The poem is about the dangers of suppressed anger. In the first stanza, the speaker's anger dissipates when talking to a friend, but grows when kept quiet about anger towards an enemy. In the second stanza, the speaker's anger flourishes in secret. In the third stanza, the anger bears poisonous fruit ("an apple bright") that deceives the enemy. In the fourth stanza, the enemy eats the apple in the night and is poisoned, satisfying the speaker. The poem warns that suppressing anger only makes it grow and can have destructive consequences.

1. A POISON TREE

3. OVERVIEW

4. MEANING OF LINES
Stanza 1
•The persona is angry with his friend and talk it out. Thus, his anger dissipated, and the friendship
remains intact. However, when he is angry with his enemy, he keeps quiet. As a result, his anger
grows even more intense within him.
Stanza 2
•Day and night, he let his anger flourish. The persona act in deceitful ways.
Stanza 3
•Trough the persona’s efforts, the poison tree of anger eventually bears fruits – ‘an apple bright’
which the enemy clearly recognises as the persona’s. the apple is very attractive to the enemy
Stanza 4
•The ‘apple’ is attractive and lures the enemy who unsuspectingly sneaks into the persona’s
garden at night. During the night, the ‘pole star’ is hidden and cannot protect or guide the enemy
from the danger of the ‘apple bright’. The ‘pole star’ is the North Star or Polaris, a bright star
permanently in the sky still used by navigators to avoid dangers while travelling. The ‘foe’ eats the
apple and is poisoned, much to the satisfaction of the persona.

5. Theme
Anger:thebasichumanemotionwhichsetstheeventsofthispoeminmotion.Althoughitisnotnecessarilywronginitself,how
wegoaboutdealingwithangerisextremelyimportant.
Deception:thespeakerbottlesthingsupanddoesnottalkabouthisfeelingstohisenemy.Theenemysneaksintothegardenin
thedeadofnighttotakethefruit.
Communication:thepoet/speakercommunicatesadirectmorallessontothereaderaboutthedisastrousconsequencesofhis
ownfailuretocommunicatewithanotherperson.

6. ELEMENTS OF THE POEM

7. SETTING
PLACE
• Persona’s garden, probably in England, but it can be
anywhere as the poem is an allegory.
TIME
• Not specified, but events happen from morning until
night for a period of time

8. PERSONA
• An intelligent and scheming person
who can act well and be hypocritical in
his friendship with his foe

9. message
Do not
suppress
negative
feeling
If we have negative
feelings like anger, we
must resolve the issue at
source. It is best to
communicate how we
feel
In A Poison Tree, Blake warns that
remaining silent about our anger
only makes us bitter and even
evil. Suppressed anger is
dangerous as it can have a
destructive effect on society. For
example, there have been many
recent cases of people with
unresolved anger who went on
shooting rampage.

10. Moral
value
Truthfulness
forgivenessRationality
and
moderation

12. 1. What
happened when
he did not tell his
foe?
• His wrath began to
grow.
2. How could the foe
possibly know that the
apple bright belongs to
the persona
• perhaps the persona
told the foe in
someway about it.
Perhaps the object of
envy (apple bright)
very clearly belongs
to the persona
because it is in the
persona territory

13. 3. What do you
think the apple
represents?
• The apple
represents the
poisonous fruit of
suppressed anger
4. How did the
persona tend to
his plant?
• He ‘watered it in
fears’ and ‘tear’,
and ‘sunned’ it with
‘smiles and
decieitful wiles’