English 11

Poetry Research Paper

Samitra Ngenpisutsin (Pang)

ID: 5761123

Understanding of life
Life is the same as a dish of food that contains many flavors; sour, sweet, salty, bitter, and
spicy. Sweet represents happiness in a moment in life. Bitter symbolizes sadness. Sour can be
surprises and excitement. Salty can be depression. Even though, bitter is not tasty but it is like a
medicine that gives our body its benefic. Moreover, bitter can make sweet more tasty.
Nonetheless, every flavor is impermanent likes feeling in life that happen for a short period of
time. Therefore, it is not necessary to hold the moment because one day you have to leave
everything. Linda Greggs also gets the same idea of how life and moment in live be. She passes
through many moments with both happiness and sadness situation. She expresses the
understanding of moment change to be memory that make life more value and at the end one can
take it by using symbols.

Freedom and happiness are all around you. It depends on how you going to gain it. Enjoy
the happiness as much as possible you can. Let your body has a freedom, and decorate life with a
thousand of moments that will change to be memories. According to the poem Winter Love, in
the stanza I would like to decorate this silence ,( Gregg, 1999 ). In this stanza, Gregg uses
decorate instead of other words because she wants the reader defined the word decorate by
their own. Decorate can defined as added, make it colorful, and make it more interesting.
Another symbol in this stanza is this silence. Gregg wants to imply that silence is life and
empty heart. Therefore, this total stanza means making life be more interesting by adding
moment. Moments of happiness as she said in a poem Let birds, (Gregg, 2009). Let birds is
a connation of happiness and joy in life. Moreover, birds can represent freedom and happiness.

English 11
Poetry Research Paper

Samitra Ngenpisutsin (Pang)

ID: 5761123

In order to gain happiness, is stopping hold things when you felt too much. Holding it is event
worse because it will hurt you. Let have freedom like birds that can fly in the big sky. We can
easily find a connection between these two poems that we can add happiness to life like
decorating the silent with laugh and smile. Furthermore, keep this moment so, one day it will
turn to be a memory. Nevertheless, happiness can be more value because of sadness, so we need
to have some sad moment in life too.
Sadness can make happiness have more value. In peoples life, we also need some dark
shaded of colors to make life become more attractive. Words ,dark, broken and shame, as stated
in the poem, Surrounded by Sheep and Low Ground, what is dark, broke, touched with same,
(Gregg, 1991).are represent sadness, depress and mistake. Gregg uses these three words to
express depress and mistake that we have pass through. All these are memories that are a part of
us. Let it impress us as the poem Winter love states that Let winter impress you,( Gregg,
2009) . Gregg uses Winter as a symbol of sadness, heartbreak, depress, disappoint, mistake,
shame, and lonely. According to the previous stanza, Gregg wants the sad moment to attack
feeling. Allow depression stay in our memories. Let the mistake and shame being our teacher.
Keep the sad moment in our heart same as adding some tear and whine to the silence. The
connection between these two poems is they both emphasize about sad situation and memories in
life. Sadness make life more valuable when time pass by because when we feel sad we will
appreciate happiness more. Moreover, many things bad that come into our lives seem to be
depress but when we pass through it. It will become a good lesson and memories that we will
appreciate and thank you for.

English 11
Poetry Research Paper

Samitra Ngenpisutsin (Pang)

ID: 5761123

Lastly, at the end of life no one can take anything with them even your own body. Linda
Gregg expresses this truth of life in her poem. The poem Surrounded by Sheep and Low
Ground state that When death come, we take off our clothes, (Gregg, 1991). In this stanza,
clothes is a symbol of love, money, life, and memory. take off also have a deeper meaning
like leave and return. The whole stanza means when people death, we take our soul out of our
body. Every things that belong to us need to return even our memories and own body. Is like our
soul have freedom. Our souls do not need to stick with sin or merit. Therefore, when we still
alive make every moment every memories have value. According to the poem Winter love in a
stanza that said It was only warm ,( Gregg, 1999 ). warm means not too cold or not to hot. It
in the middle it is the best temperature of water. It same as people in people life have many
moments and memories that combine together. This stanza also told us in a way that natural of
life is we need to have more than one moment. We need to accept this truth and enjoy living as
Gregg say in Surrounded by Sheep and Low Ground, every one need to leaf. Therefore, enjoy
the warm while alive.

In conclusion, three poems by Linda Gregg : Surrounded by Sheep and Low Ground ,
Winter love and Let Birds present the similar idea of moment and memory in life. Winter
love is about adding moment in life connect with Surrounded by Sheep and Low Ground and
Let Birds that about sadness, death, freedom and happiness. However, everything is temporary,
it will pass through us but will not stay with us. It is same as a hand of clock that never stops
walking. It is worthless to stick with one moment for too long because peoples life is very short.
Therefore, make very minutes in your life valuable and be happy before it too late to regret.

English 11
Poetry Research Paper

Samitra Ngenpisutsin (Pang)

ID: 5761123

References
Gregg, L. (1991). The sacraments of desire. Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf Press.
Gregg, L. (1999). Winter Love. Retrieved from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poemsand-poets/poems/detail/47163
Gregg L. (2009). Let Birds. Retrieved from https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/letbirds