Mark,
your comment on the sounds set me thinking about the opening words of each line- how they pound the reader, Nothing, Bulbs, Shoots, Hung- as if with every corner turned we are forced to re-confront our fears.
Plus the repeat of 'Nothing' twice in first lines -where nothing is actually 'everything' -everything that refused to grow, everything that keeps us going. Imagine how much weaker the poem would be if he had chosen not to use that word.
Dee

My take is similar to Janet's - survival in dark, cramped places, defiant survival, triumph of the lowly, the downtrodden. It's definitely life-affirming. It reminds me a little of Rhina Espaillat's wonderful sonnet, "Bittersweet": http://www.versedaily.org/bittersweet.shtml
though on the literal level, hers is prettier and more civilized. I prefer the earthy nastiness of Roethke's, I guess because it's almost perverse: like Maryann says, "life is rotten, hooray for life."

I like the other interpretations, though, too, all of which work. The poem is silo-rich in meaning. And yet I'm sure that in certain circles, it would be considered "meaningless." I can practically hear a certain formalist critic complaining, "What is he saying?" and accusing Roethke of being a wimp who's too "afraid" to say what he has to say.

There's nothing wimpy about this poem. The language is beautifully simple and direct, the imagery is in-your-face, and the sonics add to the boldness, as Dee pointed out. All those lines that begin with a stressed syllable. Oomph.

That's why, even though I like accessible poetry, I have a problem with the "accessibility" cheerleaders. Neko Case's essay in the November Poetry, for example, annoyed me; I could so easily imagine her dismissing this poem because it doesn't hug her and make her feel "included." Or an ezine like Strong Verse (motto: "Good poetry is meant to be understood, not decoded") rejecting it. I realize all that kind of thing is a reaction against the whole "never say anything directly" rule, which is also BS, but why must we always overcorrect? I also realize that in trying to write something like this, that's open to multiple interpretations, you can easily end up with something that's vague and unsatisfying on every level. That just makes me appreciate this poem all the more.

But I don't think anyone would call this poem "inaccessible," even if they didn't like it much. I think "inaccessible" is a term reserved more for the Ashbery and Graham crowd these days.

I guess you're right, since the literal description obviously makes sense. So what word am I looking for?


[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited December 13, 2007).]

I don't get the slightest whiff of decay from this one, and I've been wondering why. Surely, he could have made the poem itself stink. No, I don't think this is about a root cellar - I think it's all metaphor or maybe simile. The key word is congress. Know where I'm going? Corruption in government! That's what this is about. Not that there's anything wrong with our government, of course.

Yes, I too would not call this one inaccessible.
I think it can be understood on many levels and the great part is that the levels are not mutually exclusive. They build down, so to speak. One can keep digging without losing all the original thoughts.
Maybe the word you're looking for Rose is 'inclusive'. It doesn't go out of its way to make everyone relate to it immediately. It's a particular memory of a particular time and it takes work on the reader's part to appreciate it. Yet,for this reader, that usually makes the most universal statements.
Dee

When I took my first swing at Roethke's poem, I neglected a part of what Jerry asked us to do: talk about interpretation in general. Let me try to make up for that neglect by observing what we've been doing.

Literal interpretation: We've looked at the words in their most literal senses when we examined the tense of the verbs and drew conclusions from them about who the speaker could be, how that person stood in relation to the place he was talking about.

Associations and connotations, the connections the words have that are not literally in this poem (coffins, government, gossip, roots literal and figurative).

Symbols and images: the phallic dangling and lolling, the snake.

Observing the role of sound in strengthening certain meanings.

Metaphorical interpretation (Mary's take): seeing the whole poem as a trope or allegory for government corruption.

I'd call this a very accessible poem precisely because there are so many ways in. In no way is it one of those hermetically sealed oddities one often sees--sometimes even in form.

We may not be done with this, but I'll take this opportunity to say I hope we do it again.

Root Cellar

Theodore Roethke

Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.


Maybe it just means that in the absence of anything good or pleasing, evil will always take over. The root cellar, like the world, is a place conducive to sickness and evil. But I think that last line makes for a happy, or at least hopeful, ending. Out of all this gruesome nastiness, somehow, mysteriously, life emerges and ultimately goodness triumphs. All that mold and decay and stink become the medium in which big heads of lettuce and carrots and beans and juicy melons flourish. And all those grotesque roots and scrawny, colorless shoots and tubers are transformed into beautiful, plump, colorful life sustaining vegetation. Maybe the poem is about redemption.

At any rate, I'm with Mary Ann. Let's do another one!

annie



[This message has been edited by annie nance (edited December 15, 2007).]

Working off of what others have said, I read underneath of the poem a kind of wordsworthian principal, "The child is the father of the man" kind of thing - but less bucolic, more suburban.

This memory of childhood, the external life and what he encountered, has become his internal life, the living/breathing root-cellar of his inner imaginative resources - and I also read in all sexual complexity.

The poem works as both an expression and celebration of his matured imagination, but also a celebration of his childhood sensitivity to the world/himself - a synthesis of the two.

I think of Roethke every time I have occasion to travel by the Blue Moon.

Joshua



[This message has been edited by Joshua Coberly (edited December 15, 2007).]

I don’t have anything to add, only that these interpretations are thoroughly fascinating. I’d love to give another one a go. Please continue this thread.

Katherine