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I Am, a poem by John Clare

The poem I Am was written by John Clare and published in 1848, during his stay at the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum. The poem explores his feelings of isolation alongside his relationship with God.

John Clare
A portrait of John Clare by William Hilton
Born	13 July 1793 (1793-07-13)
Died	20 May 1864 (1864-05-21) (aged 70)
Notable works	Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery

Biography

Born in Helpston, Northampton, England, in 1793, John Clare was a poet and naturalist who focused upon the natural environment he lived in.

During the down-times of agricultural farming year, Clare was sent to school by his parents, who were both illiterate. First attending Mrs. Bullimore's school in Helpston, he then attended James Merrishaw's school in Glinton, and both are honoured with poetry in his later life. Clare's early life was largely impacted by agriculture; his early jobs included helping out in the fields as a boy, and later he assisted a ploughman, before becoming a garden-boy. Eventually, Clare signed up to the military, but admitted to being a bad soldier and was home by May 1813.

Clare's focus upon his surroundings was significant; he spent a large amount of time in the fields and became one of Northamptonshire's earliest and best naturalists. This fascination with the natural world is mirrored in the majority of his poems. Clare's identity is intimately involved in the awareness of his birthplace, and this is reflected within his poetry.

Mental health issues

While Clare felt at home in the countryside, anywhere away from home suffocated him and caused him to lose touch with reality. His sensitivity towards his poetry meant that any negative criticism gave him "a mean opinion of his compositions". Eventually, his compulsion to write poetry and his fear of negative responses had a lasting effect on Clare, and he spent many of his remaining days in a mental asylum.

I Am

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;

My friends forsake me like a memory lost:

I am the self-consumer of my woes—

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes

And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life or joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;

Even the dearest that I loved the best

Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod

A place where woman never smiled or wept

There to abide with my Creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie

The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

Analysis

Structure

The poem is organised into three stanzas of six lines. The first four lines of each stanza uses an AB rhyme scheme, followed by a rhyming couplet. The metre is iambic pentameter, as shown from the first line of the poem:

/	x	/	x	/	x	/	x	/	x
I	am-	yet	what	I	am	none	cares	or	knows

Themes

Despite the coherency of the structure, one of the main themes of I Am is personal struggle. The speaker describes his life as a ‘shipwreck’ whilst also recognising that they are the only one who suffers from this in saying ‘I am the self-consumer of my woes’. There are also religious allusions, where the speaker finds comfort with God and believes that there will be comfort in death and in heaven; ‘There to abide with my Creator, God.’

Imagery

As a naturalist, it was not uncommon for Clare to use natural imagery to convey meaning in his poetry. Line 8, ‘Into the living sea of waking dreams’, expresses the vast amount of disappointment he feels. The natural imagery also alludes to religion, like in Lines 17-19 ‘Untroubling and untroubled where I lie, The grass below—above the vaulted sky’. Here the speaker suggests they will find comfort in death.