The poem "My Box" written by Gillian Clarke is about a gift of a box from a man to a woman.

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 Alex Chen                                The Poem   My Box                 09/12/01

The poem “My Box” written by Gillian Clarke is about a gift of a box from a man to a woman. The writer thinks that a box is a much better gift than any thing.  Here I am trying to explain why she thinks that.

‘My box is made of golden oak, my lover’s gift to me’

Clarke introduces two characters here, the lover and the narrator.

‘He fitted hinges and a lock of brass and a bright key. ´

When I read this, it seems as if a word is missing between ‘bright’ and ‘key’. This may be deliberate to emphasize the youthfulness of the writer at this point in the poem.

‘He made it out of winter nights, sanded and oiled and planed, engraved inside a heavy lid in brass, a golden tree.’

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 This means that the man spent a lot of time on the box because ‘and’ was emphasized three times.

In the second stanza, the poet describes what the woman has done with the box.

‘In my box are twelve black books where I have written down how we have sanded, oiled and planed, planted a garden, built a wall, seen jays and gold crests, rare red kites, found the wild heartsease, drilled a well, harvested apples and words and days and planted a golden tree.’

This whole stanza is written as a list to tell ...

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