Wednesday, January 19, 2011

"Yoko" by Thom Gunn


“Yoko” is a dramatic monologue; it’s a kind of a love poem. The interesting thing about this poem is the dog perspective view of the world that we get.  A lot of poets choose to write about love, landscapes, different things, but a poem about a DOG, we don’t get that very much.

The poem starts with the dog describing the everyday activities that he does, the scary feeling when the firecrackers on the sky explode, and his master – the one man he cares more than anything in this world.  The view of the world from a dog’s perspective is very interesting and Thom Gunn describes it in vivid details i.e.  when the leader takes the dog on a walk, he starts investigating with his nose the road he walked previously mentioning along the way certain activities that he did like taking a piss, certain smells he remembers,  the wind , the running… 

My favorite line of the poem is: “returning to you (as I always will, you know that)”. It just shows the strong bond a human being has with a dog.

No comments:

Post a Comment