Poetry Precis 11- "Before She Died " by Karen Chase

In "Before She Died", Karen Chase relays the message that loss and distance is are true hardships by using contrast and a mournful tone. This whole poem is about the difference in the speaker's life before "she" died versus after "she" died. Just by looking at the title, contrast can be recognized as a literary technique used by the speaker to get his or her point across. The title of the poem is "Before She Died", but really, the whole poem is about what is occurring after she died. One example of this contrast which the speaker uses to convey this difference is in the first line, when the speaker says "When I look at the sky now, I look at it for you." The contrast can be seen because the speaker is specifically talking about the present in comparison to the past. It is implied that before this loved one had died, the speaker did not look at the sky with such emotion or deep thought but now he or she looks at it perhaps as a way of connecting to the one who passed. Throughout the whole poem, the idea that the speaker's life is just not the same anymore and that in general, that when one loses another, their life is changed completely, is clearly given with this use of contrast.