Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Lawrence Raab’s "Mr. Fear" is an intimate and unsettling meditation on anxiety, mortality, and the constant presence of dread in human life. The poem personifies fear as a shadowy figure—*"Mr. Fear"—who follows us, catalogs our worries, and selects from his "black sack of troubles" the burdens we must bear. Through its spare language and quiet plea for mercy, the poem explores the ways in which fear infiltrates the subconscious, shaping both waking and dreaming experience.

The poem begins with an assertion of Mr. Fear’s omnipresence: "He follows us, he keeps track. / Each day his lists are longer." This description presents fear as relentless, methodical, and inevitable. The phrase "keeps track" suggests a careful, almost bureaucratic attention to detail, while "each day his lists are longer" implies an accumulation of anxieties—fear does not remain static but grows with time.

The next lines introduce a chilling simplicity: "Here, death. And here, something like it." The juxtaposition of "death" with "something like it" suggests that fear is not confined to the ultimate end but extends to everything that reminds us of it—loss, pain, uncertainty. Mr. Fear is not merely an abstract concept; he is an active presence in our dreams, dictating what horrors we will confront: "Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams, what do you have for me tonight?" The framing of this question as a ritual—almost an address to a deity—underscores fear’s power over the unconscious mind.

The next image presents Mr. Fear as a kind of grim benefactor: "And he looks through his sack, his black sack of troubles. / Maybe he smiles when he finds the right one. Maybe he’s sorry." The ambiguity in these lines is striking. Does Mr. Fear take pleasure in his task, or does he regret it? The speaker allows for both possibilities, but neither offers comfort—whether Fear delights in his work or performs it with reluctant duty, the result is the same: he delivers our nightly dose of dread.

As the speaker pleads with Mr. Fear, the poem takes on a desperate, almost childlike tone: "Tell me, Mr. Fear, what must I carry / away from your dream. / Make it small, please." There is an implicit recognition here that fear cannot be avoided entirely; it must be carried. The speaker does not ask for its removal but merely for its reduction—something manageable, something that can be endured. The request to "make it small" suggests a longing for control, a wish to contain fear rather than be consumed by it.

The next plea is even more poignant: "Let it fit in my pocket, let it fall through / the hole in my pocket." The image of fear as something pocket-sized, something that might slip away unnoticed, is both hopeful and tragic. It acknowledges that while fear is always present, there is the possibility—however slight—that it might escape, might be lost through the smallest gap.

The closing lines introduce a contrast between fear and the natural world: "Fear, let me have a small brown bat and a purse of crickets / like the ones I heard singing last night / out there in the stubbly field before I slept, and met you." The "small brown bat" and the "purse of crickets" transform fear into something tangible, even organic. The bat—a creature often associated with darkness and superstition—becomes a substitute for greater terror. The "purse of crickets" evokes fragility and transience; it is not a nightmare, but a memory of something real, something that "sang" rather than threatened.

The final lines subtly reveal the inevitability of encountering Mr. Fear: "before I slept, and met you." There is no escape—fear arrives nightly, just as sleep does. Yet the poem does not end with outright terror but with an act of negotiation. The speaker does not challenge Mr. Fear’s power but attempts to mitigate it, to trade overwhelming dread for something small, something survivable.

"Mr. Fear" is a meditation on how fear operates in our lives—not as a singular overwhelming force, but as a persistent, inescapable presence. By personifying fear, Raab captures its paradoxical nature: it is both intimate and impersonal, both cruel and indifferent. The speaker’s quiet plea—to make fear small, to let it slip away—reflects the universal human desire to manage the anxieties that weigh upon us. In the end, the poem suggests that while we may never rid ourselves of fear, we can still bargain with it, still hope that it will leave us with something we can bear.

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