Yet Another Poem About A Dying Child- Poetry Comentary

Yet Another Poem About A Dying Child
In poetry and in stories it is rarely the emotional suffering of the patient but the strain or hurt of those around them that is told. In ‘Yet Another Poem About A Dying Child’ Janet Frame attempts to make the point of view of the dying child understood to be different from that of the parent. She uses strong imagery to show the painful reality of life of the very sick child and the relief death offers from this pain. She uses metaphors of life and death, creating a contrast between the two, to help us understand this further.
Her poem is not the view of ‘Poets and parents’ who are made to seem overly romantic and unrealistic (even the connotations of the word ‘poet’ are that of romanticism). Frame shows them as in denial. ‘Poets and parents say he cannot die…’ In the first line the reader already understands this as slightly ridiculous, it is impossible not to die. ‘Their word across his mouth obscures and cures his murmuring goodbyes.’ The parents are glossing over the truth, hiding it. They do not want to face reality and so dismiss what he says. They ‘cure’ suggesting that what he is saying is crazy and wrong and that they, by replacing his words with their own, are doing what is right and helping him. It gives the impression that they feel, if they cannot cure his disease at least they can cure his words.
