ILP+Poem+Analysis

“Poem” by William Carlos Williams The rose fades and is renewed again by its seed, naturally but where

save in the poem shall it go to suffer no diminution of its splendor. **__Memories Will Live On __**  When I was first exposed to this poem in English, I started tearing up. My classmates just thought that I was zoning out, thinking about something that happened at training that morning, and that I was about to cry over something completely unrelated to the lesson. What they didn’t know is that I was becoming emotional because of the poem, and its direct connection to my topic. The first stanza is quite simple: it’s talking about the death of the rose in nature. When the rose meets its end and “fades,” it produces seeds, and those seeds develop over time to become new roses. It’s saying that even after the rose dies, its splendor and beauty that it carried during its life will continue through the seeds. Later on, the poem becomes more complex due to the use of the word “save” in the second stanza. The reason for this is the fact that “save” has multiple meanings. For this topic, we’ll focus on only two of its meanings: The first meaning of “save” implies that there’s somewhere “[other than] in the poem” where the rose will live on in some form. Even though the rose itself is gone forever in nature, the splendor of its memory will live through the seeds that will later become much like the original rose. The second meaning is saying that the rose will be “[rescued] in the poem,” that the poem will prevent the rose’s memory from dying. The poem will continue on through time, so therefore the rose’s memory will too. This is symbolizing that even when something is no longer physically present on the Earth, whether it be a flower, a person, or any other thing, it will always live through memories. Both of these meanings are trying to get the same message across: once something dies – the rose in this poem – it’ll always live on, whether it is through memories (in the poem) or some physical reincarnation (the seeds). The reason that I was tearing up at this poem was that this same message applies to the 1961 U.S. World Figure Skating Team. Even though all of the team members have left this life, their memories are still safe within us skaters. Those who had the privilege to actually know the team have their memories of them, and by passing those memories down through generations of skaters, the essence of the team is still living inside of us. We’ll never let them be forgotten, just like the poem ensures that the rose’s memory will live on. The main lesson to learn from both the team and the rose is to not mourn the loss of something special, for they will live on through your memories. And for that reason, you’ll never have to miss them, because they will always remain living inside of you.
 * 1) 1. //prep //. except, other than
 * 2) 2. //v. //to rescue/protect something from harm/danger