The content of the poem centers around a man’s fervent pleas to his God for personal change. He expresses the feeling of being trapped by his own sinful tendencies and refers to himself as being allied with Satan, the enemy of God. The speaker possesses a deep longing to faithfully serve his God, yet is overcome with despair as he realizes the impossibility of doing so without assistance.
Indeed, he would need to be apprehended and entirely rejuvenated in order to ever discover such faith. The entire poem is propelled by this intense yearning for transformation. The narrator initially presents a demand that reveals his despair due to its harshness. (He implores to have his heart battered. -Len 1) As he persists in prayer, the persona becomes increasingly distraught. He expresses his sense of complete powerlessness through the simile in line five, where he likens himself to a captured town.
By line eleven, the speaker expresses his deep-rooted love for God and acknowledges that he can only be faithful to this love if he goes through a process of being torn apart and made new. The reader senses the speaker’s lack of strength in every breath and word he utters. The speaker is fully aware of his powerlessness and humbly confesses his need for God’s assistance. This heartfelt plea is filled with a desperate desire to experience a genuine and wholly faithful love for God.
This poem is driven by a sense of desperation from start to finish. The main technique used in the poem is the incorporation of contradictory ideas, or paradoxes. The speaker continuously asks God for something that can only be achieved by moving in what appears to be the opposite direction. For instance, he requests to be overthrown in order to rise and stand (line 3), and even more strikingly, to be ravished so that he may become chaste (line 14). In almost every sentence written by Done, there is an instance of such a paradox.
The tone of desperation in the beaker’s words can easily be detected due to the repetition of opposing concepts. The speaker expresses a level of desperation that suggests he is at his lowest point, asking his God to do more than just heal his wounds. In the first two lines, the speaker declares a preference for being battered. The speaker’s unrestrained cries for these requests indicate that he is fully consumed by the desire for unwavering faithfulness. The poem’s words are harsh and severe, with a hard sound that conveys the speaker’s sense of weakness and injury effectively.
The verse is rich with imagery that evokes a strong sense of physical and emotional response from the reader. The powerful choice of words portrays vivid scenes of imprisonment, brokenness, and devastation. These depictions elicit a genuine sense of pain and suffering. Simultaneously, the harshness of the language and imagery allows the reader to understand the profound emotional state in which the speaker must find themselves to express such desperate pleas. Furthermore, Done employs various poetic techniques that invite the reader to experience the words on a deep, sensory level rather than merely reading them.
For instance, the rhythm of the alliteration in line 4 (break, blow, burn) conveys the sensation of being knocked down or overthrown. Additionally, the sentence structure of the poem emphasizes the speaker’s present condition rather than the potential assistance from God. Done achieves this effect by positioning the improved outcomes as subordinate clauses in the middle of the sentences, causing the reader to downplay the possibilities of healing and instead concentrate on the speaker’s current state of despair.
Donna’s poem is both captivating and moving, as well as being real. It effectively evokes strong emotions in readers while presenting the harsh reality of the faith experience that almost everyone can relate to. The phrase “three-personnel God” alludes to the Christian triumvirate, but those who are deeply devoted to their religion can understand the intense longing expressed in the poem to be truly faithful to their God. Surprisingly, many individuals likely feel that this heartfelt prayer is based on their own experiences.
