Joyce Hart is a published author and former writing instructor. In this essay, she looks at the narrative behind the lines of Ponsot's poem to find just what the poet is saying about emotions.

In Ponsot's poem “One Is One,” it is obvious that the speaker of the poem is upset about her emotions. She does not speak very kindly about them from the first words of the first stanza all the way through to the end of the poem, yet she does not want to completely rid herself of them. Even though she is disgusted with them, she does not want to banish them forever. Just exactly what does she want? Why does she want this? And how does she go about trying to solve the problem of her runaway emotions?

The speaker lets it be known from the first words of the poem that she...