The Three Oddest words?? Help needed in analysing.?

Question

Here how it goes-

When I pronounce the word Future,

The first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,

I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word nothing,

I make something no non-being can hold.

What does this mean?? I think it says about the fact that the world doesn't go by a particular trend and nothing is justifiable. WHAT DO U GUYS THINK?? DO U FIND ANY LITERARY TERMS USED??

Answer 1

I think, to me, it seems to be closer to wordplay.

The poet is finding it funny how, in saying the word future you are already losing the present, how in saying silence, there is no longer silence.....it's kind of like that question "What is broken as soon as you say its name?" The last stanza is saying that even by saying nothing you are making a word, which is, in itself, not nothing....If you get my point :)

I think the poets main point of this poem is to get across the sometimes inadequacy of a word to portray its percieved meaning. Finding the paradoxes in language funny. Or that's how I see it.

One definite literary device used is repetition. And his lay out of 3 stanzas of two lines reads like

a set up to a joke

then the punch line

Inforcing the idea that this is the poet having fun with language.

Here is an analysis of the last paragraph that I like.

http://palc.sd40.bc.ca/palc/teachwrite/2...

It believes that in saying the word nothing, your exhaled breath defines humanity, as no objects (or nothing ness) does not have this. This analysis also deals with the repeatition I meantioned before.

Answer 2

nothing will be destroyed???

Answer 3

It's just a smartassed piece about how you can say a word and then by saying it, not have what that word describes.

eg: When you say 'silence' then there cannot be silence.

In terms of literary terms, they're all paradoxes.  

Answer 4

Paradox: Where a situation is created which cannot possibly exist, because different elements of it cancel each other out.

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Very interesting, and I guess that these words fall into the realm of a paradoxical universe where nonsense makes sense, does that make sense?

Literary Terms / Elements.

http://mrbraiman.home.att.net/lit.htm

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_term...

http://www.spellingpolice.com/higher/hom...

http://www.iland.net/~bshull/NBTT/litera...

http://www.orangeusd.k12.ca.us/yorba/lit...

Literary Terms

Including Figures of Speech

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/xLitT...