The Thing Is by Ellen Bass

The poem “The Thing Is” by Ellen Bass is a paradox. It is a self-growth, deep, heavy,
relatable, and downcast poem. After reading a few of her pieces one can tell she has lived a
dif cult life, giving her wisdom which she demonstrates in her writing. The reader can also notice
that she is a mother, feminist, and in a way a teacher. Most of her works are slightly pessimistic,
sarcastic, and intimate, she also has a way of making her poems not as intimidating as most
poems. The piece is about loving life even when grief and loss get in the way. In “The Thing Is,”
Ellen Bass’s voice is crucial in establishing tone and mood, which shifts from loving life, to the
hardships of life, and then back again to the loving life. She accomplishes this by simplifying the
descriptions of feelings with similes and personi cation, and in so doing, creates a sense of
relatability within the human experience.

Throughout the poem, Ellen Bass uses descriptive similes to demonstrate the strong and
dark emotions humans face. She also personi es said emotions; one great example of how she
uses both descriptive similes and personi cation in her poem are in lines six through eight. She
perceives grief like a person, when she writes “when grief sits with you,” (Bass line 6) She then
continues with her descriptive simile; that being “its tropical heat thickening the air heavy as
water, more t for gills than lungs” (Bass lines 6-8). In these lines, Bass creates a melancholic state
when she illustrates grief as a person, she later describes how grief can make one feel helpless.
Lastly, as the poem continues, Bass uses more personi cation and similes to in uence the
atmosphere.

Tone and mood uctuate throughout the poem, as it begins and ends with an anaphora of
love. Bass uses this anaphora to amplify the signi cance of loving life. As the poem progresses, it
darkens, describing loss, the grief that follows it, and the emptiness one feels after going through
the uidity of emotions. She starts by describing loss, as burnt paper crumbling. In line three, she
creates a comforting atmosphere by saying “and everything you’ve held dear” (Bass line 3) which
she then lowers when she progresses to the next line by writing “crumbles like burnt paper in

POEM ANALYSIS 1

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 your hands.” (Bass line 4) These lines are a great use of gurative language to not only make the
reader feel the frustration and sorrow that comes with loss; but also to exhibit how delicate and
valuable things are in life. This one of the many ways that Ellen Bass manipulates the reader’s
emotions throughout the poem.

Ellen Bass’s tone in most of her poems is relatable and simplistic; that is because she writes
about the feelings and emotions that she felt during her past experiences. By making them
relatable, Bass creates less intimidating to readers, instead of being thrown at an extremely
elaborate and decorated poem. Like explained in the previous paragraph, in lines 3 through 4,
Ellen Bass writes about loss, which is a universal experience. Throughout the poem the reader
can notice that Bass does this with all of her explanations. Another example is with lines 12 to 16.
There she describes moving on and loving life again. She describes life as an empty and
expressionless face, as she says “Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,” (Bass Lines 12 and 13) here the atmosphere she creates
makes one feel desolate, as one feels after having loss and grief pass. She makes it feel as though
grief was a big wave washing all emotions away, leaving one feeling numb and empty. She then
follows that with “and you say, yes, I will take you, I will love you, again.” (Bass Lines 15 and 16)
There she shows she moved on and will continue to love life with all the ups and downs that it
comes with.

To conclude, “The Thing Is” takes the reader up and down throughout the poem, Bass
easily manipulates tone, mood, and atmosphere with her gurative language and descriptions. By
doing that, Bass evokes distinct emotions for the reader within the whole poem. With the
continuous highs and lows of the poem she makes her piece seem like the roller coaster ones call
life. The poem is also slightly contradicting; it is concise, detailed yet general, and harsh and
heavy yet comforting as she reassures the reader they are not alone in their feelings and emotions.
She writes about emotions so thoroughly which results in the readers immersing themselves even
more in her poem; making it as though they were to be feeling the emotions in the moment of
them reading.

POEM ANALYSIS 2

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