Poetry and Pictures

Having a poem accompanied by an illustration aids both the reader and poet for the same reasons. It allows the poet to portray with more than just words what he/she is trying to depict, because a "setting" and "mood" can be made based on how the illustration is made. In turn, this allows the reader to remain focused on what the poet is trying to get across, not an assumption that could be horribly wrong. For instance, in Blake's A Poison Tree, the first thing that one sees is a lifeless person that is almost fully engulfed by a long and withering tree. These two images can be viewed as dark and decrepit, which is exactly what Blake intended because it deals with anger being so built up he finally decides to kill his enemy. Granted, this poem was fairly simple to understand and could have been without a picture, but a definite setting and mood was made even before I began to read it.

I'm definitely not a poetry reader, and frankly don't seem to find the meaning most of the time. Having an illustration following a poem helps me out quite a bit because at least I can decipher whether a poem is jovial or forlorn, dark or optimistic, etc. Blake is a genius for finally coupling both poem and picture. I thank him