Campana Poem

Kendall Weinert

11/7/13

Campana Blog Post

The Similarity of a Writer

            After reading a series of poems by Campana it can be inferred that there is a pattern to his writing. In the poem, Oscar Wilde at San Minlato, Campana describes the climbing of a “great stairway” seeking for his love (Campana 101). In this poem the speaker is dreaming of the woman he used to love that is now dead. He is imagining her there with him. He states “I was climbing with a young thoughtful friend who from her first years had sacrificed herself to the melancholy..” (Campana 101) This states that he is in fact imagining the young woman being there with him as he makes this journey.

            In another one of Campana’s poems, the speaker is too imagining what used to be. In the poem, Dream In Prison, the speaker is trapped in a cell that is all white. From the paleness in the walls of the cell the speaker is able to imagine a better time. He can imagine his friend outside of the cell. “I think of Amika; solitary stars on the snowy mountains: solitary white streets: then churches of white marble..” (Campana 63) Here the speaker is not only imagining his friend Amika, he is also relating her situation to his current situation. He is imagining that Amika and himself are in the same type of journey.

            As it can be seen from these two poems, Campana is able to relate the two poems. He is allowing it to be inferred that there is a pattern to his poems. Both of the speakers are imagining their memories and applying them to their current situations. They are both lonely men who want to be with the ones in which they loved. In Oscar Wilde at San Minlato, the speaker is imagining being with the woman whom he loves. In Dream In Prison, the speaker is imagining a woman who is in the same type of situation as he is; solitude.