Poem Analysis

The title of the poem is “Life Is What We Make It” by Edgar A. Guest. This title seems to go along with how a person views life as a whole. This idea is also what the author wants the reader to take away as an idea.  If the person has a negative outlook on life, then all of the bad or negative events or occurrences through their day, and even life, will always seem to stick with them more than it should and it will seem as though they are having bad luck or that nothing good is going their way.The said person will most likely not be in too good of a mood. If a person has a more positive outlook on life then they will tend to focus on the more positive aspects of their day, and life, and it may seem that they are just always happy or in a good mood. Even if the previously mentioned two people have the exact same occurrences happen to them throughout a day, the person with a negative outlook will most likely view it as being a bad day, while the person with a positive outlook will most likely view it as a good day. This is the essence of the poem, that life it what you make of it. If you want to have a good day and have a positive outlook, then you most likely will.

Putting the poem into a more literal sense in my own words is as follows.

Take the delight of life

Laughter is great and you should hold onto it

Tears and pain can quickly come crashing down

But life is what you make of it

Dance to the parts of life worth dancing to

Grief can be long and put on a damper

We need joy, so smile just to smile

live by this life must be what you make of it

life is alive, with characteristics

reach for a goal, and use your strength and perseverance to get there

Our lives together

The worst and the best of it

remember this line

life must be what we make of it

Before the writing of this poem, the author may have had some very bad and very good news or events happen to him. There might have been a death of his family member, or a big break in his career. He could either dwell of the fact that someone died and is gone, or celebrate their life and make the best of your career. He may have had some feeling contemplations and so he decided that “how” you day went depended on your outlook, and he wrote this poem to express that and to convey it to others. He also might have been a bit pessimistic, but then have realized that this was not the way to go, and so he made the transition to more of an optimist and wrote this poem.

The poem is made up of 3 stanzas of 8 lines each. Each stanza starts with “Life is a” and each stanza ends with “Life must be what we make of it.”. In addition, the second to last line of each stanza is a lead into the ending line. There is some imagery, I would say more vague or implied imagery like actions, not a scene. The first line of each stanza, in addition to the end of other lines,  is followed by a semicolon. This can imply that the lines following that line are an element or part of or included in or can be related to the previous line, almost like a list.Every even numbered line ends in “of it”. There are rhymes in pairs. The end of the first and third line rhyme, and the end of the 5th and 7th line rhyme, and this pattern continues in the whole poem in addition to the pattern that the 3rd to last word of line 2 and 4 rhyme in a pair, and line 6 and 8 rhyme and so on for the whole poem.  

The poem is pretty constant in how it goes, and has the traits mentioned above.

The author died in Detroit and lived almost all of his life in the U.S. and was considered an American Poet, was popular in the first half of the 20th century, as well as the title of the “People’s Poet”.