I need all the help I can get! :)

[AshleighS]

Hey there... I've got this poem that I'm having a little trouble
deciphering and was wondering if I could get some thoughts... I find it
has a really interesting diction, rhythm and pace and I'm wondering how
you all interpret that as well. Anything you can give me at all is more
than appreciated! :) Here's a copy of the poem... it's titled "Others"

1
Men prefer an island
With its beginning ended:
Undertone of waves
Trees overbended.

Men prefer a road
Circling, shell-like
convex and fossiled
Forever winding inward.

Men prefer a woman
Limpid in sunlight
Held as a shell
On a sheltering island...

Men prefer and island.

2
But I am mainland
O I range
From upper country to the inner core:
From sageland, brushland, marshland
To the sea's floor.

Show me an orchard where I have not slept,
A hollow where I have not wrapped
The sage about me, and above, the still
Stars clustering
Over the pondersa pine, the cactus hill.

Tell me a time
I have not loved,
A mountain left unclimbed:
A prarie field
where I have not furrowed my tongue,
Nourished it out of the mind's dark places;
Planted with tears unwept
And harvested as friends, as faces.

O find me a dead-end road
I have not trodden
A logging road that leads the heart away
Into the secret evergreen of cedar roots
Beyond sun's farthest ray -
Then, in a clearing's sudden dazzle,
There is no road; no end; no puzzle.

But do not show me! For I know
The country I caress:
A place where none shall trespass
None possess:
A mainland mastered
From its inaccess.

Men prefer an island.

[Dark Muse]

Well I do not know when this poem was written, but it sounds like a discussion about mans views upon the wilderness and nature, and the fact that men prefer an enviroment in which they can control and contain, opposed to the vast unknown. Men prefer things they can feel they are master over, while the main land would be daunting to man.

[Ludmila607]

I quite agree to the previous comment.
I think the island represent those things we are used to...Our street, our idiom, our beloved , what is been teAched to us.A limited world that we dont dare to surpass.
Men can consider that try the unknown can be dangerous.Going into different places were we dont have any map to guide us.
But he points that sometimes the richer experiences in life are outside the ordinary and behind what is near .To take the risk to discover those outer places can be the key to really live a life and experiment deep emotions or enlighting moments.
I think he uses the first person, to talk about his choice.
And use the Third to point the rest of Men.
THat is how I understand this.
I do feel that the flown of images he uses are very ilustrative and produce a strong emotional response.
GREAT POEM.:thumbs_up

[ines92]

good poem i like it the rhyming was great