Poem: to Myself by W.S. Merwin

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When I first read this poem, I was confused because I noticed that the poem was written from second person point of view because the author repeatedly used “You” and “I” a lot. Also the poem has no stanzas; therefore it’s more like a letter. I would have thought he was talking to a friend or about a friend if it wasn’t titled “To myself”. The author seemed to have lost himself even though he knew who he really was. I felt like the first three lines of the poem “Even when I forget you; I go on looking for you; I believe I would know you” explains how sometimes we lose ourselves and forget the people we used to be but we’ll never stop wanting to be who we used to be. Everything we do, every step we take makes us go back and remember who we used to be. As we all tend to progress in life, memories begin to fade away and die, and we forget about people that used to be in our lives sometimes ourselves. As I read through this poem, I thought the author was talking about someone that was really close to him dying or moving on. At the end I figured out that the author was referring to himself, and how his younger self has died. He remembered everything he used to be and he can still feel that part of himself within him even though he’s someone else now. I also noticed how he’s struggling as he’s trying to become a different person. I mean he tried finding that person he used to be and seemed to have lost along the line but he couldn’t. This made me think that as we tend to grow older we begin to forget about the past and just accept the present and try as much as possible to make good use of it. This poem really gave me a lot of understanding to growing up and forgetting about the past especially my childhood years. After a couple years we all wish we could go back to joyous lifestyle of our childhood when we didn’t have to worry about anything but we have no choice than to

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