Love After Love Analysis

“Love After Love” is written in free verse; the poet does not use any regular rhyme scheme or traditional metrical pattern. At first glance, the structure of the poem seems pretty bare-bones, b...

“Love After Love” is written in the second person. The speaker addresses the reader as “you.” Since we are given no information about the speaker’s identity, we can only make inferences,...

“Love After Love” describes a strange visit in the indefinite future (“The time will come”), but the visitor comes from the past. The visitor is a “stranger” who “was your self,” wh...

The music of “Love After Love” is subtle, rather than flashy. For example, the poem contains no rhyming words; however, the absence of rhyme is more than made up for by the poet’s skillful us...

As a title, “Love After Love” could be considered both helpful and frustrating. It’s helpful to know that this poem has something to do with love, but the title raises as many questions as it...

As a poet, Derek Walcott is a jack-of-all-trades, writing lyric, narrative, and epic poetry. And did we mention that he’s also a painter and an award-winning playwright? According to fellow poet...

“Love After Love” looks like a pretty easy walk in the woods. Only fifteen lines long, the poem is relatively short and sweet, with simple vocabulary and straightforward sentence structure. Con...

In addition to the Nobel Prize for Literature, Derek Walcott has won a MacArthur “genius” award, the Queen’s Medal for Poetry, and a whole heapin’ helping of other literary honors. (Source....

You’d think that a poem with the title “Love After Love” might include a little bow-chicka-wow-wow, but as it turns out, this poem is squeaky clean, with only a single chaste reference to “...

The Communion, or the Eucharist (second stanza): The second stanza of “Love After Love” has a curiously ceremonial and reverent tone, as the speaker issues a series of simply stated instruction...