16 pages • 32 minutes read
I Am Offering This Poem
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Symbols & Motifs
Declarations of Love
Baca’s explicit declaration of love occurs four times, and each forms a one-line stanza. The “I love you” (Line 7) motif enlivens every word in the poem so they ring in a unified chorus. Each time he repeats the refrain, the speaker’s intention behind writing the poem and choosing his specific imagery becomes clearer. Since he loves the person to whom he writes, he extends comfort, fulfillment, and tenderness to them through his words.
The visual simplicity of the four one-line stanzas emphasize the directness of the speaker’s feelings and the fact that his love is all he has to offer despite the concreteness of the images he uses to convey the depth of his love. The speaker has no ambivalence about his feelings of love, allowing them to stand on their own, surrounded by longer stanzas that allow the speaker to describe the details of his love. Contained in the poem itself, which is the speaker’s only “offering” (Line 1) to his beloved, this feeling of love is all the speaker has to give.
Warmth in the Winter
Throughout the poem, a motif of warmth emphasizes the emotional heart of the poem, using the symbolism of “a warm coat” (Line 3), socks, a scarf, a portion of hot food, a fire, and the warmth of a loving memory to accentuate the depth of the speaker’s love. The speaker introduces the thought of “winter com[ing] to cover you” (Line 4) early in the poem and juxtaposes a cold image to the warmth of the symbols that follow, heightening the comforting and protective features of the warming effect of the objects.
The warming objects of a heavy coat and socks in the first stanza of the poem make physical the abstract notion of love; as a coat, scarf and socks wrap around the cold extremities of a person’s body in order to protect them and keep them warm, so does the emotion of love cover the beloved in a protective layer of comfort. Later in the poem, “a pot full of yellow corn” (Line 9) brings to mind an image of a summer harvest of corn that provides nourishment in the wintertime. The warm food represents a kind of act of love that provides sustenance and health-giving properties to the beloved. The speaker compares the image of a cozy fire inside a sheltered dwelling in the wilderness to a compass that could be used “if you were lost” (Line 15), making a link between the emotion of love and a sense of home and safety. The final warming image of the poem appears in the last two lines of the poem, in the form of a gentle command to the reader to “remember,/ I love you” (Lines 29-30). This reminder to the reader to hold on to the memory of the speaker’s love has an emotionally warming effect that complements the concrete gestures of the earlier symbols of cold weather clothing, warm food, and a fire.
The Cold Wilderness
The images Baca chooses all create tension between the poem’s warmth and the world’s challenges. He uses words like “winter” (Line 4) and “wilderness” (Line 16) to convey the harsh circumstances his beloved may face. The coldness of the winter can be overwhelming in a physical sense: The speaker describes how “winter comes to cover you [...]” (Line 4). The cold temperature is also a vicious predator, threatening to “bite through” (Line 6) the beloved’s winter clothing. The third and fourth stanzas similarly reference cold weather, which the beloved can escape through a warming meal of “corn” (Line 9) and a seat next to a “fire” (Line 21).
Baca also describes “the wilderness life becomes when mature [...]” (Line 16), inviting the reader to make a comparison between the familiar territory of childhood and the more dangerous circumstances of adulthood. Adulthood can bring many difficulties, in contrast to the relative simplicity of childhood. Just like the wintry wilderness in the background of the poem, the mysterious environment of adulthood presents unknown threats and emotional coldness against which the beloved may need protection.
The speaker alerts the beloved to times that may come when the beloved is “lost” (Line 15) amid “dense trees” (Line 19), assuring them that the poem and the speaker’s love will provide them the haven they will need at this difficult time. The world can present harsh and inevitable difficulties, as symbolized by the wilderness imagery of the poem, and “when the world outside / no longer cares if you live or die [...]” (Lines 27-28), the speaker’s beloved can remember the speaker’s love as a form of protection and safety. Life can be cruel and indifferent, the poem explains, but love and poetry will always be there to help readers survive.
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By Jimmy Santiago Baca
