May I have a plate
of bituminous coal?
Are you a devil?
No, I'm your soul.
Then pray to Lord Jesus
to send you some meat--
I'd feel like a millipede
quoting George Herbert.
An insect in an iron cage
does not deserve redemption--
Hell's my address. Jesus Christ!
Give the young man a briquette.
(This poem first appeared in Spring, The Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society, 2010)
Interpretation: Some have considered my poetry to be a little difficult, so I'm including an interpretation of this poem. (As for the problem of difficulty, I refer to the renowned critic Helen Vendler who once stated that the best poetry is sometimes hard to understand at first reading, since musicality and understatement often hide the meaning, which is subtle. In other words, the appreciation of good poetry deepens with multiple readings. I'm not claiming that this poem is great, but if Vendler's words apply here, I certainly take it as a compliment.)
The title "Love" and the reference to George Herbert is a givaway, albeit a hidden one. This poem is a companion piece to Herbert's great poem, "Love." (If you don't know it, google it--you will never forget it. This was the favorite poem of Simone Weil, who, I've read, some consider to have been the greatest female philosopher that ever lived.)
Herbert's poem uses--he was the parish priest of Bemerton--Christian symbolism, so my companion poem does too. Herbert presents in his poem the great banquet of redemption, but the guilty protagonist feels too unworthy to participate. Love, who is none other than Jesus Christ, reminds him that his sins have been removed by His act of redemption, and the poem ends with, "'You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:/ so I did sit and eat." Ah, the simplicity, profundity and music of that last line!
This poem presents a different situation. We are at the same banquet, but the person feels so far from redemption, that he anticipates God's anger and asks for coal. I like to think of this poem as a dialogue between a tortured young man and a wise elder. The old man ironically asks, "Are you a devil?"--The implication is that he is a human being like everybody else and deserves a place at the table. The youth replies, "No, I'm you're soul." Here we learn that the young man and the old man are one and the same. One can interpret this as sort of a split-screen dialogue between the same person at two different stages of life, or a reference to the one soul of a common humanity. (Since the two speakers are really one, I eschewed the use of quotes or italics, which would separate them more than I want.) The old man replies that the young man should pray to God for food--the irony is that it's all around him--since he is as deserving of it as anyone else. But the young man thinks he's beyond redemption, while the other man knows this not to be true. (I have long since been convinced that guilt, except in cases where it leads us to become more human, is very frequently pathological. Some who should be guilty aren't, etc. I remember when a colleague told me about an eight year old boy in his practice who hanged himself. Why? Because he had been pulling the wings and legs off several bugs that he found in his garden.) At the invitation to feel worthy, the youth then quotes my favorite lines of this poem, "I'd feel like a millipede/ quoting George Herbert." Similar to Kafka's human cockroach, there is no hope for a human millipede--so the young man feels. He follows with two lines of self-excoriation, and ends with the belief that he is already in hell. The old man is exasperated and realizes that nobody can reach the young man at this time. Perhaps he is saying to himself the following: "He wants coal, all right give him coal. But he will figure out, after much suffering and many difficulties, that he is deserving, too--after all, he is no different from me." I like to think of the old man telling the angels to keep a seat vacant--even if it lies vacant for years. "He'll be back," the old man says, "and will be a good guest at this great feast. Now, thank God! I am ready to eat!"
of bituminous coal?
Are you a devil?
No, I'm your soul.
Then pray to Lord Jesus
to send you some meat--
I'd feel like a millipede
quoting George Herbert.
An insect in an iron cage
does not deserve redemption--
Hell's my address. Jesus Christ!
Give the young man a briquette.
(This poem first appeared in Spring, The Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society, 2010)
Interpretation: Some have considered my poetry to be a little difficult, so I'm including an interpretation of this poem. (As for the problem of difficulty, I refer to the renowned critic Helen Vendler who once stated that the best poetry is sometimes hard to understand at first reading, since musicality and understatement often hide the meaning, which is subtle. In other words, the appreciation of good poetry deepens with multiple readings. I'm not claiming that this poem is great, but if Vendler's words apply here, I certainly take it as a compliment.)
The title "Love" and the reference to George Herbert is a givaway, albeit a hidden one. This poem is a companion piece to Herbert's great poem, "Love." (If you don't know it, google it--you will never forget it. This was the favorite poem of Simone Weil, who, I've read, some consider to have been the greatest female philosopher that ever lived.)
Herbert's poem uses--he was the parish priest of Bemerton--Christian symbolism, so my companion poem does too. Herbert presents in his poem the great banquet of redemption, but the guilty protagonist feels too unworthy to participate. Love, who is none other than Jesus Christ, reminds him that his sins have been removed by His act of redemption, and the poem ends with, "'You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:/ so I did sit and eat." Ah, the simplicity, profundity and music of that last line!
This poem presents a different situation. We are at the same banquet, but the person feels so far from redemption, that he anticipates God's anger and asks for coal. I like to think of this poem as a dialogue between a tortured young man and a wise elder. The old man ironically asks, "Are you a devil?"--The implication is that he is a human being like everybody else and deserves a place at the table. The youth replies, "No, I'm you're soul." Here we learn that the young man and the old man are one and the same. One can interpret this as sort of a split-screen dialogue between the same person at two different stages of life, or a reference to the one soul of a common humanity. (Since the two speakers are really one, I eschewed the use of quotes or italics, which would separate them more than I want.) The old man replies that the young man should pray to God for food--the irony is that it's all around him--since he is as deserving of it as anyone else. But the young man thinks he's beyond redemption, while the other man knows this not to be true. (I have long since been convinced that guilt, except in cases where it leads us to become more human, is very frequently pathological. Some who should be guilty aren't, etc. I remember when a colleague told me about an eight year old boy in his practice who hanged himself. Why? Because he had been pulling the wings and legs off several bugs that he found in his garden.) At the invitation to feel worthy, the youth then quotes my favorite lines of this poem, "I'd feel like a millipede/ quoting George Herbert." Similar to Kafka's human cockroach, there is no hope for a human millipede--so the young man feels. He follows with two lines of self-excoriation, and ends with the belief that he is already in hell. The old man is exasperated and realizes that nobody can reach the young man at this time. Perhaps he is saying to himself the following: "He wants coal, all right give him coal. But he will figure out, after much suffering and many difficulties, that he is deserving, too--after all, he is no different from me." I like to think of the old man telling the angels to keep a seat vacant--even if it lies vacant for years. "He'll be back," the old man says, "and will be a good guest at this great feast. Now, thank God! I am ready to eat!"
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