I Am! (John Clare poem) Summary

The poem begins with the short phrase “I am.” Before Clare can say what he is, he cuts himself off, so that “I am” becomes merely an assertion that he exists. After all, he stresses, no one “cares or knows” what he is. The rest of the first stanza explores the implications of this loneliness for Clare’s emotions. Without someone else to respond to his feelings, Clare can’t determine their reality. Nevertheless, he lives, inhabiting this unstable world. In the second stanza, he compares that world to a sea where his life has been shipwrecked, and everyone seems different from him. In the third, he expresses his longing for a different experience, peaceful and calm, without the onerous presence of those who scorn him. There he would dwell with God and lie “untroubling and untroubled” in death.