What is the main message of the poem?

Theme is the lesson about life or statement about human nature that the poem expresses. To determine theme, start by figuring out the main idea. Then keep looking around the poem for details such as the structure, sounds, word choice, and any poetic devices.

Hope it helps

#CarryOnLearning

Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.

When readers get to the end of 1984, they should have received Orwell’s main idea, that totalitarianism poses a serious threat and that if it remains unchecked, a world like Winston Smith’s is not impossible. 

Othello by William Shakespeare 

Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Othello is a dark and emotional play that explores senseless cruelty and deceit. By the time the reader gets to the conclusion, they should have received the main idea that one should trust in the faithfulness of the partners and never let unproven allegations and jealousy fuel one’s action. Here are a few lines from the play: 

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock

The meat it feeds on

Othello is manipulated and eventually convinced that his wife, Desdemona, is cheating on him by Iago. The latter destroys Othello’s life for no clear reason. 

Explore William Shakespeare’s poetry.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 

In this 1969 novel, Vonnegut explores the life of Billy Pilgrim. He focuses on Billy’s time in WWII (many events of which mirror Vonnegut’s own life) and the strange events that cause Billy to reassess his understanding of time and death. Here is a famous quote from Slaughterhouse-Five in which Billy is conversing with the Tralfamadorians: 

“Why me?”

“That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?”

Love is the most obvious. It can be love for another person, love for nature, or even love for oneself. The first on this list is the most obvious. Love for another can be seen within the work of countless poets since writing as a form of expression came into being. One writer who is known for crafting some of the most beautiful and memorable love poems in the English language is John Keats. He is known for works such as ‘Endymion’ and ‘Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art’. Or you might be familiar with Lord Byron, who wrote breathtaking poems such as ‘She Walks in Beauty’.

But, let’s look at a lesser-known poet, Anne Bradstreet. One of Bradstreet’s best-known works is a clear example of love as a theme, ‘To My Dear and Loving Husband’. Here are the final four lines: 

Thy love is such I can no way repay;

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere,

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

In the twelve short lines of the poem, she uses the word “love” six times. She states that her relationship with her husband is more valuable than “whole mines of gold” or all the riches of the East. The poet expresses her devotion through simile and metaphor. The figurative language shows true passion. 

 Here are a few more examples of poems that clearly have a theme of love. 

• ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ by William Shakespeare
• ‘Annabel Lee’ by Edgar Allan Poe
• ‘A Valediction Forbidding Mourning’ by John Donne
• ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’ by Sylvia Plath

 

Death 

Just like love, death is a very common theme in poetry. In Edgar Allan Poe‘s ‘Lenore’, Poe combines the two. In this piece, a lover and a bystander discuss the life and death of a woman, Lenore. The lover berates the public for not appreciating her adequately and tries to express how important she was to him. Here is the last stanza of the poem that speaks about her death. 

Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!

Let no bell toll!–lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth.

To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven–

From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven–

From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.”

The first line of this section is a beautiful expression of love and care, even after one’s lover is gone. The speaker asks that the bells stop ringing as they might bother Lenore (now in the form of an angel) as she makes her way into heaven. Clearly, the love this speaker held for her is coming through, but the lines wouldn’t be necessary unless she had died so it is important to consider how both of these elements come together.

Here are a few examples of poems that have a theme of death: 

• ‘Death is Nothing at All’ by Henry Scott Holland
• ‘Died…’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• ‘On the Death of Anne Brontë’ by Charlotte Brontë
• ‘Lady Lazarus’ by Sylvia Plath

 

Religion/Spirituality

The third theme we’re going to take a look at is religion or spirituality.  Just like in the world of visual art, some of the more important written art was done while the writer was considering religion, faith, God, and oftentimes, doubt. These themes often come together into the contemplation of the afterlife, a higher power, and the forces that control our everyday lives. The latter could be religious in nature, or more spiritual, concerned with nature and emotional universality.

For our example, let’s take a look at lines from Christina Rossetti‘s ‘Good Friday’. It is a devotional poem, meaning that it expresses religious worship or prayer. In this case, the speaker expresses her longing to devote herself fully to Christianity, but also her reluctance to do so. 

Here are the first two stanzas of the text: 

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,

That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,

To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,

And yet not weep?

 

Not so those women loved

Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;

Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly;

Not so the thief was moved;

As can be seen clearly, the speaker is addressing God, by way of Christ, asking if she is a “stone” because she can look at him upon the cross “And yet not weep”. The speaker compares herself to the women present at the crucifixion who “lamented” Christ adequately. They were Christ’s “sheep” and she feels she is the only one who is a stone. By the end, she asks God to show himself as a shepherd once more and bring her into the flock. 

Here are a few examples of poems that clearly have a theme of religion or spirituality: 

• ‘Church Going’ by Philip Larkin 
• ‘I saw no Way— The Heavens were stitched’ by Emily Dickinson
• ‘This is my play’s last scene’ by John Donne
• ‘The Retreat’ by Henry Vaughan

 

Nature

Nature is undoubtedly one of the most commonly utilized themes of poetry in recorded history. It is due to nature’s wide-ranging connotations and the impossibility of perfectly defining it that makes it such an allusive and engaging theme. Poems in this category could speak on the natural world (as we commonly think of it: trees, mountains, etc) and its beauties or dangers. 

Alternatively, one might find poetry that elegizes the landscape as we once knew it, the preindustrial revolution and the explosion of human populations. Also in this category, one might encounter poems that have to do with human nature and human interactions of altercations with the natural world. This was summed up quite nicely by Walt Whitman in the following quote: “[Nature is] the only complete, actual poem”. Nature, he believed, contained everything.

A poem that uses nature as one of its primary themes is Elizabeth Bishop‘s ‘The Bight’. This poem was written while Bishop was living in Key West, Florida, and observing a specific “bight,” or curved coastland

Here are the first few lines from the poem:

At low tide like this how sheer the water is.

White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare

and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches.

Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,

the water in the bight doesn’t wet anything,

the color of the gas flame turned as low as possible.

Here are a few examples of poems that clearly utilize nature as one of their main themes:

• ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ by W.B. Yeats
• ‘Winter Landscape, with Rooks’ by Sylvia Plath
• ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost
• ‘Huge Vapours Brood above the Clifted Shore’ by Charlotte Smith

 

Beauty 

Another wide-ranging and multitudinous theme is beauty. It comes in many forms and can be seen through natural beauty, physical human beauty, beauty in spirit or action, as well as an assortment of other instances. Often, poems dedicated to human beauty come in the form of odes, such as ‘Ode to Beauty’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Or, like ‘She Walks in Beauty’ by Lord Byron, be written in a very lyrical style as if to mimic the subject. 

For an example of how the theme of beauty can expand beyond the physically human, one might consider ‘[London, my beautiful]’ by F.S. Flint. In this poem, Flint describes one speaker’s love for the city of London and how he feels the city improves others and himself.

Let’s look at the first six lines: 

London, my beautiful,

it is not the sunset

nor the pale green sky

shimmering through the curtain

of the silver birch,

nor the quietness;

Here are some other poems that explore the theme of beauty in different ways: 

• ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty‘ by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• ‘The Rainbow’ by Christina Rossetti
• ‘Bell Birds’ by Henry Kendall
• ‘Fides, Spes’ by Willa Cather

 

Aging

The most powerful literary themes are those which touch everyone. Life, death, and age are examples of universal considerations that each person, lover of poetry or not, must contend with. Some of the most powerful poetic works consider age, and one’s unstoppable progression towards death. That being said, no one’s experience of aging is the same as anyone else’s. As poets from across time explore what it means to age, their various conclusions and considerations paint a picture of human nature and the fear or hope that underlies one’s living days.

Let’s take for example ‘Transfiguration’ by Louisa May Alcott. This is a personal poem written from the poet’s own perspective. It details her emotions surrounding her mother, Abigail Alcott’s, death and attempts to paint change and death as something beautiful, not something to fear. The process of aging for Alcott’s mother was not an easy one, in the text, she decides how once her mother died, “Age, pain, and sorrow dropped the veils they wore”. Here are the next few lines: 

[…]

And showed the tender eyes 

Of angels in disguise, 

Whose discipline so patiently she bore.

The past years brought their harvest rich and fair; 

While memory and love, 

Together, fondly wove 

A golden garland for the silver hair. 

Here are a few other examples that consider the theme of age from different perspectives: 

• ‘Age’ by Philip Larkin
• ‘On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year’ by Lord Byron
• ‘You Begin’ by Margaret Atwood
• ‘Lullaby’ by W.H. Auden

 

Desire 

Speaking of universally relatable themes, desire is undoubtedly an important one. Whether romantic, erotic, or spiritual, desire poems are expansive. Shakespeare’s sonnets to the Fair Youth come to mind. The speaker in these works addresses a young man through a series of sonnets that outline his love, desire, and heartache. Some of the most famous sonnets are sonnet number 13, ‘O! That you were yourself; but love, you are’ and sonnet 116, ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds’. 

A clear-cut example of desire can be found in one of John Donne’s popular poems, ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’. The poem was published after the poet’s death in 1654 and details a speaker’s pleas for his lover to undress and come to bed.

Here are a few lines from the middle of the poem:

Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals, 

As when from flowery meads th’hill’s shadow steals. 

Off with that wiry Coronet and shew 

The hairy Diadem which on you doth grow: 

Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread 

In this love’s hallow’d temple, this soft bed. 

Some interesting examples that speak on a variety of desires include: 

• ‘Absent from thee’ by John Wilmot
• ‘To Be in Love’ by Gwendolyn Brooks
• ‘XII’ by Sappho
• ‘The Heart asks Pleasure— first’ by Emily Dickinson

 

Identity/Self 

Writings about oneself, especially in a poetic form, were most popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although, that is not to say that they don’t exist in today’s contemporary literary world. These writers, no matter what time period they lived in, deeply considered their own place in the world, the impact (or lack thereof) they thought they were having, who they wanted to become, or any number of other contemplative self musings. Some are inspiring and rousing, such as ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou, others, like William Wordsworth’s ‘Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey’ as more expansive and span greater periods of time. 

For example, let’s turn to ‘Harlem’ by Langston Hughes, which is also known as ‘Montage of a Dream Deferred’. The text speaks about the lives of Harlem residents who are not experiencing the “American Dream”, but instead are having their dreams deferred. Through a series of questions, one Harlem resident asks what happened to his dreams, and more widely, the dreams of all those like him.

Let’s look at few lines from this short poem in which the speaker considers why and how dreams disappear, and where they end up after they’re gone: 

What happens to a dream deferred? 

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Here are a few more poems that utilize identity, or a search for one’s self, as one of their major themes: 

• ‘Ariel’ by Sylvia Plath
• ‘Search for My Tongue’ by Sujata Bhatt
• ‘Still I Rise’  by Maya Angelou
• ‘To My Nine-Year-Old Self’ by Helen Dunmore

 

Travel/Journeys 

When one considers this wide-ranging theme, there are many possible subjects to keep in mind. A journey can consist of just about anything. One could be moving physically traveling from place to place, or be transforming in some significant way. The journey might be somewhere specific that can actually be listed on a map, or somewhere less tangible, such as the afterlife. 

The former is the subject of Billy Collins’ poem ‘Writing in the Afterlife’. It presents the reader with an interesting depiction of the afterlife from the perspective of a man who is experiencing it. Nothing is as the reader, or the speaker expected. He outlines what it was like to arrive at a rive, not dissimilar from the River Styx in Greek mythology. 

Here are a few lines from the poem: 

Many have pictured a river here, 

but no one mentioned all the boats, 

their benches crowded with naked passengers, 

each bent over a writing tablet. 

Take a look at this list of very different approaches to the theme of traveling, or embarking on a journey:

• ‘Travel’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay
• ‘Postcard from a Travel Snob’ by Sophie Hannah
• ‘The Road Goes Ever On’ by J.R.R. Tolkien
• ‘Odysseus to Telemachus’ by Joseph Brodsky

 

Apocalypse 

Throughout time, writers and non-writers have interpreted the end of the world, in startlingly different ways. Some see a violent, bloody end to the human race. Others, something simpler, calmer, and even to be looked forward to. No matter the writer’s religious or cultural background, apocalyptically themed poems can be stimulating and disturbing. 

For a haunting example of one poet’s interpretation of the end of the world, let’s look at ‘Holy Sonnet VII: At the round Earth’s imagin’d corners, blow’ by John Donne.

Here are the first few lines from the poem:

At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow

Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise

From death, you numberless infinities

Of souls, and to your scatter’d bodies go;

This piece contains the speaker’s description of Judgment Day and an appeal to God to forgive him for his sins. It begins with the speaker directing angels at the corners of the earth to blow their trumpets and wake the dead. With this action, all those who have passed away, in all their “numberless infinities” will return to earth and seek out their bodies.

Here are a few more examples of poems that speak on the apocalypse:

• ‘Fire and Ice’ by Robert Frost
• ‘Darkness’ by Lord Byron
• ‘The Hollow Men’ by T.S. Eliot
• ‘Speaking Tree’ by Joy Harjo

 

Dreams

Dreams have the potential to change the way we experience the world. Negative or positive, they are a reflection (and for some a space of inspiration) of how we live our lives. Many a poet has written about nights ruined by strange and terrible dreams. Or, days improved by thoughtful, wistful imaginings. One example, ‘Dreams’ by Helen Hunt Jackson, is closer to the former.

Here are a few lines from the poem: 

Mysterious shapes, with wands of joy and pain, 

Which seize us unaware in helpless sleep, 

And lead us to the houses where we keep 

Our secrets hid, well barred by every chain

That we can forge and bind […]

In this text, she speaks about the negative impact dreams can have on one’s waking life. They force back into one’s conscious mind negative experiences of the past and prolong sadness.

Here are four more poems, these speak on the importance of the dream state and the different forms it can take: 

• ‘A Dream Within a Dream’ by Edgar Allan Poe
• ‘The House of Ghosts’ by Margaret Widdemer
• ‘Death in the Arctic’ by Robert Service
• ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ by John Keats

 

Celebration

In the category of celebration, there are endless reasons to be joyful among friends and family. Poets who take an interest in this theme might consider traditional holidays worth writing about, or, they might revel in a personal victory or a celebration of the self. One very interesting example is ‘More Than Enough’ by Marge Piercy. This short poem celebrates a single moment, in amongst the thriving liveliness of summer. Take a look at these lines as an example of how a poem’s mood and a poet’s tone is influenced by the subject matter:

[…] Rich fresh wine

of June, we stagger into you smeared

with pollen, overcome as the turtle

laying her eggs in roadside sand.

From speaking solely about the beautiful landscape, Piercy’s speaker in these lines moves on to discuss sharing these moments with someone specific, adding personal emotion and meaning to the celebration she’s engaging in.

Here are a few more poems that delve into the theme of celebration:

• ‘Celebrate’ by Anna Akhmatova
• ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ by James Weldon Johnson
• ‘In Praise of My Bed’ by Meredith Holmes

 

Wellness/Recovery

Whether physical or mental, in our increasingly complicated and stressful contemporary world, poems about health, inside and out, are very relevant. Some poets, like Sylvia Plath, channel their own inner lives, convey their own mental health through their verse. Others are like Elizabeth Bishop, who made vaguely, and not so vague, references to her dependence on alcohol. A very clear reference to her own struggle with health can be seen in her piece, ‘A Drunkard’. 

Other interesting poems with wellness/recovery as a major theme include:

• ‘The Soul Has Bandaged Moments’ by Emily Dickinson
• ‘Daddy‘ by Sylvia Plath
• ‘Alone’ by Edgar Allan Poe
• ‘The Fury of Rainstorms’ by Anne Sexton

 

New Life/Birth

New life, whether that of spring or summer or the human/animal variety, is powerful. This theme can be taken in several different directions, and any poet considering it will understand it differently. Some of the most poignant poems on this theme are about birth. For a contemporary example, a reader should look into ‘Rosie Joyce’ by Paul Durcan. Take a look at a few lines from the latter:

I rode the waters and the roads of Ireland,
Rosie, to be with you, seashell at my ear!
How I laughed when I cradled you in my hand.

In these lines, Durcan’s speaker is addressing the birth of his granddaughter. He alternates between speaking on the time before he met her, to the time after when he grew to love her in person.

Other poems on this same theme include:

• ‘Up-Hill’ by Christina Rossetti
• ‘Morning Song’ by Sylvia Plath
• ‘The Journey’ by Mary Oliver

 

Disappointment/Failure

Every theme on this list is going to tap into a reader’s mind, memory, and emotions in some way. But, those written in the wake of disappointment and failure are often some of the most moving. These emotions and experiences are unifying and reading the eloquent words of another human being who failed as you failed, can be therapeutic. Take for example, ‘Loss and Gain’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem concludes with these lines:

But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

In this short poem, he discusses how one might tally losses and gains. He thinks about what it means to compare them to one another and decides it isn’t worth it. Life is more complicated.

For a few more poems on this topic, take a look at:

• ‘Disenchantment’ by Emily Dickinson
• ‘Penalty’ by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• ‘The Disappointment’ by Aphra Behn

 

War

War, a shameful unifier of the human race and a topic on which there has been written some of the most moving and memorable poetry. An entire genre of poetry has emerged from historical wars. Now, poets such as Edward Thomas, Siegried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen are known as “war-poets” and their poems as “war-poems“. These three writers, along with many more, chronicled the World Wars, and those which have happened, all over the world, since.

As an example, let’s take a look at a lesser-known war poet, Vera Brittain, and her poem ‘August, 1914‘. It is a short anti-war poem that speaks on the beginnings of conflict from a “divine” perspective.

[…]But where His desolation trod

The people in their agony

    Despairing cried, “There is no God.”

In these lines, Brittain is concluding her poem. The main character, God, has decided to rain terror (create war) down on earth to remind everyone of his power. Rather than unifying them, and bringing everyone back to their knees at God’s feet, it turns their faith to dust.

Other poems that speak on themes of war include:

• ‘May the Twenty-Third’ by Edward Thomas
• ‘The Death Bed’ by Siegfried Sassoon
• ‘The Dead‘ by Rupert Brooke

 

Immortality

Whose mind hasn’t turned to the allure of eternal life? Whether you find the concept horrifying or entrancing, poets throughout the ages have taken the theme on. Some discuss eternal life in the context of religion, God, and the afterlife. Others engage with the topic or whimsically, employing magic realism, fantasy, and straightforward magic. There are endless examples within the larger canon of poetic works, but let’s take a look at a few lines from one of Matthew Arnold‘s most moving poems titled ‘Immortality’. Here is the last tercet of the text:

From strength to strength advancing—only he,

His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,

Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.

In these lines, Arnold concludes his poem that is based around immortality as discovered through a strong, “well-knit” life. It is only “he” who faces life and all its adversity and stands up for what’s right, who is going to be able to enter into eternal life.

A few other poems that discuss the same theme include:

• ‘Tithonus‘ by Alfred Lord Tennyson
• ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality‘ by William Wordsworth
• ‘Whispers of Immortality‘ by T.S. Eliot

 

Coming of Age

One of the most popular themes in classical and contemporary poetry. The period of one’s life in which they “come of age” or grow out of childhood into adulthood is physically, mentally, and emotionally transformative. Just as with life itself, some poems address this period in a positive and negative light. Sometimes they are based around a single experience that sent a child from youth to adulthood other times they address a longer period in which the narrator or a character within a larger poem learns what it means to stop being a child.

Let’s take a look at a few lines from one poem that explores the theme of coming of age, ‘Poem at Thirty-Nine’ by Alice Walker:

Now I look and cook just like him:
my brain light;
tossing this and that
into the pot;
seasoning none of my life
the same way twice; happy to feed
whoever strays my way.

In these lines, Alice Walker is considering the influence her father had on her. Despite him no longer being present in her life, she realized that his impact is long-lasting. She has come to understand the way she’s aging and becoming more like him as she grows closer to the age she was most familiar with him at.

How do you find the main message of a poem?

How to Find the Message or Theme of a Poem.

Examine the Title. ... .

Read Slowly and Read Aloud. ... .

Identify the Speaker. ... .

Determine the Subjects. ... .

Determine the Types of Imagery and Metaphor Used. ... .

The Poem Isn't Just About Meaning..

What is the main idea of the poem answer?

Answer: The central idea of a poem is the poem's theme or 'what it's about' if you like. Although many shy away from poems being 'about' something, at the end of the day, the poet had something in mind when it was written, and that something is the central idea, whatever it is or might have been.

What is the main reason of a Poem?

The Purpose of Poetry: Connection Form and content cannot be separated in a poem. A poem means exactly what it says in the form it is written. It can be shorthand to talk about the form and the content of a piece of writing, but in reality form and content cannot be separated; form is content and content is form.