My poem is named Out, Out, Brief Candle to pay homage to the quote in Macbeth by Shakespeare. This is quite quintessential in understanding the meaning behind my poem. In Macbeth’s soliloquy the quote is meant to signify the how reality is nothing but infinite darkness. Existence is symbolized by the light of the candle and the brief burning of the candle is what grants us temporary existence, as opposed to the darkness of non-existence. The shadow cast by the shadow is meant to symbolize us in our brief life. Our existence is merely held together by the embers of a candle in the wind which may extinguish at any moment, it is futile for us to consider our life of great importance as we are soon forgotten as we die. Our existence is nothing to ourselves and signifies nothing to anybody else either. Those that do not see the meaningless of life are naive. My sonnet, having an octave and sestet structure, is further subdivided into three quatrains and one couplet, which is the volta. The reason for there being no discernable meter and the abundant use of catalexis is to reflect the imagery of a candle in the wind, which one wishes would go out already and rid ourselves of this misery. The first quatrain sets up the premise of the poem, wherein a person from whose perspective we see the world, notes how his state of being permanently comatose is like that of a premature tomb. The imagery of darkness is again brought out with the first line and its rhyming couplet being the third line in the quatrain, as is standard for Shakespearean sonnets. The protagonist attempts to fight against the odds of his permanently comatose state and seeks to be able to move his body voluntarily, under his own volition. The second quatrain is more optimistic and now introduces the imagery of light. The beacon of hope is his eye which can perceive light and thus internalize it. The protagonist attempts to gain control of this “beacon of hope” by attempting to control his eyelid but is only partly successful as he can only flutter it. The fluttering is like the burgeoning embers of fire that were close to being extinguished moments ago. The last line of the second quatrain takes a bit of biblical approach, as it is the height of hubris to go against the will of the Gods and protest against the punishment of being permanently comatose. However, the successful act of rebellion is now a revolution and the fruit of his labours is like the forbidden fruit being acquired, success against the will of the Gods. This theme of revolting against the Gods is further elaborated in the third quatrain where I discuss Sisyphus. Here I discuss how it is the threat of death that makes your actions meaningful and someone in Sisyphus’s position who had an eternity, or analogously an inextinguishable flame, would never experience the same glory as man does for overcoming his problems with his delicate flame of life. The last volta is when the protagonist finds out all of his hardships have been for naught as it is not the cruelty of the Gods that lead to him being on the verge of death but the prayers of people who would come visit him in the hospital room, which can be assumed to be his family and loved ones, who wish that he would just die already. The purpose of my work isn’t to be a passive nihilistic and to encourage readers to give in to the absurdism of life, but rather to accept it. Furthermore, the audience which I intend to be people who are interested in whether or not they should opt in for resuscitation if they are ever in a similar condition and to make them question whether the effort is worth it. Even if they disagree, it is alright because the purpose of my work is to get the audience thinking about the subject and come up with their opinion on it. Whether or not they use my poem to supplement their stance is not important to me. The stance I adopt is one that I have implicitly stated before but not explicitly. My stance is for the audience to consent to euthanasia at such a stage rather than to try and latch on to life. The tone is one of pontification rather than that of an absolute statement.

My second work is Mourning the Delay, an experimental eulogy. It is a bit ironic that the speaker is not mourning the actual death of the person, but rather the fact that the death was delayed so long and didn’t come sooner. The theme of irony is prevalent and is used ubiquitously throughout the eulogy until the speaker states that he is going to drop the facade of etiquette. The first instance of irony is prevalent in the hook of the eulogy where a man comes home callused from a day of hard work and exercise of his autonomy and from his pursuit of happiness only to wonder if his pursuit was sufficient. This is ironic in the sense that the person who the speaker is mourning never actually is able to exercise his autonomy nor be able to even be engaged in his pursuit of happiness is the permanently comatose state. The second statement of irony is in the second line wherein the parenthetical comma states that although the person being mourned has left us, he still lives on in their memories. The irony is in the statement where he reflects on him leaving them, this can be interpreted as the speaker reflecting that the person had left them long ago before he actually died. The third statement where the speaker states that he was quite the dreamer can be interpreted to be seen as dark humour as the person was always comatose and thus always dreaming, reflected in his attitude when he wasn’t a vegetable. The last line of grim irony can be found in the line where the speaker mentions how the person has eyes for the once blue skies, while now his eyes can either be seen as eternally black shrouded in the husk of its former aspirations or looking at the slate gray ceiling of the hospital wall. There is leniency in interpretation. Furthermore, the line where the speaker comments on the person’s attitude to never give up is done in a way where it is supposed to be admirable but when considered that his attitude had cost his family a large number of emotional hardships, it is put into context how bad the act of choosing to stay alive was for everybody else. The middle of the eulogy is the speaker establishing the scenario more concretely and it serves as a transition to the candid part of the eulogy. The candid part of the eulogy serves more as a prose to elucidate the pain and hardships that the family and loved ones had to go through, as they had to constantly cope with the person either coming back into their life or leaving. There was no absolute state he existed in, just oscillating back and forth between the two. The uncertainty is where the fear and the pain is derived from. The last line ends with an ominous quote which makes puts the reader in the shoes of the person being mourned, as it states if only the person permanently comatose could be made of aware of the events that would transpire due to his choice to be resuscitated and kept alive through machines. The purpose of my work is captured in the last line and its explanation. My audience are mostly men of any age who are unsure about whether or not they should consent to euthanasia under such a state or hold out and hope for a miracle recovery. My stance is that they should not and the tone I adopt in explaining my stance is based on metaphysical speculations and over generalizations where it is relevant to everybody. The tone is somber and grim.