[ephemeral]

Problems universal to us all, a myriad of solutions applicable to us each. The poet takes that equation, and seeks truth, beauty, Art. Miller Williams's Love Poem with Toast is an especially fine example of this ilk.

But in this instance the poet is tricky, even devious; he uses poetic form and structure (a topic I hope to discuss in future installments) to change up the poem's content/context, and his intent. Context is not always synonymous with sub-text, nor tantamount to the artist's true intention.

Love Poem with Toast

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up,
the coffee to perc,
the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something
the skin from aging,
the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,

as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.
-- Miller Williams

Begin with the obvious: the poem's context...
1) Four stanzas
2) No line-ending rhyming words - until the final stanza
3) The disparity between Stanza 1's "make things happen" and Stanza 2's "keep something from doing something"

But wait, what's this? Stanza 4 does not begin with a capital letter, as do the three prior stanzas. Which means the poem really has only 3 stanzas; that set-apart for "stanza 4" betrays something important, a feint the poet wants the reader to notice. This is the moment the poet subverts structure, via the misperceived 4th stanza, and form, with his use of rhyme in a poem that had used no rhyme to that point.

What is the reader to make of this sudden change, from free verse with no rhyming structure to classic poetic mode with the poem's closing quatrain (the enclosed rhyme - a-b-b-a, end-alone-bone-pretend)? One hint is the structure of the poem's final stanza, the first half of stanza 3...

wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,

Note the alternating positive/negative, positive/negative cadence - which the poet continues through the 2nd half of stanza 3, albeit not obviously. And then he concludes with that killer final line: "Pretend"... what? Perhaps your comments, and our discussion, will help solve that matter.

In sum: A brilliant poem that applies a universal truth to individual reality, and the perceptions thereof.

[ephemeral]

While making edits, I accidentally deleted some of my comments. I have since restored the missing text.

Just a suggestion before my actual comment: don't put the poem in the middle. Googleing the poem, I've noticed that the second stanza has 4 lines on other sources, not five. But the "4th" has 5 lines everywhere else, yet you've called it a quatrain. Is it a quatrain? I'm confused Maybe it's a formatting problem.

Anyway, interesting poem. I never noticed the subtle touches you've mention. Either I don't read as carefully as I think, or poetry takes more time to learn to read than I've thought. How many times do you read a poem you've first encountered?

Perhaps the illusory stanza, the gap between it and the third, points to a pause of realization. I've often found that realizations can come more eloquently and clearly than most thoughts, so perhaps that is why she put the ABBA rhyme at the end, to show the clarity and assuredness and beauty of realization of truth.

And the pretend seems to me to fit with the nature of self-unconsciousness. We're drowned in all these unnecessary, ill-affecting wants, wants that we would not have if we were in touch with ourselves, and all these wants form our ego, our persona molded by these wants, and as the word persona implies, it involves a whole lot of pretending.

[ephemeral]

Thank you once again, Jaunting Head, for your interesting comments that provide much fodder for thought.

For example, your analysis of "pretend." The realization of truth does not always beget appropriate decisions, actions, and reactions. I am sure we all know someone who knows what is good for him or her, but continues on their path to personal destruction or devastation. Perhaps a similar ill-considered response refers to the "pretend"...?

A different interpretation of the entire "pretend" insight is: To whom precisely does the narrator speak...? The loved one across the breakfast table? Other people? The reader? Perhaps even him (her) self? As in "Stop pretending, stop fooling myself. Do we, each and both, want and desire the same things, share the same objective?""

As with most of life, there exists a wide divide between the great, and the merely good, poetry included. Forget the atrocious and the merely bad, most poetry is only good enough, which poems lie inert, flat on the page. As much as I might enjoy the poem, it is all surface matter, nothing enduring. Read once, perhaps enjoy it for the moment, and then move on. But the truly great poems - they demand the reader's attention, and reward frequent rereads.

I read each poem the first time to identify whether the poet knows and uses poetic form and structure. Does the poet have something to say, an uncommon insight on the human condition? If yes to those, then I read the poem repeatedly for different aspects...

- What does the poem say?
- How does he or she say it?
- What greater meaning is to be had?
- What is its value (lessons and applicability) to me?

How much better a work of art is when you intuit its creator's true intent and meaning, grasp the layers of cultural literacy (used especially in poetry as a form of shorthand), and can ferret out the meanings and shadings that occur in the interstices between form and function? I am not the brightest person, but I sure do like the challenge.

btw, a quatrain refers to poetic form and, indirectly, structure, but not necessarily a poem's encompassing structure. Stated other, a (4 line) quatrain can be a part of a 5 line (or more) stanza, as occurs here.

Yeah, the "we" isn't exactly clear, although the "breakfast" seems points to a love partner. If not, what could that word mean? As a metaphor?

"What does the poem say?" "What greater meaning is to be had?" You mean, in the first you look for the superficial meaning, and in the second aspect you look for a perhaps deeper, metaphorical, sense?

Is there a good book where you can learn poetic form and structure?

"I am not the brightest person, but I sure do like the challenge." I think this make you quite commendable all the same

Why did you put the poem away? I didn't get the chance to read it. Come now, don't be shy