the entire poem more consistent. Moreover, the poem is considered concrete even though the reader still has to use his or her own imagination to interpret imagery throughout the poem. Hine does not specify what happens between the speaker and the lover, and thus, the readers have to think about that.
To conclude, the speaker has never wanted to let go of his lover, but he still has to make this painful decision since he seems to have done something wrong to him. He feels regret, guilty, and shame in their relationship. He finally realizes how deep is his love,yet there is no other way for them but to part. The speaker harbors a grudge against himself for not cherishing his lover when they were being together in the past. The speaker's life has become empty and meaningless without him and now, the speaker can only yearn for his goodness. The poem illuminatesthat the process of "letting go" of someone that we love is difficult and hurtful. Daryl Hine uses strong imagery that gives the poem its impact, illustrating how deep is his love and how much he feels regretful for not treasuring his lover.In addition, rhythm and rhyme lead the reader to give attention on the message or the image being conveyed. It also brings a synchronization effect like the lovers are talking to each other. An expected rhythm enhances the connection between the poem and the readers. Therefore, the author holds on to rhyme and rhythm tightly in the entire poem.