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Commentary On The Poem, Gloomy Collins By Suzanne Collins

668 Words3 Pages

This poem dramatizes that not everything is as good as it seems, no matter how much one wants it to be so. The speaker is a writer who compares and contrasts his life with one of a painter, and describes how the life of a painter is more captivating and demanding than being a writer. The speaker describes writing as being “hunched over a ring of lamplight” (Collins 3) and continues to describe the act of writing as less enthralling. As the poem progresses, the speaker’s attitude towards painting is more of a dream-like mirage while the attitude towards writing is monotonous and gloomy. The poem accentuates this general idea of painting being superior until the end, in which the speaker describes painting in a worse light, comparing it to “grasping the ledge of a window/ so as not to fall to the street below” (23-24). The speaker changes his mood from the beauty of being a painter to the struggle it involves. The style of the poem is similar to Collin’s usual form, consisting of three lines per stanza, and having the ending be a twist. He frequently alludes to poetry and writing itself in his poems, which is one reason why he wrote this poem in the view of a writer. …show more content…

The speaker’s attitude changes from the freedom he expresses through painting to the actual struggles faced by painters, as well as his disdain towards righting gains more entertaining elements. The view on writing changes to show the speaker has gained some appreciation for the job, including using a word like “jiggling” (19) a pen, which is a different and more happy word choice than used earlier in the poem to describe his dislike. Nonetheless, painting is compared to “a man raising a hammer” (21), and grasping onto a window ledge to not fall onto the ground below. The speaker seems to realize that painting is not as freeing as he thought it to be, emphasizing the overall theme that not everything is as good as it

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