which had something to do with each other. I think poetry must give pleasure. I think there must be something that invites somebody to reading, but you can’t do this consciously. (Interview)
By looking at the following poems, which are taken from different periods of Elizabeth Jennings’s creative work, it is possible to get an idea how the poet approaches the theme of love in her poetry. Her vision and treatment of love is versatile and different not only one aspect of love .She looks at love from varied angles.
The Exploration for Completeness in “Beyond Possession” (1955) “Beyond Possession is from Jennings’ poetic volume A Way of Looking. This poem is a way to free oneself from all barriers, false images and possessions in order to go deeper and find peace in the outside world as well as in one’s interior. After this state is achieved real love can be experienced. The successful use of two symbols rose and river throughout the poem is a notable feature of this poem.
In the first stanza she suggests the need to separate ourselves from false images we have of our outside world. We must try to reach the unspoilt character of everything. By this we can attain purity. Real understanding cannot be achieved by possessing things but by knowing the real nature of things as she says: “we have no need to beat/ the petals down to get the scent of rose”(Jennings, TCP 45).
In the middle stanza there is a continuation of the idea which tries to ascertain the real nature of things.