A WORD IS DEAD

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say

I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Just considering the title the intelligent reader finds some curiosity that pushes him or her to make sense of the speaker’s point of view. Indeed, why do you say that a word may die?

What’s the point of using a personification to refer to a word?
The two questions are a sufficient reason to go reading the text, but simply giving a glace to the layout you can easily realize the poem is arranged into two different parts still following the same pattern of two tercets that play a different function.

The reading experience allows the reader to find out the structure of the poem that helps to convey two different opinions about the nature and life of words.
In the first tercet prevails the passive form of the verb, in the second prevails the active form.

The speaking voice seems to be talking distance from the opinion expressed by the same say of the first stanza and two other lines that she puts the subject and the verb at the end of the stanza thus drawing the reader’s attention of the opinion of a group of people.
Therefore such choice in word order highlights the speaking voice’s different opinion.

Such opinion becomes the most relevant message of all the text. It goes without saying that the key position of the subject pronoun “I” in the second tercet games/acquires a particular strength.
Since it epitomises the meaning of speaking voice attributes to words.

The intelligent reader perceives the opposition not only as the simple expression of two different opinions, on the contrary he or she is caught by the contrast death/ life of the poem. The idea of death is encapsulated in the very fast tercet thanks the use of the passive voice (“when it is said”). The alliterative qualities of the first line help the reader to stick the first opinion in his/her mind.

The intelligent reader understands that the first opinion communicates no identity since indeed the opinion is of “some say”
The speaking voice of the second tercet becomes therefore the strongest voice in the eventual opinion choice on the reader’s part.
The use of the active form helps and adds to the point the semantic feel of rythm is a further divide to contribute to the poetess’ message.

Speaking allows communication and that is the reason why the speaking voice attributes so much important to a word that becomes a living entity thanks to the use of personification which justify the idea a word can live or die.
It should turn out a bit ridiculous that a poetess cut accept the idea the words had a life.