22 pages • 44-minute read
Again Later
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Loneliness
Two things about the occasion for this poem indicate that the speaker is lonely. First, the speaker knows service has been cancelled, but she calls her dead husband’s phone numbers anyway (and as the “again” in the title suggests, likely calls them repeatedly). Second, instead of hanging up (as most people do when they get an intercept message), she stays on the line and listens. Only a lonely woman would do these two things. Where once the speaker had a husband she could call, now she only has an automated “intercept message.”
Moreover, beyond the set-up, loneliness underlies the poem itself. Instead of the back and forth of conversation, “Again Later” repeats. Where once the speaker had an interlocutor, now she only has the cycle of her grief.
The Second Person
“Again Later” uses the second-person pronoun “you” throughout. This pronoun comes from the phone company’s intercept message, which addresses callers as “you,” but the “you” could also refer to the speaker or her husband. In some ways, “you” is an impersonal pronoun—it can refer to any other person—and this is why the phone company uses “you” in their intercept message. In other ways, “you” is deeply personal—it is difficult to hear “you” without feeling addressed—and this is exactly what the speaker feels when she hears “you” on the intercept message.
The second-person pronoun “you” frequently appears in love songs (like U2’s “One”), because it is at once deeply personal and universal—anyone can identify with the pronoun “you.” For similar reasons, “you” is also frequently used in love poems, like William Shakespeare’s sonnets. “Again Later” isn’t a traditional sonnet, but it is a 14-line poem with a turn, so “you” seems like a natural choice. Natural, however, does not mean uncomplicated. In the poem, Collins exploits both the personal and impersonal aspects of the second-person pronoun at once.
Absence of Images
A long-standing debate in poetry is whether a poem without images is indeed a poem. Some poets and critics say yes, some say no. There are no images in “Again Later.” Another brief, contemporary poem of mourning without images is “Elegy” by W. S. Merwin, Merwin’s poem is only six words: “Who would I show it to” (Merwin, W. S. “Elegy.” Read a Little Poetry).
In both “Again Later” and Merwin’s “Elegy,” the absence of images mirrors the absence left in each speaker’s life after the death of their loved one. Perhaps these poems are incomplete, but so are the speakers’ lives. Like Merwin’s “Elegy,” the lack of images in Collins’s “Again Later” gives readers a vision of the absence the speaker is grieving.
Unlock the meaning behind every key symbol & motif
See how recurring imagery, objects, and ideas shape the narrative.
- Explore how the author builds meaning through symbolism
- Understand what symbols & motifs represent in the text
- Connect recurring ideas to themes, characters, and events