A WORD IS DEAD

A word is dead 

when it is said, 

some say

I say it just 

begins to live 

that day. 

TITLE

Considering the title  I expect the poem to be about communication because there is the word “word”. I expect it will be about the death of the communication. I think the poem will be about a form of communication that is no longer, too.

LAYOUT

Considering the layout the reader realises/ can see the text is organized into/ is arranged into two stanzas of three lines each. The poem consists of six lines organised into two tercets, therefore he would like to understand/ find out the reason why the poet/poetess has arranged the message into two stanzas and last but not least the function of each stanzas.

DENOTATIVE ANALYSIS

The poem expresses two different points of view about the life of a word: some people think that whenever you say a word, it dies; the poetess believes that when someone says a word it starts to live.
The denotative analysis makes the reader understand the function of the first stanza is to report common people's ideas about the life of a word; the function of the second tercet is to report the poetess’ opinion. 

It follows that/ as a result/ as consequence the intelligent reader understands that the layout has been conceived to present two opposite/contrasting ideas about the nature of words.

CONNOTATIVE ANALYSIS

The poem has got the following rhyme scheme:  AABCDB.

The first and the second lines are run-on-line. The comma at the end of the second line is very important to make suspense.

Syntax  turns upside down in the two tercets: the first tercet makes use of run-on-line in the first two lines, in the second tercet what takes place is exactly the opposite.