The Word Plum Poem Meaning

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A single word can carry meaning beyond that of a thousand different words if used in the correct way. In “The Word Plum” by Helen Chasin, many words are used to describe another, but one word in particular carries deeper meaning far beyond it’s own initial use to expand and expound upon what makes a plum what it is. This word is “delicious”, and it’s varying uses and meanings bring up more then a single ever can. The word “delicious” carries with it a deeper meaning in this poem, and those deeper meanings give further depth and complexity to the work. First one must look at the word with it’s base definition, using this, one can begin to explain it’s use in the poem better. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, delicious is an adjective…show more content…
Chasin’s poem goes on to describe the word “Plum” as far more then just…show more content…
Each can describe the sensations of biting into a plum, the sensation of delight and the feelings of good taste that can be derived from each line. Indeed, the last two stanzas are about the delicious sensations of the fruit in question, and of the sensations of the word itself. For even a sound can be delicious, the last lines, “question”, “and reply, lip and tongue”, and “of pleasure” are more a description of the sound that the word brings. These things turn the word “plum” into a sort of onomatopoeia, making a word for a fruit into a sensation, something the mind’s ear hears when it would not normally be interpreted as something like a sound or sensation in and of itself. However, as one has discovered, delicious is a term to describe delightful sensations, to describe pleasure itself. Pleasure being at first, much like the word delicious, a simple sensation which can carry a thousand meanings and interpretations, reality behind the term can only come close to something which can be described with simple words. Delicious and pleasure go hand in hand, and as the poem begins and ends with these words in focus, we can attribute them to one
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