Shivpreet Singh

Dream of the Raven

-Ada Limon

When the ten-speed, lightweight bicycle broke down
off the highway lined thick with orange trees, I noticed
a giant raven’s head protruding from the waxy leaves.
The bird was stuck somehow, mangled in the branches,
crying out. Wide-eyed, I held the bird’s face close to mine.
Beak to nose. Dark brown iris to dark brown iris. Feather
to feather. This was not the Chihuahuan raven or the fan-
tailed raven or the common raven. Nothing was common
about the way we stared at one another while a stranger
untangled the bird’s claws from the tree’s limbs and he, finally
free, became a naked child swinging in the wind.

Art: Angie Kang

Guru Nanak asserts that suffering is medicine. Suffering can be transformative medicine for the soul. When I read Ada Limón's poem, "Dream of the Raven," this morning, I felt it beautifully echoed this sentiment. Pain can be a catalyst for profound empathy, connection and emancipation.

The poem takes us on a journey through an unexpected encounter with a giant raven, trapped and crying out amidst orange trees. The speaker themselves is in trouble as their bicycle breaks down and they encounter a Raven in an orange tree. When the speaker holds the raven's face close, beak to nose, eye to eye and feather to feather, there is a poignant acknowledgment of shared vulnerability. The speaker can now truly smell terror; they can genuinely see plight.

This intimate connection, born out of pain, becomes a conduit for recognizing the commonality between humans and the natural world. Guru Nanak's insight comes to life as the poem unfolds, revealing that our own pain can enable us to see eye to eye with our fellow earthlings. Limón's verse suggests that through empathy, we can begin to understand the eyes we possess to witness pain and the metaphorical feathers that grant us the ability to soar above adversity.

The act of freeing the trapped raven by a compassionate stranger adds a layer of symbolism to the poem. The stranger's intervention becomes a metaphor for the service that can arise from empathy. In Guru Nanak's perspective, service is a path to emancipation, and the poem subtly aligns with this philosophy. The moment when the raven is finally liberated and transforms into a "naked child swinging in the wind" symbolizes a profound release, akin to the freedom attained through selfless service.

Limón's narrative suggests that it is through our own struggles that we develop the capacity for genuine compassion. Moreover, it suggests that by alleviating the suffering of others, we, too, can experience a form of liberation. This interplay of pain, empathy, and service underscores the interconnectedness of the human experience and emphasizes the potential for collective healing.

We need to embrace our pain not as a burden but as a transformative force. Through the lens of empathy, we can recognize our shared humanity with the natural world and, in turn, discover the wings that enable us to rise above adversity. Recognizing the eyes to see pain and acknowledging the feathers to fly is the first step toward our emancipation through service.

Tonight I am reading John Ashbery's poetry while listening to Guru Nanak's Mool Mantra. Contemplating about pain and death.

Anticipated Stranger
by John Ashbery

the bruise will stop by later.
For now, the pain pauses in its round,
notes the time of day, the patient’s temperature,
leaves a memo for the surrogate: What the hell
did you think you were doing? I mean . . .
Oh well, less said the better, they all say.
I’ll post this at the desk.

God will find the pattern and break it.

The Rounds of Pain and Death in the ward of life

This poem reminds me of Gautam Buddha's four noble truths -- an interesting way of talking about the rounds of pain and death as if this was a doctor's ward and pain, suffering and death were making rounds.

In the poem, John Ashbery seems to talk how cyclical nature pain and anguish are in life. These experiences seem to haunt the speaker, like an ever-present companion, reminding them of the transient and vulnerable nature of existence.

The "anticipated stranger" takes on a profound significance, symbolizing death itself. As the poem progresses, the poet implies that death is the ultimate resolution to life's sufferings—a force that puts an end to all uncertainties and breaks the repetitive cycles of pain. Initially pain is taking the rounds and almost memorializing it by taking notes. Then a bruise "will stop by later"; in the end death, anticipated but unknown, comes at its appointed time, concluding the journey of life with finality.

Throughout the lines, the poem seems to question the purpose and meaning behind these cycles of pain, and the lines "What the hell / did you think you were doing? I mean . . . / Oh well, less said the better, they all say. / I’ll post this at the desk" allude to the human struggle to understand the enigmatic nature of existence and the inevitability of mortality. These lines reflect the notion that, in the face of life's mysteries, some truths are better left unspoken or unknown.

In the final lines, "God will find the pattern and break it," the poet touches on the concept of a higher power or cosmic force that orchestrates the rhythm of life and death. Death, in this context, becomes the decisive agent, putting an end to all human suffering and uncertainties. It is the ultimate equalizer that transcends the complexities of earthly existence. In that sense the "anticipated stranger" embodies death's transformative power, serving as a reminder to embrace life while acknowledging its inevitable conclusion.

Mul Mantra

Emily Dickinson’s poem “I stepped from Plank to Plank” reflects her ability to use simple imagery—stepping on planks—to explore profound existential themes like uncertainty, mortality, and human experience. The "plank" represents the precarious and finite path of life, where every step is deliberate, cautious, and imbued with the fear of collapse. The poem conveys how this experience of careful, often fearful, navigation through life becomes what we call "experience." The tension between the vast unknowns—the "stars" above and the "sea" below—creates a sense of both awe and vulnerability.

“I stepped from Plank to Plank…” (875)

I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch —
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.

Key Themes in the Poem:

Precariousness of Life:
Dickinson uses the metaphor of stepping on planks to symbolize the fragility of life. Each step carries the potential of falling, a reminder of the uncertainty we navigate daily.
Finite Nature of Experience:
The lines "I knew not but the next / Would be my final inch" capture the inevitability of mortality, with every step being a potential last.
Dual Nature of Existence:
The poem contrasts the infinite—stars and sea—with the finite—planks and steps—suggesting that human life exists at the intersection of vast, unknowable forces and personal, limited experience.
Experience as Growth:
The "precarious Gait" born of uncertainty becomes a metaphor for how experience shapes us. It is not through certainty but through fear and caution that we develop what Dickinson calls "Experience."

Relating the Poem to Gurbani:

Gurbani often reflects on the transitory nature of life, emphasizing the precariousness of human existence and the necessity of spiritual awareness. For instance, the following shabads resonate deeply with Dickinson’s themes:

1. Precariousness of Life (Dukh of Maya):

Gurbani describes life as a fragile bridge, much like Dickinson's planks:

"ਜਿਨਿ ਏਹਿ ਕਲ ਧਾਰੀ ਸਗਲੀ, ਤੇਰਾ ਅੰਤੁ ਨ ਜਾਈ ਲਖਿਆ ॥"
"The One who created this fragile expanse—Your limits cannot be known."
(Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 3)

Both the poem and this shabad express life as a delicate journey across a narrow and uncertain path. Just as Dickinson’s planks might break, Gurbani reminds us of the illusionary nature of worldly stability, which is ultimately under the Creator's control.

2. Finite Nature of Experience and Mortality:

Dickinson’s awareness of mortality echoes the Sikh understanding of life as fleeting:

"ਰੈਣਿ ਗਵਾਈ ਸੋਇ ਕੈ ਦਿਵਸੁ ਗਵਾਇਆ ਖਾਇ ॥"
"You lose the night in sleep, and the day is wasted in eating."
(Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 156)

The "final inch" in Dickinson’s poem aligns with Gurbani’s reminder that life is limited, urging reflection on whether we are spending our moments meaningfully.

3. Duality of Existence:

The stars and sea in Dickinson's poem mirror the contrasting aspects of human experience: spiritual aspiration and worldly attachment. Gurbani often speaks of the pull between these two realms:

"ਸੁਖ ਦੁਖ ਦੁਇ ਦਾਰਿ ਕਪੜੇ ਪਹਿਰੇ ਜਾਇ ਮਨੁੱਖ ॥"
"Pleasure and pain are the two garments the mortal wears."
(Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 149)

Dickinson’s tension between the vast unknown (stars and sea) and the fragile present (planks) parallels Gurbani’s discussion of the soul caught between transcendence and material attachments.

4. Experience as Grace (Anubhav and Gyaan):

For Dickinson, the precarious steps create "Experience," which can be likened to the Sikh concept of anubhav—direct spiritual realization:

"ਗੁਰ ਪਰਸਾਦਿ ਪਾਰਸੁ ਪਰਚਾ ਜਪਿ ਤਤੁ ਗੁਰੂ ਜਸੁ ਲਾਇ ॥"
"By Guru's Grace, the soul experiences the essence of truth and praises the Divine."
(Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 414)

Just as Dickinson suggests that fear and uncertainty lead to growth, Gurbani reveals that life’s challenges lead to self-realization and closeness to the Divine when approached with faith.

The Ocean, the Stars, and Divine Connection:

In Dickinson’s poem, the sea represents the unknown depths of life, while the stars represent the infinite possibilities of existence. Similarly, Gurbani often uses metaphors of the ocean (samundar) for the Divine and stars (taare) for spiritual knowledge. Guru Nanak says:

"ਮਃ ੧ ॥ ਅਖਰੀ ਨਾਮੁ ਅਖਰੀ ਸਾਲਾਹ ॥ ਅਖਰੀ ਗਿਆਨੁ ਗੀਤ ਗੁਣ ਗਾਹ ॥ ਅਖਰੀ ਲਿਖਣੁ ਬੋਲਣੁ ਬਾਣਿ ॥"
"Through letters comes the Name; through letters comes praise; through letters comes spiritual knowledge and hymns."
(Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 4)

This aligns with Dickinson’s step-by-step movement through planks (or words), where the cautious gait toward experience can also be interpreted as a spiritual journey.

While Dickinson’s final image of "precarious Gait" points to a human experience shaped by uncertainty, Gurbani offers a vision of transcendence:

"ਸਭੁ ਕੋਈ ਬਹੁਤੁ ਬਿਆਪੈ ਬਉਰਾ ॥ ਹਰਿ ਚਰਣੀ ਲਗਿ ਸੁਖੁ ਪਾਵੈ ਨਾਉ ॥"
"All are engulfed by fear and anxiety, but those who attach to the Divine Feet find peace through the Name."
(Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 258)

Dickinson’s poem can thus inspire us to approach life’s uncertainties not with fear alone, but with faith, as Gurbani reminds us that even the smallest step in remembrance of the Divine offers stability amidst life’s fragile planks.

“I stepped from Plank to Plank…” (875)

Jack Kerouac through his poem In Vain asks the question, "Of what use are the best things in the world?" It seems that some of the best things in the world, like the stars in the sky and the life of buddha are of no use because people are after materialistic things. This reminds me of Guru Arjan's Durlabham where the Guru rejects all the material things in the world for the name of oneness. The repetition of "in vain" also reminds me of the repetition of "kood" or "false" by Guru Nanak in his poem kood raajaa rejecting materiality of the world. The repetition of "in vain" also creates a beautiful meditative lament.

First the poem, and then analysis:

In Vain

The stars in the sky

In vain

The tragedy of Hamlet

In vain

The key in the lock

In vain

The sleeping mother

In vain

The lamp in the corner

In vain

The lamp in the corner unlit

In vain

Abraham Lincoln

In vain

The Aztec empire

In vain

The writing hand: in vain

(The shoetrees in the shoes

In vain

The window shade string upon

the hand bible

In vain—

The glitter of the green glass

ashtray

In vain

The bear in the woods

In vain

The Life of Buddha

In vain)

- Jack Kerouac

Analysis

According to Dictionary.com, “in vain” is defined as “without real significance, value, or importance; baseless or worthless.” In this poem, Jack Kerouac uses this phrase to emphasize how society has lost its meaning. In the beginning of the poem, he writes “The stars in the sky/ In vain” (lines 1-2). Stars are a symbol of the misunderstood. Stars also symbolize distant or unattainable things because of their magnificent distance from Earth. These lines show how, in this time period, society yearned for progress and change. But since Kerouac was part of the Beat Generation, he and his fellow Beats completely opposed society’s materialistic goals. Kerouac is trying to get the point across that these materialistic goals are meaning. A message that comes from this is that nothing has a value unless we give it one. This directly relates to Kerouac’s perspective on how society, often values things not worthy of having one.

Human beings take a lot for granted. Kerouac shows this through the repetition of the line, “in vain” throughout his poem. Another way Kerouac displays this idea of society being unappreciative is when he writes, “Abraham Lincoln/ In vain” (lines 13-14). It is ironic Kerouac includes the allusion of Lincoln in his poem because Lincoln was the President that outlawed slavery and in the time period the poem was written, the Civil Rights Movement was going on. It shows how we fought a Civil War to end slavery in vain as there is still on going denial of equal rights to blacks. This expresses how society is claiming to progress but actually not progressing at all. A message that could be derived from this is that you have to learn from the past in order to progress. Kerouac believes society is too self-absorbed and too focused on moving forward to learn from the past.

The Beat Generation believed in the rejection of mainstream American values, the exploring of alternate forms of sexuality like homosexuality, and the experimentation with drugs. The Beat Generation lived a relaxed lifestyle without any worries. This poem is a critique of society and illustrates to how the Beats rejected society’s goals. This connection is shown when Kerouac writes, “The sleeping mother/ In vain” (lines 7-8). Kerouac writes this to show how society in this time period made something as important as a mother figure irrelevant. This relates to why Beats did not like society’s direction. The Beat Generation thought society in this time did not appreciate anything The Establishment was doing. This theme is demonstrated throughout this poem.

This reminds me of the W.H.Auden's Musee des Beaux Arts which shows how major painting masters portrayed human nonchalance to major happenings like the birth of Jesus Christ and the fall of Icarus; we find seemingly important things in vain, and perhaps in the grand scheme of things, they are in vain.

Beauty that stays versus beauty that is transient. Three poems to ponder upon -

Percy Shelley - "The flower that smiles today"

The flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow dies;

All that we wish to stay

Tempts and then flies.

What is this world’s delight?

Lightning that mocks the night,

Brief even as bright.

(see below for entire poem and analysis)

Ghalib - Hai Kis Kadar

hai kis qadar halāk-e-fareb-e-vafā-e-gul

bulbul ke kārobār pe haiñ ḳhanda-hā-e-gul

है किस क़दर हलाक-ए-फ़रेब-ए-वफ़ा-ए-गुल

बुलबुल के कारोबार पे हैं ख़ंदा-हा-ए-गुल

How fatal

is her false loyalty!

The nightingale thinks the rose

is smiling, he thinks that she

is interested while she

laughs at his

deeds

(see below for entire poem and meanings)

Guru Tegh Bahadur (Raag Basant) - Kahaa Bhuleyo Re Jhuthe Lobh Laag

ਬਸੰਤੁ ਮਹਲਾ ੯ ॥

बसंतु महला ९ ॥

Basanṯ mėhlā 9.

Basant, Ninth Mehl:

ਕਹਾ ਭੂਲਿਓ ਰੇ ਝੂਠੇ ਲੋਭ ਲਾਗ ॥

कहा भूलिओ रे झूठे लोभ लाग ॥

Kahā bẖūli▫o re jẖūṯẖe lobẖ lāg.

Why do you wander lost, O mortal, attached to falsehood and greed?

ਕਛੁ ਬਿਗਰਿਓ ਨਾਹਿਨ ਅਜਹੁ ਜਾਗ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥

कछु बिगरिओ नाहिन अजहु जाग ॥१॥ रहाउ ॥

Kacẖẖ bigri▫o nāhin ajahu jāg. ||1|| rahā▫o.

Nothing has been lost yet - there is still time to wake up! ||1||Pause||

ਸਮ ਸੁਪਨੈ ਕੈ ਇਹੁ ਜਗੁ ਜਾਨੁ ॥

सम सुपनै कै इहु जगु जानु ॥

Sam supnai kai ih jag jān.

You must realize that this world is nothing more than a dream.

ਬਿਨਸੈ ਛਿਨ ਮੈ ਸਾਚੀ ਮਾਨੁ ॥੧॥

बिनसै छिन मै साची मानु ॥१॥

Binsai cẖẖin mai sācẖī mān. ||1||

In an instant, it shall perish; know this as true. ||1||

ਸੰਗਿ ਤੇਰੈ ਹਰਿ ਬਸਤ ਨੀਤ ॥

संगि तेरै हरि बसत नीत ॥

Sang ṯerai har basaṯ nīṯ.

The Lord constantly abides with you.

ਨਿਸ ਬਾਸੁਰ ਭਜੁ ਤਾਹਿ ਮੀਤ ॥੨॥

निस बासुर भजु ताहि मीत ॥२॥

Nis bāsur bẖaj ṯāhi mīṯ. ||2||

Night and day, vibrate and meditate on Him, O my friend. ||2||

ਬਾਰ ਅੰਤ ਕੀ ਹੋਇ ਸਹਾਇ ॥

बार अंत की होइ सहाइ ॥

Bār anṯ kī ho▫e sahā▫e.

At the very last instant, He shall be your Help and Support.

ਕਹੁ ਨਾਨਕ ਗੁਨ ਤਾ ਕੇ ਗਾਇ ॥੩॥੫॥

कहु नानक गुन ता के गाइ ॥३॥५॥

Kaho Nānak gun ṯā ke gā▫e. ||3||5||

Says Nanak, sing His Praises. ||3||5||

A critical reading of Percy Shelley’s poem

Percy Shelley (1792-1822) was, along with Lord Byron and John Keats, one of the second-generation Romantic poets who followed Wordsworth and Coleridge – and, to an extent, diverged from them, having slightly different ideas of Romanticism. ‘The Flower That Smiles Today’, sometimes titled ‘Mutability’ (though Shelley, confusingly, wrote another poem called ‘Mutability’) is one of Shelley’s most widely anthologised poems, so we thought we’d share it here, along with a brief analysis of its language and meaning.

The flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow dies;

All that we wish to stay

Tempts and then flies.

What is this world’s delight?

Lightning that mocks the night,

Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is!

Friendship how rare!

Love, how it sells poor bliss

For proud despair!

But we, though soon they fall,

Survive their joy, and all

Which ours we call.

Whilst skies are blue and bright,

Whilst flowers are gay,

Whilst eyes that change ere night

Make glad the day;

Whilst yet the calm hours creep,

Dream thou—and from thy sleep

Then wake to weep.

‘The Flower That Smiles Today’, in summary, is a poem about the brevity of all things – all hopes, desires, and delights the world has to offer are short-lived and doomed to die. Everything is fleeting and transitory. This argument had been made before Shelley made it: consider Robert Herrick’s famous seventeenth-century poem ‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time’. Indeed, Shelley’s opening lines seem to be a conscious reworking of Herrick’s: where Shelley writes ‘The flower that smiles today / Tomorrow dies’, Herrick had written that ‘this same flower that smiles today / Tomorrow will be dying.’

percy-shelley-flower-that-smiles-todayIn the second stanza, Shelley laments that virtue or decency, friendship, and love are all rare and delicate: even once you have gained them you cannot guarantee they will last. (Shelley himself held to a philosophical view of love whereby, if you didn’t feel an intensely passionate love for someone any longer, you should leave them and be with the person you’re meant to be with; this goes a long way towards explaining his messy home life.) Yet Shelley affirms that we survive the deaths of these things: friendship, love, virtue. We have to go soldiering on, but at least we’re still alive.

In the third stanza, Shelley argues that, while we have this dreamy world of joy and delight, we should seek to enjoy it, before we ‘wake to weep’ when it’s all over. The dream analogy is a nice touch: we usually aren’t aware that we are in a dream, and are passively carried along by it. It’s only when we wake that we realise we’ve been had. Shelley’s message appears to be that we cannot control these things – they are greater than us – so all we can do is to enjoy them while they last.

The first stanza of Shelley’s poem in particular repays close analysis. There are long ‘i’ sounds at the ends of five of the seven lines, but also internally too (‘smiles’, ‘Lightning’), with the ‘light’ peeping out from ‘delight’ playing off the miserable darkness of ‘night’, and that flash of light glimpsed between them, in the word ‘Lightning’, being almost electrifying in its force at the start of the line. The world’s pleasures are as brief as a flash of lightning, but how exhilarating to experience!

‘The Flower That Smiles Today’ (or ‘Mutability’, as some anthologies have it) depicts Shelley’s ideas about worldly pleasures in an effective and memorable way. It might be productive to analyse this poem alongside something like Herrick’s, which was written in a very different, though equally turbulent, period of English history. One wonders how much that turbulence fed into the poems’ message, to enjoy fleeting joys before they’ve flown.

Ghalib's Ghazal - hai kis qadar halāk

hai kis qadar halāk-e-fareb-e-vafā-e-gul

bulbul ke kārobār pe haiñ ḳhanda-hā-e-gul

āzādī-e-nasīm mubārak ki har taraf

TuuTe paḌe haiñ halqa-e-dām-e-havā-e-gul

jo thā so mauj-e-rañg ke dhoke meñ mar gayā

ai vaa.e nāla-e-lab-e-ḳhūnīñ-navā-e-gul

ḳhush-hāl us harīf-e-siyah-mast kā ki jo

rakhtā ho misl-e-sāya-e-gul sar-ba-pā-e-gul

ījād kartī hai use tere liye bahār

merā raqīb hai nafas-e-itr-sā-e-gul

sharminda rakhte haiñ mujhe bād-e-bahār se

mīnā-e-be-sharāb o dil-e-be-havā-e-gul

satvat se tere jalva-e-husn-e-ġhuyūr kī

ḳhuuñ hai mirī nigāh meñ rañg-e-adā-e-gul

tere hī jalve kā hai ye dhokā ki aaj tak

be-iḳhtiyār dauḌe hai gul dar-qafā-e-gul

'ġhālib' mujhe hai us se ham-āġhoshī aarzū

jis kā ḳhayāl hai gul-e-jeb-e-qabā-e-gul

Additional unpublished shers from this ghazal -

dīvānagāñ kā chāra faroġh-e-bahār hai

hai shāḳh-e-gul meñ panja-e-ḳhūbāñ bajā.e gul

mizhgāñ talak rasā.ī-e-laḳht-e-jigar kahāñ

ai vaa.e gar nigāh na ho āshnā-e-gul

How murderous is the false faith of the rose!

The nightingale's doings amuse the rose.

Celebrate the breeze's freedom: everywhere lie broken

The meshes of the net of desire of the rose.

[I now think it should be "desire-net" instead of "net of desire"]

Deceived, everyone fell for its wave of color.

Oh, the lament of the bloody-voiced lip of the rose!

How happy is that drunken one who, like the rose's shadow

Rests his head on the foot of the rose.

Spring creates it for you, it's my rival

The perfume-like breath of the rose.

They make me ashamed before the spring breeze

My cup without wine, my heart without desire for the rose.

Your jealous beauty appears in such glory that

It's mere blood in my eyes, the color of the charm of the rose.

Even now, deceived, thinking it to be you

The rose runs recklessly after the rose.

Ghalib, I long to embrace her

The thought of whom is the rose on the dress of the rose.

More on this ghazal: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ghalib/080/80_01.html

Today I heard that there would be ice cream at President-elect Biden's victory speech and I was reminded of this poem by Wallace Stevens: The Emperor of Ice-Cream. First the poem, and then some thoughts on it ...

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,

The muscular one, and bid him whip

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

As they are used to wear, and let the boys

Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.

Let be be finale of seem.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,

Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet

On which she embroidered fantails once

And spread it so as to cover her face.

If her horny feet protrude, they come

To show how cold she is, and dumb.

Let the lamp affix its beam.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Wallace Stevens

My Take on Wallace Steven's The Emperor of Ice-Cream

I read this poem 10 years ago and it is sounds as beautiful as ever. After the death of this woman, she lies "cold" and "dumb," and one person, apparently the emperor of ice cream, directs the activities involved in her memorial service. This is some sort of a celebration; perhaps the woman lived a full life and the memorial includes ice cream and flowers. The poem is about the temporariness of life; it emphasizes that there are no real emperors in this world. All power is temporary. Its like ice-cream: it melts away. Just like Hamlet reminds Claudius in Shakespeare's play, emperors and their powers are temporary (more below). The best of emperors are just temporary caretakers of temporary things that appear sweet and sexy. Then they move on. In the end, what seems is not true (Let "be" be finale of seem). Truth remains in the end. Let this be clear. Shine some light on this meditation: the only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Emperor Reference from Hamlet

Some say that the reference of Emperor comes from Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king Claudius, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet. The play ends with a duel, during which the King, Queen, Hamlet's opponent and Hamlet himself are all killed.

The following is an excerpt from the third scene in Act 4, right after Hamlet accidentally kills Claudius' spy Polonius:

CLAUDIUS
Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

HAMLET
At Dinner

CLAUDIUS
At dinner where?

HAMLET
Not where he’s eating, but where he’s being eaten. A certain conference of worms is chowing down on him. Worms are the emperor of all diets. We fatten up all creatures to feed ourselves, and we fatten ourselves for the worms to eat when we’re dead. A fat king and a skinny beggar are just two dishes at the same meal. That’s all I have to say.

CLAUDIUS
Alas, alas!

HAMLET
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

CLAUDIUS
What dost you mean by this?

HAMLET
Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

Reality and “The Emperor of Ice Cream” - Analysis by Ryan P. Young

If you find “The Emperor of Ice Cream” by Wallace Stevens, the poem which I will be discussing in this post, excessively oblique, check out Helen Vendler’s quick analysis here, where she offers a strong reading of the poem’s narrative content. I think her story is right, but while Vendler reads the poem as primarily a triumph of life over death, I argue that Stevens is after something a bit more subtle and metaphysical. As in “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”, Stevens here seems preoccupied with ontology; instead of working in a moral mode asserting the primacy of life, Stevens posits an almost Lacanian account of the construction of a distant, transcendent Life (with the capital ‘L’). The poem, then, becomes about the negotiations between the living subjects and the distant Living Other, the mechanism of which is buried in the syntactically and semantically thick line “Let be be finale of seem.”

I had always been tempted to read “finale” in that line to mean something like “apotheosis” or “triumph”, an evaluative claim asserting the superiority of being to seeming. However, through discussions with David and closer reading of this poem and “Notes…”, I’ve come to believe that the thrust of the word is causative– being is the “finale” of seem because it comes from seeming; seeming, then, is a creative force, capable of constructing a metaphysical object that exists in a strong sense. Specifically, the living, by acting (or “seeming”) life, creates the Other/Platonic Ideal/Transcendental “Life.” I hesitate to offer any deeply theoretical reading as I’m away from my library, but hopefully I can sketch out a general account of the poem with a sufficiently Lacanian inflection to suggest further, more rigorous work.

In what sense are the persons in the first stanza merely “seeming” life? The room of the living, in the first stanza, is set against the room of the dead woman in the second stanza (a structure that employs a punning etymological efficiency), and the living are calling, whipping, dawdling, and bringing in preparation for the viewing. Clearly, this bustling vitality is a response to death– a sort of compensation– but Stevens suggests something inauthentic about the activity, mocking the actors, imbuing the activity with a strange, ironic sexuality. Sex is, perhaps, the central activity of life and living. But the sexuality here is mocking, teasing: the curds are “concupiscent”, the girls are “wenches” who stand around dress appropriate to wenches, presumably displaying their sexuality, and thus performing their vitality. While Vendler reads this sexualization as connoting disgust on behalf of the speaker, I think it’s better read as a represention of an incomplete, confused drive to Life, which, ultimately, is funny. The “gaudiness” of Steven’s verse (as he called it) and the unexpected sexuality colors the scene with a comic brush. The word “dawdle” alone suggests the speaker views the people with something other than contempt; it would take an especially melancholic soul to find no humor in a poem whose eponymous figure is an emperor of ice-cream. The final result is farcical– and farce itself suggests a distance between the acted roles and actually being those roles. The figures in the first room are only acting, “seeming” life, engaged in the performance of bustle and sexuality, which indicate life.

We come then, in the poem, to Stevens’s commentary on all this acting, on the living who are merely playing at being alive in response to the death in the next room. He does not argue that the bustle is useless, but instead that Living/Life/being is the finale of all this seeming. After all, there is no grand emperor that existed before we had been playing. The emperor only exists inasmuch as he is the emperor of ice-cream, a play-emperor, humorously lacking the station of the Emperor-ideal. As it stands, we can understand this couplet in terms of Hume’s projectivism: despite the inherent irreality of Life (with all the transcendent connotations that arise from the capital letter), we nevertheless see the world with Life and Ethics and all the rest in it, granting them a certain ontological status less weighty than, say, rocks, but more than unicorns. This would be a fine line of analysis, but the methodologies and motivations for acting, and the odd promotion of a projected, acted seeming to a powerful Being, seems most susceptible to Lacan’s various reals and the role of the Other. I leave the specifics of this relationship as an exercise for the reader, or else, as an exercise for myself when I have my books in front of me. Nevertheless, the creation of an identity (life) in response to a lack as reflected through a created, whole other (Life) appears to be the process this poem describes.

The second stanza replicates the techniques of the first, mocking the image of death, then providing an oblique philosophical statement that culminates in the conclusion that “the only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.” This stanza seems to create Death out of a comic death in much the same way the first creates Life out of a comic life. I’ll refrain from giving a close reading of that stanza, and instead suggest David’s accounts of similarities of a theory of performance in Genet and Stevens, and especially future writing on The Balcony. For my part, I hope this essay first offers a way of reading Stevens that is amenable to Lacanian terminology and conceptions of lack in the subject as against The Other, especially Zizek’s insight that, given the Lacanian ego-ideal, the subject herself reads the Others’ reading of herself, and the perpetuation of ideology is primarily through action. But, more importantly, perhaps, I hope this reading further demonstrates that Stevens is preoccupied with ontology and performance, especially in his greatest poems, and future work on Stevens-as-philosopher can be intellectually fertile.

Ryan P. Young

Sources:

Stevens, Wallace, “The Emporer of Ice Cream,” 1923, library

Vendler, Helen, “On The Emporer of Ice Cream,” 1993, e-text

Anticipated Stranger

The Rounds of Pain and Death in the ward of life

“I stepped from Plank to Plank…” (875)

Key Themes in the Poem:

Relating the Poem to Gurbani:

1. Precariousness of Life (Dukh of Maya):

2. Finite Nature of Experience and Mortality:

3. Duality of Existence:

4. Experience as Grace (Anubhav and Gyaan):

The Ocean, the Stars, and Divine Connection:

“I stepped from Plank to Plank…” (875)

In Vain

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Percy Shelley - "The flower that smiles today"

Ghalib - Hai Kis Kadar

Guru Tegh Bahadur (Raag Basant) - Kahaa Bhuleyo Re Jhuthe Lobh Laag

A critical reading of Percy Shelley’s poem

Ghalib's Ghazal - hai kis qadar halāk

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

My Take on Wallace Steven's The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Emperor Reference from Hamlet

Reality and “The Emperor of Ice Cream” - Analysis by Ryan P. Young

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