Introduction
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Title
Poet
Core- about
Stanza and lines
Rhyme Scheme
Tone and Mood
Themes
“Nearing Forty” is a lyrical poem by Sir Derek Walcott. He was a Saint Lucian poet and
playwright. This poem is about the Jamaican poet Figueroa. It is about him turning forty. This
poem has no stanzas and is 33 lines long and is in the form of a dramatic monologue. The
poem has a regular rhyme scheme and talks about age, and experience. The tone and mood is
retrospective and philosophical.
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→ contemporary Diction
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→ predawn rain
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→ Pathetic fallacy, how the emotions are reflected in the climate- rain reflects that its a
sad poem
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→ insomnia since 4 - visual imagery
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→ early-rising rain auditory and visual imagery
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→ alliteration of ‘r’ sound [2-3 lines]
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→ “marrow” synecdoche for bones
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→ coolness numbs the marrow - tactile imagery
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→ uses a lot of enjambment
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→ tone and mood is gloomy and philosophical
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→ frosted pain - visual imagery
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→ nearer the day, each day is getting me closer to death. Judging work with bleak
modesty, nothing inspiring. Perspective is changing, feeling less alive. Judge work
cynically and harshly.
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→ middle-age can refer to medievalism in terms of mindset and perspective, pun
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→everything is lacking spark, enthusiasm, and passion for life. Everything has become
average. “Fireless” refers to how he feels without warmth. Physical and emotional. And
mental
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→ “false dawn” metaphor for false hope
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→ “false” “fireless” alliteration
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→ possible cause because life was “bled” spent for practical manners. Responsibility and
money. Passion bled out, nothing to keep him going. Bled- metaphor
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→ almost as bland as simple lines which don't have any poetic references. Bleached
bedsheets. Without drama, colour or life, spark. Monochrome.
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→ maybe the poetry he wrote was not awe-inspiring
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→Could be his life/work. Simple lines not flowery language, maybe his work was not
appreciated.
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→ mindset is uninspired. Simile ‘plain as a bleaching bedsheet’
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→ when you are youthful, smiling back at his own naivety
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→ ambitions fizzle out
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→ louvre- little gaps , narrower vision, less aspiring
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→ “leaves thin” reference to life, time is becoming smaller, or your perspective is
becoming smaller and narrower
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→ becomes more cautious in life
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→ you dont dream big, this is relevant in his attitude
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→ narrow vision, cynicism, being more cautious
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→ as you grow older all your youth passions dreams and hopes die and become left out
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→ gauges are seasons ..rain - evident in the way thought process, start treating life
cautiously due to how it treated us last year. Narrower vision, more carefulness and less
being wild and free.
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→ as a school boy [greenhorn] convectional winds - thought of convectional as
conventional. Satirical. Conventional now.
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→ he is going to continue writing, write slowly as he is conventional now
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→ “sadder joy” “steady relation” oxymoron as they are opposing sentiments
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→ calmer happiness, not jumping with joy
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→ hes careful
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→ cynicism, he made mistakes in the past which he regrets now “ prodigious cynicism
plants its seed”
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→ your emotions when ur young are more joyful and happening, as you grow older they
become calmer
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→ elation is happiness
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→ youre happy but youre not jumping with joy, everything is held back and more
controlled. “Steady elation” oxymoron
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→ more stresses and worries about the future
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→ imagination inspiration and happiness is ebbing and conventional
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→ his writing has become more conventional, like a job of a water clerk
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→ monotony of his work, no new ideas
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→ weighs the force of the lightly falling rain
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→ impact of the moon on the rain and his work.
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→ jaded and cynical
Insomniac since four, hearing this narrow,
rigidly-metred, early-rising rain
recounting, as its coolness numbs the marrow,
that I am nearing forty, nearer the weak
vision thickening to a frosted pane,
nearer the day when I may judge my work
by the bleak modesty of middle age
as a false dawn, fireless and average,
which would be just, because your life bled for
the household truth, the style past metaphor
that finds its parallel however wretched
in simple, shining lines, in pages stretched
plain as a bleaching bedsheet under a guttering rainspout, glad for the sputter
of occasional insight; you who foresaw
ambition as a searing meteor
will fumble a damp match and, smiling, settle
for the dry wheezing of a dented kettle,
for vision narrower than a louvre’s gap,
then, watching your leaves thin, recall how deep
prodigious cynicism plants its seed,
gauges our seasons by this year’s end rain
which, as greenhorns at school, we’d
call conventional for convectional;
or you will rise and set your lines to work
with sadder joy but steadier elation,
until the night when you can really sleep,
measuring how imagination
ebbs, conventional as any water clerk
who weighs the force of lightly falling rain,
which, as the new moon moves it, does its work
even when it seems to weep.