Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

John Frederick Nims’ "Strange!" is a sonnet of quiet astonishment, a meditation on love and the paradox of its absence from public discourse. The poem reflects a deep sense of personal devotion, contrasting the speaker’s perception of the beloved’s significance with the world’s failure to acknowledge them. In its structure, language, and thematic focus, the poem captures the strange disconnect between personal adoration and collective indifference, reinforcing the idea that love is often an insular experience, unrecognized by the outside world.

From its opening exclamation—"I'd have you known!"—the poem establishes the speaker’s urgent desire for the beloved to be acknowledged, not just in private affection but in the broader fabric of language, culture, and social exchange. The phrase "It puzzles me forever" suggests a persistent bewilderment, an ongoing inability to reconcile the beloved’s profound importance with their apparent absence from daily conversation. The repetition of "never" in "never a single word about you, never" underscores the disbelief and frustration at this omission, setting up the central paradox of the poem: the beloved is so significant to the speaker that their absence from public discourse seems inconceivable.

The second quatrain expands this sense of absence by detailing the speaker’s active search for any mention of the beloved. The use of varied, everyday settings—"busses," "curbs," "parks," "barbershops," "banks"—suggests an acute attentiveness, as if the speaker is perpetually listening, hoping to hear the beloved’s name arise naturally in conversation. This expectation is met with disappointment: "None allude to you there. None so far." The repetition of "none" and "so far" creates a sense of longing and incompleteness, implying that the search will continue indefinitely.

The third quatrain shifts from spoken language to written word, as the speaker turns to books, another potential source of recognition. The expectation that the beloved must be present somewhere in literature—"one beautiful as you!"—suggests an idealization, as though the beloved embodies the very essence of beauty and significance that literature seeks to capture. Yet once again, absence dominates: "But never, not by name." Even in the written world, where love and beauty are so often celebrated, the beloved remains unrecognized. The poem’s scope expands further, moving from books to the sky, as the speaker longs for some grand proclamation: "No planes are flying / Your name in lacy trailers past the blue / Marquees of heaven." The image of skywriting—a fleeting, theatrical form of advertisement—juxtaposes personal love with the hyper-visible forms of public spectacle. The beloved’s name is not emblazoned in the sky, nor do celestial bodies announce their existence: "No trumpets cry your fame."

The concluding couplet, "Strange!-how no constellations spell your name!", delivers the poem’s final and most expansive lament. The speaker’s love is so profound that its absence from the very stars seems unnatural. The use of "Strange!" as both the opening and closing exclamation bookends the poem with a sense of unresolved wonder, as if the speaker remains caught in the paradox of love’s intensely personal significance versus its universal anonymity. The mention of "constellations" adds a cosmic dimension to the theme, as if even the universe itself has failed to commemorate the beloved’s existence.

Structurally, the poem adheres to the Shakespearean sonnet form, with three quatrains developing a meditation on the beloved’s absence from public discourse and a final rhymed couplet crystallizing the poem’s overarching sentiment. The rhyme scheme (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG) gives the poem a fluid, conversational rhythm, reinforcing its introspective, almost musing tone. The enjambment in lines like "But never, not by name. No planes are flying" and "Marquees of heaven. No trumpets cry your fame." allows the thoughts to unfold naturally, mirroring the speaker’s ongoing contemplation.

The poem’s diction is straightforward, avoiding overly ornate or metaphorical language. Instead, it relies on simple yet powerful imagery—buses, curbs, books, planes, constellations—to contrast the personal and the public, the intimate and the grand. This simplicity heightens the poignancy of the speaker’s bewilderment, making the central paradox more striking: how can someone so deeply cherished remain invisible to the world?

Ultimately, "Strange!" is a poem about the isolating nature of love. It captures the way love makes one person seem like the center of the universe, even while the rest of the world remains oblivious. The speaker’s astonishment at this disconnect suggests not just admiration for the beloved but also a quiet lament for love’s solipsism. The poem affirms the beloved’s immense significance, even as it acknowledges that this significance is private, unshared, and perhaps unsharable. In this way, Nims transforms a simple reflection on love into a meditation on the nature of meaning itself—how something can be of infinite worth to one person while remaining utterly unknown to the rest of existence.

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