'Talk in the Dark' by Denise Levertov |
Poetry |
We live in history, says one.
We’re flies on the hide of Leviathan, says another.
Either way, says one,
fears and losses.
And among losses, says another,
the special places our own roads were to lead to.
Our deaths, says one.
That’s right, says another,
Now it’s to be a mass death.
Mass graves, says one, are nothing new.
No, says another, but this time there’ll be no graves,
all the dead will lie where they fall.
Except, says one, those that burn to ash.
And are blown in the fiery wind, says another.
How can we live in this fear? Says one.
From day to day, says another.
I still want to see, says one,
where my own road’s going.
I want to live, says another, but where can I live
if the world is gone?
Poem Analysis:
This poem basically talks about various figures who are talking to each
other in the aftermath, or in fear, of a nuclear tragedy. This poem goes
along with the idea that when there are nuclear weapons, people have
this constant fear of being attacked. The figures also talk about
the future and how they will be missing out on it. That is always
something you worry about with nuclear weapons: will you live to see
tomorrow? Death by a nuclear device is very cruel and unreal. It is
deceiving to see that bodies do not receive a proper burial after they
die. Mass death is horrific and it can leave you with nothing. That is
what happens to these figures because they do not know what will
happen to them or where to turn in their lives. The tone in this poem is lamenting, gloomy, hopeless, depressive, and realistic. The mood shifts, being first depressive, the changing into a more gloomy and pessimistic state, and finally becomes lamenting and hopeless. I think that the purpose and message of the author in this poem is to show how people in the time of the cold war, were so scared about the hostility in the worlds atmosphere and even about the end of the world. It also was to expose how peoples lives were taken away from them and even though they wanted to have them back, they were hopeless, for they thought: Were would we live is the world is gone? In this poem, there are people talking in a dark, during the time of the cold war, which could actually refer to people talking in hopelessness. They all say different things, but at the end they all come down to a depressive state. The figures say that they are already dead and pat of a historic moment in time, and that they are running away from something terrible, which in this case is shown by using the Leviathan, an abominable, diabolical, and biblical sea monster which relates to anything that is very large or powerful, as a metaphor. Then one of them says that in both, history and hiding from a monstrosity, there are terrors and people who die. Then, it is mentioned that among those losses, they also lost themselves and their whole futures. They also believe that the cold war is going to cause a mass death and a figure says that mass graves are nothing new, for a huge amount of people died every day. However, their response to that was that now, people will lie were they fall and that there will be no graves because there will be no one left to do so since it is the end of the world. Except, the people that are burned to ash by the nuclear attack and blown way in the fiery wind since there will be fires and destruction. They live in a constant fear that the world will come to an end but they don't know how. Even though they think the future id going to be a mass destruction, they still want to have their lives instead of fear and wish to know what there future would have been. However, they cant actually live if the world destroys itself.