10 E Losses Poem Analysis

Poem Analysis Carl Sandburg talks about losing love in his poem of “losses.” When Carl Sandburg begins the poem, the audience can interpret that he’s talking about losing two kinds of love. One is love to his partner and the other is the love from parent to child. Readers can interpret this from the poem because Sandburg writes that “I have love, and a child, a banjo, and shadows.” As Sandburg lists the first two items, love and child, the audience can become confused when Sandburg continues the list on with a banjo and shadows. This is because a banjo and shadow is less significant in someone’s life as love or having a child. Sandburg is listing these items in chronological order; he’s meaning to tell the reader what he lost first and what happens after. The author is also showing different areas of his life when he’s telling the audience about these items. Sandburg starts out the list with “I have love.” Sandburg is referring to the time of his youth because when people are young, they are free and in love, and they can be careless. Sandburg then transitions to the time of his adulthood when he tells the audience that he also has a child. During this time, the author or whomever he’s referring to must have matured into an adult because becoming selfless is one of the outcomes of becoming a parent. Then Sandburg breaks his list by adding in that he has a banjo. This is a strange thing to add in to a list of things he loves but the banjo may be replying to Sandburg in his old age. This is because if Sandburg still had a child, he would be too busy to play a banjo but since his child grew up, he now has the banjo as his only friend. Then Sandburg ends the line with shadows. These shadows are talking about life, Sandburg says that he has shadows and people can only create shadows if they’re alive, doing this Sandburg is also referring to the shadows from his loved ones, his children, and his banjo. In the end of his poem, Sandburg says “Losses of God, all will go, and one day we will hold, only the shadows.” Sandburg is writing about death and the death of the things he loved. Sandburg is writing about death because the shadows are the only things he holds. The shadows are also representing memories of the people the author used to know. Sandburg also includes the audience in the last line to tell them that they will also experience his lost someday because the “losses of god” are a natural part of life. Carl Sandburg talks about these losses in a way that they can’t be changed and the only thing people can do is face them. Art Analysis The picture represents Sandburg’s poem because it’s a picture of an attic. I choose to draw an attic because attics are usually used as storage areas in a house. Going in an attic, someone can remember memories of what used to be there of whoever used to be there. Then I drew outlined people, a woman and a child, this is to show that like Sandburg’s poem, he used to have the love of a person and the love for a child but now since they’re gone, only their shadows (or in this case, outlines) remain. This shows that the author can still see the things he’s lost in his mind and misses them. The only things that are real in the picture are the shoes and the things that the outlined people are holding, this is to show that traces of these people were left behind and they constantly remind the author of them. Losses I HAVE love And a child, A banjo And shadows. (Losses of God, All will go And one day We will hold Only the shadows.) By Carl Sandburg