The Taxi By: Amy Lowell.. Poem Essay :)

The Taxi

                The Taxi by Amy Lowell is a fairly straight forward poem. The poet is describing her feelings as a taxi takes her away from her loved one, at night. The evidence is her love affair, the poet is showing the unfairness that forces her and the lover to part. It is pretty clear that as she is carried away in the taxi into the harsh world, she is protesting against her separation from her loved one.

                "When I go away from you, the world beats dead, like a slackened drum."(Lines 1-3) My interpretation of this section in the poem is her feelings of her loved one departing from her.  As they leave each other "the world beats dead." (line 2) She feels lost and incomplete without her other half.  If you compare this to a drum it is like her love has no more rhythm as to a drum that has no beat. "Like a slackened drum" (Line 3) when I read this line I pictured a drum that its seams were no longer tightly stretched, and its sound was dying.  When she leaves her loved one it's like the sagging of the drum she begins to fall apart, and her beat dies.

                "I call out for you against the jutted stars , and shout into the ridges of the wind."  (4-5) The stars and the wind  are metaphors for her anger and her resentments. She cries into the stars of the night for hope to feel whole and be with the one she loves again. When she says "shout into the ridges of the wind" (Line 5) I interpret from these lines that she is upset and she is shouting but the winds are roaring and blocking her cries. Her cries to the stars shout into the howls of the wind. I think in these lines she is feeling angry like know one is listening.

                "Streets coming fast, one after the other, wedge you away from me, and the lamps of the city prick my eyes, so that I can no longer see your face." ( Lines 6-10) "Streets coming fast, one after the other, wedge you away from me."  She is in the taxi and it is moving farther and farther away and she is realizing they will soon be far apart. "The lamps of the city prick my eyes, so that I can no longer see your face." ( Lines 9-10) I think that she could be thinking two different thoughts in this line. One, that maybe she is happy that she can longer see her loved ones face so is it easier to move forward.  Or two, that she is upset about not being able to see it for one last time and that she is longing for the sight of it.

                "Why should I leave you, to wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?" ( Lines 11-12) This line is suggesting that how can she leave this loved one, and face the world. In her eyes the world is a harsh place and she cannot face it alone. I believe it also suggests that she doesn't know how to face the world beyond her relationship.

                The Taxi by Amy Lowell is a fairly straight forward poem. The poet is describing her feelings as a taxi takes her away from her loved one, at night. The evidence is her love affair, the poet is showing the unfairness that forces her and the lover to part. It is pretty clear that as she is carried away in the taxi into the harsh world, she is protesting against her separation from her loved one. The poem emphasizes  a theme such as "jutting" stars, "ridges" of wind, streets coming "fast", "pricking" lamps as though the world outside of her relationship is too harsh and hard, and she fears and resents it.  She is struggling with the fact that they are apart from each other and that she will soon have to face the world alone.