Both of the poems: This Room - Imtiaz Dharker and Love after Love - Derek Walcott feature a path to self discovery, weather being through chaos or just feasting on your life, both are positive poems. Both poems use a central metaphor and feature personal growth, strength and celebration throughout.
First of all - This Room: it is an in depth poem which uses a lot of personification, imagery and contrasting words, all there to emphasize the freedom and the escapism from dark to light. This poem tells a story and it goes like this: it goes from being confined or needing to escape, then there is a sense of freedom, moving from dark to light.Next, however is a feeling of frenzied excitement, ore and bewilderment. Last but not least is happiness and celebration, however it is detached from the rest of the poem, it is one line on it's own. Also a lot of metaphors have been used in this poem. Second - Love after Love: The paragraphs flow into each other and the whole layout of the poem is set out to be as it would be if you were having a meal with someone, however that person is you.
The poem is about forgetting to love yourself hence the title: 'Love after Love' either you should keep the first love for yourself and have a love after that love to give to other people, i. . your husband / wife, or it means you have two equal loves, one for you and one for someone else.This is saying that you should always keep the love for yourself first as it is most important and that is partly what this poem is about, the other thing it is saying is that if you do forget to love yourself, or even forget how to love yourself, you know by reading this poem that it is not the end of the world and there is still plenty of hope to love yourself again and to be happy. On both poems, Self-discovery, Personal Growth, Strength and Celebration are conveyed throughout.
The Room is a metaphor for her and how she feels inside. Which is obviously in turmoil and Chaos, which is shown by the pots and pans bashing about. However whatever it is that has made her feel like this is a pleasurable experience as her hands are clapping and celebrating on the outside, but what is weird is that her hands and her feet are detached from her body. Our homes and possessions symbolize our lives and ambitions in a limited sense, while change and new opportunities are likened to space, light and 'empty air', where there is an opportunity to move and grow.
The sense of self in this poem is confused. We say sometimes that we are 'all over the place' and Dharker depicts this: she cannot find her feet ( a common metaphor for gaining a sense of purpose or certainty. ) and realizes that her hands are not even in the same room ( they have taken on a life of there own and are applauding from somewhere else. ) Both poems, in summary, show exploration into self-discovery and personal growth.
This Room shows a road of self-discovery through chaos however Love after Love shows people that it is easy to love you again.
