Question

Kindly explain this poem Poverty by Henry Lawlson

Answer 1

Answer:

The first verse is very straight forward: I hate being poor, and no matter how hard I try, I worry about tomorrow. It breaks the heart of a man, and crushes his spirit, that no matter what a good man he is, it doesn't seem to matter what he does. He's still poor

Second verse:

I hate that poverty is treated as if it's a virtue

by preachers and poets,

and the hypocrisy of those who have never experienced it,

trying to convince those who have, that it's ok.

Poverty is a curse

and very scary.

It's the cause of crime,

and the cause of what goes wrong in the world.

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Part of the difficulty of this poem, is the use of archaic words (like "cant"--which means a hypocritical lecture in this context), and the "old-fashioned" way of writing.

To summarize, being poor stinks and is scary. Sometimes it seems that no matter what a good guy tries to do, he can't get out of it. He's tired of hearing that it's virtuous, and builds character from people who don't have a clue. Poverty is the cause of half the problems in society.

I hope this helps!