The poem The Lover by Don Patterson. :: English Literature

The metrical composition The Lover by Don Patterson.The Lover - Don PattersonThe poem The Lover by Don Patterson explores traditional notions offate and romantic love. The style represents both of these ideas, asthe buffer is a tarot card use by fortune-tellers to tell you yourfate, and the lover has connotations of romance. He also uses vivid resourcefulness describes how a human is knocked down by a car, and againstthe odds, is brought back to living because of love.The poem has three stanzas of equal length and it has a half rhyme.The master(prenominal) theme is identified by how love is the strongest force on theplanet.Pattersonbegins by saying,Poor mortals with your horoscopes and blood tests.This is in such a tone, that it is suggesting that a higher(prenominal) being isspeaking, and through references by and by in the poem, it seems likelythat the narrator is a classic Greek god.Pattersonmentions horoscopes and blood tests. These are bothmethods that humans get a line in vain to predict the future. Blood testshave connotations of illness, which becomes relevant later in thepoem.Even if the plane lands you safely, why should you not return to your household in flames or ruins, your wife absconded, the children blind anddying in their cots?Patterson uses genuinely emotive and powerful imagery to try to prove a mind that our small lives are irrelevant in the eyes of the world. Hethence summarises this stanza by saying,Only the lover walks upon the earth, careless of what fate preparesfor him.This quote suggests that the lover is immune to the day-to-dayharshness of the world. His word choice also efficaciously displays idesof immortality. It tells us that love can protect you from the perilsof the world.In the second stanza, Pattersonintroduces the chief(prenominal) incident in thepoem. A car knocks down the subject.So you yard out at the lights, almost as if today you k flat you arethe special one. The women in the windshield lifting away her f rozencry.This metaphor is very effective as it has clear connotations of timestanding still and fear. Patterson is now writing on a personal basis,as before he spoke generally.He continues his biblical references when he says, A white drape on astick. This imagery describes Atropos, the Greek god of dying(somewhat like Grim Reaper) When the time has come, they come to taketo take you away. He continues the theme of the underworld by saying,The sun leaves like a rise the sky goes out.Pattersons effective imagery has apocalyptic connotations. Thissimile compares the flash of a rocket to the brightness of the sun.