This poem, "Time," by Allen Curnow, is a personification
poem. Personification is giving human qualities or characteristics to things which
aren't human or aren't living. In this case, the speaker of the poem is Time. Time is
given many qualities in this work which, of course, time does not have. We think the
speaker is Time from the beginning; we know it for certain in this
stanza:
I,
Time, am all these, yet these exist
Among my mountainous fabrics like a
mist,
So do they the measurable world
resist.
He, Time, says he is
all the things listed in this work--air, dust, music, farm--things which he can not
really be. Line after line of images add to the picture we have of
Time.
The use of personification in this poem works in
much the same way as a metaphor does. (For example, if one is grumpy in the morning one
might say "I am a bear today.") If the word Time were not in the
body of the poem, it could also be considered a riddle. A similar work is entitled
"Mirror," by Sylvia Plath.
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