A WORD is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

Reading the title the reader may be curious to find out why a word is dead and who kill it.
The title is simple and clear but also lets the readers think that it contains a deep meaning.
Indeed “A word is dead” is a personification where a word is compared to a human being.
The layout shows that it is a poem which is arranged into six lines divided into two tercets. It follows that the reader might be interesting in discovering the functions of each tercets.
This poem is organised mostly in rhyme in couplet.
Reading the text the reader focuses the attention to the title that coincides with the first line because the poet wants to compel the reader to read the first line twice because he consideres it particularly important.
Interesting is to notice the poet uses two speakers and two points of view.
In the first tercet the third person narrator says that when somebody speaks and uses its word as soon as a word is said it dies.
In the second tercet the narrative voice changes into a first person narrator and he exposes a totally different opinion: the speaking voice says that when a word is said, it begins to live.
It goes without saying that the extractor of the poem is conceived of to give different opinion about the life of the words.
Inded the function of the first tercet is to covey a point of view which is exactly the opposite of the second one.

In the beginning the poet says that somebody thinks that words lose their meaning as soon as they are uttered.
The poet thinks that the words begin to live when there are uttered by somebody. When people listen to some kinds of words, they feel some
feelings which can stay in people's minds for a long time.

The word 'word' is capitals probably to reinforce it.
The poet plays with the sounds "dead" and "said".
The last two lines of the second tercet both end with a only word.
The only rhyme in this poem is between the two final words of the two tercets (say/day).
In the first tercet there is an alliteration (said,some say) that gives a phonological language to the text, and a dental sound is caused from some words.
There are two personifications: the first line and the fifth line, that compare the word to a person who could live and die.
The third and the sixth lines are in rhyme, and this alloy the two different tercets that have not so much in common.
In the second and in the third lines there is a run-on-line.

The content is an argumentation about the life circle of the word.
The aim of this poem is explaining the importance of words.