A short dive into minor details
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“To converse with the greats” by Vera Pavlova is a short but thought-provoking poem. So, me being me, instead of contributing anything intellectual to the poem’s message, I’m going to instead analyze a couple minor details of the way it’s written.
The poem is eight lines long, and each line begins with a preposition. The pattern of starting words alternates between the word “to” and other prepositions. There is a mini pattern in the second and fourth lines, which both start with “by’’ rather than different prepositions. Finally, one last pattern of note is the rhyme of “talk with the clock.”
I can elaborate a bit more on these patterns, though. Or at least, elaborate on why they stood out to me. First of all, the prepositions and whatnot stuck out immediately, as I presume the intention was. The “to” lines have verbs in the infinitive, and are the main focus of the poem, so it’s natural that the poet would want them to stand out. As for the “by” lines, these contain verbs with an “ing” ending. In other words, the lines with matching prepositions also have matching verb tenses, which is a neat detail. And as for “talk with the clock”, it is the only rhyme in the poem. Consequently, it is also where the poem’s meter changes; in previous lines, the prepositional phrase that followed each “to”-infinitive was on the next line; for this line, there is a prepositional phrase without a break after it, and a second phrase on the next line.
So, aside from catching my eye, what does any of that mean? Well, I believe that this poem was constructed using specific parallel structure to make the second half stand out more while still calling attention to all of the words on display. The first four lines develop an idea, and the final four expound on it. I really enjoyed this poem, and chose to analyze the language over the idea because I didn’t know how to expound on the idea in my own way.
Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/53190/to-converse-with-the-greats