Imagery and metaphors

Poems relay heavily on imagery and metaphors to help authors convey a certain image. As you have seen, “Stop All the Clocks” is a poem about grief caused by the loss of a loved one. Consequently, it is not surprising that the poet uses dark, gloomy imagery and metaphors suggesting decay.

Metaphors

The third stanza abounds in metaphors, as the dead man is depicted as a compass, a calendar and even a song for the speaker. All these metaphors emphasise how important was the deceased for the narrator:

“He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;” (ll. 10-12)

Hyperboles

Notice how the whole text could be interpreted as a big hyperbole. All the actions that the speaker demands are exaggerations. Of c...