'Edges of Time' Analysis

Edges Of Times

The poem "Edges of Time", found in Kay Ryans Pulitzer award winning book "The Best of It : New and Selected Poems" is one of the first poems in the entire book and sets the tone for the rest of the poems in the compilation. 

The opening words are "It is at the edges when time thins", immediately capturing the attention of anyone reading the poem. Time isn't something that is subject to 'thinning', and as a result the reader is immediately hooked and interested about what the word actually means in this context. The word "edge" suggests distance and unknowing as it is used as a noun. Following this, the previously mentioned time is mentioned again "Time which had been dense and viscous as amber suspending intentions like bees unseizes them.", and its here that the time is further personified, this time as being dense and viscous. The word viscous directly contrasts the first line of the poem in which time is described as thin, showing that when at the "edge of time", time takes on unusual characteristics.

The description of time as though it was a material object is an interesting concept, and to me the poem suggests that the edge been spoken about is the edge of life, old age, and the poem is essentially about how time simply thins out with age until it is nothing and suddenly ceases to exist. The next line seems to agree with this "A humming begins apparently coming from stacks of put off-things or just in back", the humming coming from "put-off" tasks that haven't been completed because of the time been spent on something else, and now it is too late. The poem makes use of sound to distinguish between unfulfilled dreams (Put-off things), comparing it to the humming a bee would make which is an annoyance to most people. 

The next line, "A racket of claims now as time flattens" goes all out and declares time can also be flattened as well as thinned, with the flattening of time literally being the death of a person. A racket of claims is meant to shadow a persons life story, as though they are shouting about all they have achieved on their death bed despite us as a reader knowing there is some unhappiness about incomplete tasks.

The poem ends with  "A glittering fan of things competing to happen, brilliant and urgent as fish when seas retreat." I feel this line also highlights the unfinished (or put-off) tasks earlier mentioned, using the adjective 'glittering' in order to make the unfinished tasks sound special and remarkable. The competition aspect also adds another layer to the poem, memories only remember what happened and not what never happened, so life events are literally competing to be the one that gets done and gets remembered throughout a life. The symbolism of the fish and seas retreating can be directly compared to death, with the seas been life and the fish been humans.

To conclude, the poem is an incredibly difficult one to pick up as the concept of time is a difficult one to understand. Needless to say, once the poem has 'clicked', its an amazing read and one that will make you think about your own life and the tasks you've taken part of.