by Explanation | Summary | Poetic Devices | Main Theme | Class 10 ICSE Syllabus | Treasure Chest
Short Summary of the poem
Imagine there are giant trees standing tall in a big forest. When one of those trees falls, it’s not just a little crash—it shakes the hills far away, scares the lions, and even makes elephants walk away to find a safe place. Even the tiniest animals go completely quiet—not because they’re afraid, but because they’re just so shocked.
So Maya Angelou says that when truly amazing people die, it feels just like that. Everything changes. The air feels thinner, like we can’t breathe properly. Suddenly, we remember all the things we wanted to say to them or do with them, and it is painful to realise it. We feel lost because they were part of what made the world make sense. Without them, it’s like our minds go dark. We are clueless.
But slowly, things start getting back to normal. We start to feel a soft, peaceful feeling. We make peace with the fact that, that great person is no more now. It doesn’t happen all at once, but it happens with time. Though we still miss them, but we also feel thankful that they were ever here at some point in our lives. And that feeling helps us live better-because they once lived.
Watch the full explanation of the poem on my channel Beauty of Language.
Main Themes of the poem
1. Loss and Grief- So, the poem shows what it feels like when a truly great person dies. Losing someone brings shock and sadness. It tells us how grief makes us feel empty, like the world doesn’t make sense anymore. It shows how deeply one’s death can affect others- and how their absence leaves behind a heavy silence and a changed world. It shows the profound impact of grief, the feeling of emptiness, and the sense of disorientation that follows the death of someone influential.
2. Enduring Legacy– While the poem acknowledges the pain of loss, it also emphasizes the legacy of those who have passed away. Even though the person is no more, but his influence continues to resonate and helps in making the world a better place.
3. Resilience and Healing– The poem shows that even though the demise of a great person is a monumental loss. But even after that loss, the pain and the sorrow, life continues. Time heals, and after a period of time, people move on in their lives.
4. Metaphor of the Fallen Tree– The poet has used the metaphor of the fallen tree to express how the death of a great person affects us. Just as a large tree provides shade, shelter, and a sense of stability in the same way influential people offer guidance and inspiration. And this is the reason why their death leaves a void and affects not only the ones close to them but also the wider world.
5. Cyclical Nature of Life– The poem shows the cyclical nature of life. Means losing a loved one in our lives causes unimaginable sorrow and sadness, but then it also leads to the continuation of life and legacy.
Poetic Devices used in the Poem
1. Metaphor– It is used at many instances in the poem, first of all the fall of great trees denote the demise of gret people, then there are phrases like, “withered soul”, “sterile air” and “dark cold caves”, all are metaphors.
2. Refrain– It means repetition. The line when great trees fall and when great souls die, both are repeated in the poem putting emphasis on the poem’s central theme. Then also in the last stanza there is- “They existed, they existed”
3. Imagery– Use of imagery in the poem helps the readers form an image in their mind.
Like in the line- “Lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety.” Here, the imagery of powerful animals reacting to the fall of great trees evokes a sense of vulnerability and loss, even in strong creatures, symbolizing how even the strongest among us feel the impact of grief.
Then there is- “Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away.” This image conveys the intellectual and emotional influence of the great souls, and how their absence leaves us feeling mentally lost.
4. Personification– When we give human touch to the inanimate objects. Example: “rocks on distant hills shudder”
Rocks are given the human ability to “shudder,” which shows that how far-reaching the effects of a great loss are.
Example: “Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid”
Here Memory is personified as something that can examine and gnaw. Which means that after a great loss, we revisit and obsess over moments we missed with the person who is gone.
5. Enjambment – when the same sentence continues to the next line without the use of a punctuation mark at the end of the line. I guess you can do that yourself right? You can identify where there is no punctuation at the end of the line.
About the poet
Maya Angelou was a celebrated American poet, memoirist, performer, and civil rights activist. She was a phenomenal writer best known for her autobiographies and poetry that explored themes of identity, race, trauma, and resilience. Her most acclaimed work was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). It was the first of six autobiographies which was noted for its very innovative use of fiction techniques in nonfiction. The series outlines her life from childhood through her civil rights activism and global travels. Angelou also published several poetry collections, including Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie, Phenomenal Woman, and The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou. Her work blended personal narrative with powerful social commentary which left a lasting literary legacy and they still continue to inspire people even today and that’s the reason why atleast one of her poems is always included in the syllabus.
About the Poem
Maya Angelou wrote this poem “When Great Trees Fall” in 1987 after the death of her friend and fellow writer/activist James Baldwin. And this was the peom she read at Baldwin’s funeral. It compares the death of great people to great trees falling in a forest. Just as those gigantic trees shake the earth, they even make animals crouch in confusion and fear. Here she is cmparing the loss of great individuals, which sends shockwaves throughout the world. But after some time, the sadness slowly turns into something peaceful. People begin to feel proud, they feel that the world is a better place because these “great souls” once passed through it. “When Great Trees Fall” was collected in Angelou’s 1990 book of poems, I Shall Not Be Moved.
There is no rhyme scheme in th poem. It is written in a free verse. The stanzas are also unevenly distributed, which means that all the stanzas have different number of lines.
Line-by-Line Explanation of the Poem
Stanza 1
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
Explanation
You must be clear from the introduction of the poem itself that there is a metaphor used in the poem. So, here, the poem starts with the metaphor itself- When great trees fall, where falling of trees has been compared to the death, the demise of great people. When you hear the term great trees, so this creates a picture in mind of what? Of huge trees like a banyan tree, neem tree, or peepal tree. we are reminded of their strength, and along with that, wisdom, longevity-which means that it had been there from a very very long time.
Next, rocks on distant hills shudder, here the word “rocks” also conveys strength, it shows stability. And “shudder” means to shake. So when great trees fall, they even shake the rocks on distant hills, on far off hills. lions hunker down means they crouch down, or squat down to hide in tall grasses. Here you can see that again the poet has used “Lions” among all the animals in the forest, because lions signify courage, they are the king of the jungle! Then- even elephants lumber after safety. It means that when huge, massive trees fall, even elephants start looking for safety. Lumber means to move slowly. Again here, elephants have been mentioned because they convey power, strength.
Through these lines, the poet Angelou tries to convey that when there is a loss of a great personality, it causes a huge loss. It creates a vacuum in everyone’s lives around him that cannot be filled. Just like when great trees fall in the forest, even the strongest and the largest of the animals are affected by it. They too start looking for shelter and hide in tall grasses. So by using metaphor in these lines the poet compares the loss of the loved ones, a huge monumental loss to the great trees falling in the forest. And also please note that the poem does not have a rhyme scheme, it is written in a free verse. And THIS, gives the poem a natural and conversational tone.
Stanza 2
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
Explanation
You can see the line is repeated, When great trees fall in forests. So now what else happens when great trees fall? Let’s see- small things recoil into silence. Here the words “Small Things” is used for lesser powerful individuals, less prominent individuals. In the previous stanza we saw that the poet has shown how powerful animals like lion and elephant react to the falling of the tree. Here she is talking about the small things. She says that when there is a massive loss, then the less powerful individuals, what do they do? They recoil into silence. The retreat into silence. They step back because of the massiveness of the loss. And their senses are eroded beyond fear. It means it is not just the fear after the loss of the great person. It is something even beyond feeling scared. Eroded means to be destroyed. So here the destruction of the senses imply the numbness after the death of a great personality. The feeling is so overwhelming that the person goes numb! They are unable to process the shock of the loss.
Stanza 3
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Explanation
The poet starts this stanza now with the clear words, no more metaphor in this line- When great souls die. When great souls die what happens, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. The air, which is supposed to give life is now light, rare and sterile. The air becomes different, the air is no longer the same. It becomes barren. Sterile means barren. The air now lacks the warmth, the air lacks life in it. So these three words- light, rare and sterile, these words convey the emptiness, the void that is created because of the loss of the great personality. It is something that cannot be filled by some external factor. We breathe briefly, means short breaths. It means that now even breathing is not normal. Everything changed with the loss.
And our eyes, they briefly see the clarity. And that clarity, is what? It is hurtful. The realization, the awareness of someone losing in our lives, is very painful. Your eyes realise that the person you lost, the person you are never going to see ever again. So now everything has just become a memory.
Next the poet says- Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
This means that with the loss of someone great, our memory is suddenly sharpened. It is suddenly shaken. It gnaws on kind words. Gnaws means to bit or nibble. It causes pain, it bites one from inside, the feeling of not beinng able to say the kind words. The kind words that remained unsaid, the promises of the walks that remained unfulfilled. She talks about the regrets that one has after their loved ones are no more. The poet basically says that with death of someone near and dear, with loss of someone great there is a sense of misery, that helplessness, the feeling of something eating up from inside because of the missed oppurtunities with the loved ones in life.
Stanza 4
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.
Explanation
The poet has started this stanza with the same line as that in the previous one that- Great souls die. So when great souls die, it disrupts the sense of reality. The reality that was around them, the part of our world that was associated with them, they take that away with them. It is gone forever. The conection which we have with them vanishes forever.
Next, Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened. Now the great souls that we are talking about, the poet has portrayed them as nurturing. So there are people in life who nurture you, teach things in life, make you a better person; your knowledge grows with them. You have an emotional connect with that person. But then with their loss, what happens, an emotional vacuum is created which I described in the previous stanzas. So because of this vacuum what happens, you shrink- the emotional shrink is there. You feel withered away with their loss. Wizened means to wither.
Next, Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away. The knowledge that we gained from the great souls, the experience we gained from them, the radiance, the light we got from them- everything falls away. We loose our mind. They brought light in our lives, but with their absence, what happens, we feel lost.
Next, We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves. The poet says that with loss of great people, we are not maddened. But we re reduced to the unutterable ignorance. Unutterable means something which cannot be described. So the loss so enormous that it cannot be expressed in words. So with the death of the great soul, there is no more light in our lives, there will be no one to guide us.
Stanza 5
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
Explanation
We saw that the previous stanza, the stanza 3 and 4 was mostly filled with sadness, regret, despair. But this stanza is more on a positive note, a hopeful one. So, And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly- When great souls die, after a period of time, peace blooms, though it is slow and irregular. Slow means it takes different times for different people to get back to usual. Some people heal, for others it might take lifetime to heal or we can say they never heal from the fact that they have lost their loved one. And irregular, here means that some days you might get along with life, but there can be days when you again feel the grief of losing your loved one. And again, you will be lapsing into the sadness and despair. Basically here the poet says that life starts getting back to normal. We say, Time heals. No matter how bad things get, but life has a way of dealing with it. So here peace is referring to accepting the fact that, that the great soul is no more. It is more of an acceptance. We say, I have made peace with my struggles, which means that in life, struggles are going to be there; you cannot control them, but deal with it.
Next, Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration- Here, the poet has used imagery in these lines. Spaces here refers to the void , the vacuum , about which we talked in the previous stanzas, caused by the death of the near and dear ones, is kind of filled with soothing, peaceful, electric vibation. Electric vibration here doesn’t mean the shock waves, but the connection, the vibe, which connects us with the one who is no more.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us. Our senses which were eroded by the loss of the loved one, is now restored. The sense of numbness is restored, even though it is not exactly the same as it used to be, but yes, it has healed. So the senses, they whisper to us. Whispering here refers to the great souls who are no more. Those souls whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.- Here the poet has repeated the word They existed, They existed to emphasize that the great souls once existed with us. It is a refrain used in this line to stress on the fact that the great souls once lived with us. So Maya Angelou is trying to convey the message here, telling us that they existed and their existence has inspired us. It is because of them we have gained all the intellectual and emotional inputs. The experience we gained from them. It is because of them that we have been able to lead a meaningful life. We can be, which shows that we have that capability, that potential to grow, and be a better person. And becoming a better person will be like a tribute for them. So we have to be better for their sake.
