Absence Summary & Analysis
by Elizabeth Jennings

Absence Summary & Analysis
by Elizabeth Jennings

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"Absence" was written by British poet Elizabeth Jennings and first appeared in her 1958 collection A Sense of the World. The poem explores the pain of losing someone when the rest of the world doesn't seem to care. The speaker revisits the gardens where they last saw this "absent" loved one only to find that nothing has changed: the birds still sing their beautiful song, the fountain still bubbles, and the steady breeze still blows. The jarring mismatch between these pleasant surroundings and the speaker's inner grief makes that pain doubly isolating and difficult to bear.

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