A Poison Tree, by William Blake, is part of a collection of poems that Blake wrote called Songs of Experience. Blake wrote Songs of Experience in 1794 as his second collection of poems, his first collection called Songs of Innocence. Together, they were on the two sides of the human soul, with Songs of Experience representing the dark side of the soul. A Poison Tree revolves around the dark theme of repressed anger, stating if one subdues their anger instead of expressing it they will break and allow anger to consume them. The speaker says if he expressed his wrath it ended, as seen in the lines “I was angry with my friend/ I told my wrath, my wrath did end.” (1-2). After this, the speaker states that restraining his/her anger only made it grow as spoken in the lines, “I was angry with my foe/ I told it not, my wrath did grow.” (3-4). These four lines, all part of the first stanza add meaning to the theme of the poem and give proof that repressing anger will only let it grow.

In  “A Poison Tree”, many literary devices are used to get the meaning of the poem across. The main literary device, one which spans across the entire poem, is the phrase “wrath”, which is a metaphor for the poison tree that grows as the speaker gets angrier. The phrases “wrath” and “tree” are used interchangeably throughout the poem. Another metaphor in the second stanza is “And I water’d it in fears” (5) as a way of showing how the poisonous tree (wrath) only grows as time goes on thanks to the speaker’s fears. It represents how the tree could not grow without the fears of the speaker. The tree also needs sun, in the line “And I sunned it with smiles/ And with soft deceitful wiles” (7-8) as a way of stating that as the speaker plots against their foe, the tree grows more. The only way for the tree to be destroyed is for the speaker to let go and express his anger and wrath, which he/she does not do. A fourth metaphor in the deep, meaningful poem is “Till it bore an apple bright” (10) as a way of demonstrating how the anger in the speaker grew from the tree until it created a poisonous fruit. The mention of a poison fruit leads to an allusion because the poisonous apple refers to the fairytale of Snow White, where the evil with poisons the princess with an apple. The idea of a poison apple is even demonstrated in the fourth stanza, where when the foe sneaks into the speaker’s garden, and takes the apple from the tree, only to die after taking one bite. A last literary device is a metaphor that states, “My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree” (16), and shows how the wrath grew so much that it actually killed the foe. In reality, the speaker is telling readers that if they inhibit their anger they will snap and take action in a way that is irreversible, adding meaning to the theme of the poem.

The poem “A Poison Tree” is structured in a simple way. It has two rhyming couplets per stanza, with four stanzas in the poem. No two couplets rhyme and all the lines except for lines 2, 4, and 16 have seven syllables. Those three lines have eight syllables making the poem a blank verse. When going deeper, though, the lines with seven syllables are in trochaic tetrameter/pentameter, while the lines with eight syllables are in iambic tetrameter. Though the rhyme scheme varies, the poem has an easy rhythm and is elementary to recite aloud. The poem has a wrathful mood, and the author’s tone towards the poem is a way of giving a warning not to quell anger. Blake’s poem is a warning towards the readers on not keeping their anger at bay, and instead allowing their anger to flow. The poem takes place in the speaker’s garden, as Blake’s way of reminding the readers that even though it was the foe’s choice to eat the poisonous apple, it is the speaker’s fault the foe is dead.

My first response to reading “A Poison Tree” was to be confused, because I could not understand why the foe died. Then, upon a closer reading of the poem, I realized the apple had poisoned him, akin to the fairytale of Snow White I enjoyed the poem, though I can not relate to the theme of unvented anger. I have always let out my anger the moment I become angry, while the speaker in the poem does not. It was not a foreign concept, however, because I do understand vexation. I liked the usage of language and rhyming in the poem especially, as it gave the poem a nice flow. After reading the poem I felt like I knew more about anger and was reminded of when family members stay calm, before exploding in rage. It gave me a new perspective on anger because I never realized how dangerous suppressed anger could be. The overall poem, “A Poison Tree”, was very interesting and I feel like I learned a lot about anger and myself.