Poem Analysis: To Paint A Water Lily

My younger sister, Anna, is an accomplished and impressive artist in her own right, but she is the type of person to constantly downplay her own talent and think that she is not good compared to others. An example of this is when she drew a picture of someone’s eye freehand, and the drawing was incredible! It looked extremely lifelike and was absolutely stunning. She tried to tell me that it was nothing, that it was not very good and that she had not taken much time to draw it, but I shot those negative thoughts down immediately, telling her that it was an amazing piece of art and that she should consider entering an art competition with it. She did not end up entering that particular piece, but later she entered an art show with a different

The poet uses rhyming couplets, but they do not all rhyme in the traditional way that readers may be used to. When a reader first skims the poem, they may think it rhymes perfectly, but in fact the author is using rhymes such as “times” and “names”, or “alight” and “root”. At first glance, these may seem to rhyme perfectly, but when the reader looks closer, they do not rhyme perfectly. It is the same with a painting of a lily pond. When one first glances at the painting, they see a peaceful, still pond, with a delicate flower standing tall. However, when they look closer and focus on what the artist desired to convey, they might be able to sense the conflict happening under the surface, like the conflict happening with the rhymes. In “To Paint a Water Lily”, the poet uses imagery, personification, and rhyme to convey the attitude that nature may seem serene and peaceful to the eyes of a human, but to the eyes of an artist, it is a veritable war ground. There may be attacks from unseen and ancient enemies below, and from the ghastly-named dragonflies above, but the artist still paints the lily as standing tall and strong, even when facing her worst adversaries on the battlefield of