Poem Analysis for Lullaby for Insomniacs

At first glance at the poem “Another Lullaby for Insomniacs” by A.E. Stallings, it can seem like the subject is insomnia just for the title but it has more than depth than that. In order to understand what the theme of the poem is, readers must analyze is line by line. After doing so, you should come to realize that the theme is that theirs this guy who’s broken hearted over his lover who moved because he didn’t put a ring on her finger and now he can’t sleep over it.

Numerous readers don’t look inside a poem like they should to really find out what it means. Anyone can look at the title and come up with a subject or theme about the poem and it can be completely irrelevant to the poem. So you should always read it more than once. Try reading it three times at a minimum. The first time you read It is to just get an overall view of the poem and the second time you’ll understand it a little bit more. The third time you should start picking out words you don’t know and work your way up to analyzing it slowly line by line.

Reading this poem was confusing for the fact that it’s very receptive. It almost states every line in the poem more than once, but just uses it in different places throughout the poem. Overall, the theme can be understood that theirs a guy who can’t sleep hence insomnia in the title, because his lover has moved on. In the first stanza one line says “With no ring on her finger” and the line right after says “You cannot hope to hold her”. This means that the guy in the poem who can’t sleep has not asked his lover to marry him, hence why theirs no ring on her finger and therefore he cannot hold her. “She has another lover. Her heart is other where” means that the girl described in the poem that’s tossing around in bed has moved on. She has found someone else and possibly someone who will marry her, since her previous lover wouldn’t put a ring on her finger.

When it says “She lays the darkness bare” I interpreted this line as the girl has her feeling out in the open. When something is bare, it’s exposed. So the girl’s feelings are exposed to the guy. The lines right after is “You slowly realize. Her heart is other where. There’s distance in her eyes”. When you realize something, you start to understand it in more depth and fully comprehend it. So the guy has finally realized that his lover has moved on. When something is other where it means that it’s not there. It’s somewhere else, maybe somewhere you do or don’t know. So the girl’s heart is now understood to be with another guy. She has obviously moved on to another lover, but for some reason still in sight at her previous lover. “There’s distance in her eyes” means that the girl has now become more tense and her feelings are closed up.

A lot of the lines in the poem are repeated, but just placed in different places. This can cause it to become more confusing, but overall readers should still be able to figure out what the theme of the poem is. This poem is a rhyming pantoum poem, which is represented by the repeated words and the rhythm of the poem. Theirs is also no uses of a simile or metaphors on this poem, but this poem does contain a great deal of imagery. What is imagery? Imagery can be described as the visualizing the mental images, figures, or things of the text. Imagery in this poem is important, because it helps give the reader a visual of the theme and can also help to understand it a lot better. Example of imagery in this poem are “She turns her moon-cold shoulder”, “And lays the darkness bare” and “With distance in her eyes”. These are all examples that help bring the poem together and to fully understand it.

“Another Lullaby for Insomniacs” by A.E. Stallings is an interesting poem to read, in that it’s intriguing to readers by the title. I can say myself I was intrigued to read it, because insomnia is not something that’s mentioned in a lot poems. The title is what can really pull a reader in and get them interested to learn about the poem. After I read this poem numerous times and analyzed it as best as I could I came to the conclusion that the theme of the poem is that theirs this guy who’s broken hearted over his lover who moved because he didn’t put a ring on her finger and now he can’t sleep over it. I also would recommend this poem to anyone who enjoys poems. Personally, I don’t even read poems and I enjoyed this poem and analyzing it as well.