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AMONG MY FRIENDS LOVE IS A GREAT SORROW, by             Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography

"Among My Friends Love Is a Great Sorrow" by Robert Duncan is a contemplative and melancholic poem that explores the complexities and burdens of love within the context of friendship and personal relationships. Through a series of reflective and somber observations, Duncan portrays love not as a source of joy or fulfillment, but rather as a profound source of sorrow and existential challenge among his circle of friends.

The poem opens with the stark declaration that "Among my friends love is a great sorrow." This sets the tone for the entire piece, positioning love as something that, contrary to traditional notions of its joy and exuberance, weighs heavily on those who experience it. Duncan describes love as "a daily burden, a feast, / a gluttony for fools, a heart's famine." This juxtaposition of feast and famine captures the contradictory nature of love—abundant and consuming yet leaving an emptiness or longing that is never quite satisfied.

Duncan’s depiction of how his friends interact with love is filled with caution and introspection: "We do not burn hotly, we question the fire." This line suggests a reluctance to fully engage with or surrender to the passionate extremes of love, indicative of a group that has perhaps been burned before or has grown skeptical of love’s value. The image of individuals not moving "forward with our alive / eager faces looking thru the fire" but rather staring "back into our own faces" illustrates a self-reflective and self-contained approach to relationships, where self-protection and introspection predominate over open-hearted risk-taking.

The poet further develops this theme by stating, "We have become our own realities. / we seek to exhaust our loveliness." Here, Duncan captures a sense of resignation or fatigue within his social circle, where individuals perhaps feel that they have explored the extents of their capacity to give and receive love, finding themselves disillusioned or weary of the effort.

As the poem progresses, Duncan portrays love as "a painful question" and likens the search for meaningful love to seeking "a sphinx-face who will ask its riddle." This metaphor equates the quest for understanding love with a mythical challenge, suggesting that finding a true, enlightening experience of love among his friends is as perplexing and elusive as solving a sphinx’s riddle.

Love is also depicted as "a payment" and "an old debt for a borrowing foolishly spent," implying that within his circle, love has become transactional or burdensome, a continual exchange of emotional debts without the promise of fulfillment or joy. This sense of love as a financial or emotional liability reflects a deep cynicism and fatigue.

In concluding, Duncan suggests that among his friends, "love is a wage / that one might have for an honest living." This final statement portrays love as something one earns through effort and persistence—another day's work, as it were, rather than a spontaneous or joyous encounter.

Overall, Robert Duncan's "Among My Friends Love Is a Great Sorrow" offers a deeply introspective look at the nature of love within a specific social context. The poem challenges idealized notions of love, presenting it instead as a complex, often painful aspect of human relationships that involves negotiation, endurance, and sometimes, resignation. Through this exploration, Duncan invites readers to reflect on their own perceptions and experiences of love, questioning how it shapes and is shaped by our interactions and internal landscapes.


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