I, She and the Sea

"I, She and the Sea", is a popular poem in English by the Indian poet Dr Tapan Kumar Pradhan. The poem is frequently quoted because of the use of literary devices such as alliteration and onomatopoeia, especially in its first stanza.

Origin of the poem

The poem was reportedly composed by Pradhan when he was in the high school or in the first year of college, as the year of composition is indicated as around 1988. I appears to be only his second or third poem and appears amateurish in composition..

Structure of the poem

I, She and the Sea is a short lyric with the first five stanzas composed in a-b-c-c-b rhyme pattern, followed by two shorter stanzas of four and three lines with a-a-b-b and a-b-b rhyme scheme. In the words of the poet, originally the poem had two more stanzas of five lines each, which have been irretrievably lost.

The poem appears to be a love story involving an unwed mother, although the abrupt beginning and ending of the poem leaves much to the reader's imagination. The protagonists of the poem appear to commit suicide in the rising sea water (cool surf up rose, up shoulder, up head). There is no actual dialogue between the protagonists, and the story is not very clear. Apart from the unusual structure, story-line and rhyme scheme, the only point of note is the use of alliterative word strings to produce onomatopoeic effect. The phrase "as the surf surged up the sun swept shore" is frequently quoted as an example of alliteration.

Comments and criticism

The poem is written in the old style with the use of many archaic words (thou / thee) and expression (ages hence / entwine to sing / Vesper chime). The forced rhyme between the words "throb" and "love" appears to have been influenced by the tendency of Indian English speakers, especially of Eastern India, to confuse between the /b/ and /v/ sounds.

See also

• Poet's comments on the origin of poem
• Indian Poetry
• Poets of India
• Onomatopoeia