Wedding Poem

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2015

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

Ross Gay’s “Wedding Poem” is written in a single stanza of free verse, with no formal pattern of rhyme or meter. Its form, however, is particular. “Wedding Poem” is an epithalamion—a piece of verse composed for a wedding (from the dedication, the reader can surmise that the intended couple is “Keith and Jen”). The name derives from the Greek for “upon” and “nuptial chamber,” and indicates a song sung in praise of Hymen, the Greek god of marriage. In antiquity, it was performed outside the wedding chamber. In modern times, the epithalamion is most often performed at the wedding itself, or at the reception. Themes vary, but many poems take a long view of marriage and its ups and downs, offering advice on navigating cycles of togetherness.

Gay’s poem returns to the idea and presence of consummation and carnal delight. While the speaker does not directly describe sex in his account of the goldfinch and the sunflower, the tone is unequivocally lusty. The exchange is not gratuitously sexual, but an example of the pure and organic pleasure that can come of unbridled intercourse with another being, beyond the judgment of anyone outside that union. “Wedding Poem” is both reportage, and the speaker says—a true account—and allegory.

Enjambment

“Wedding Poem” unfurls in one stanza in one continuous sentence of 40 enjambed lines. Commas provide several visual cues for a pause and a breath, but every line continues its journey from one to the other until the poem arrives, in the last line, at a full stop. The poem, from the first line, promises a story and, like a story in the oral tradition, travels through several asides and embellishments before completing its narrative. Two lines reach ten syllables but for the most part, the poem consists of short lines. The short line offers the reader a chance to absorb the image before moving on to the next line. For example, the speaker sees something “in an orchard / in my town” (Lines 2-3). Combined into one line, an orchard in a town becomes a single image and a seemingly ordinary one. Combined, neither the orchard nor the town is distinguished as a detail important in and of itself. Enjambed, the image is more complex—the orchard takes on a primacy; the possessive of “my town” (Line 3) has more weight and therefore meaning.

Some lines of the poem operate to underscore the rhythm of the action of the described scene, as in the twice-repeated “again and again” (Line 6). This repetition encourages the reader to slow down and envision the previously described activity as continuous, before moving onto what happens next. The repetition of “again and again,” (Line 12)—this time with a comma—serves as a link, allowing the narrative to continue in one syntactically complete sentence, while also providing a place for the reader to pause and take a break.

Rhyme

While “Wedding Poem” employs no formal pattern of end rhyme, the poem is chock-full of musical poetic devices including assonance, consonance, and alliteration. The first significant examples of internal rhyme occur with “report” (Line 1), “orchard”(Line 2), and “goldfinch” (Line 4), followed soon after with “sunflower” (Line 5) and “down” (Line 7). Later on, the poem offers “swooning” (Line 13) and “swooped” (Line 14), as well as “curled” (Line 15) and “swirling” (Line 16). A run of short “i” sounds—“inward / as it almost indiscernibly lifted” (Lines 23-24)—provide a series of halting moments before the lush and sonically open “food” (Line 24). Alliteration, or the repetition of initial consonant sounds, occur at “food” (Line 24) and “fervor” (Line 26).

The effect of such poetic devices gives what appears to be a simple narrative a sense of music and rhythm. While the speaker seems simply to recount an experience, the repetition of internal vowel sounds (assonance) and alliteration elevate the narrative to a kind of song, or secular hymn. The poem itself does not specifically indicate a formal commemoration, but it is an epithalamion—a form that supposes a built-in degree of ceremony. In that sense, and despite the informality of the story itself, internal rhyme and alliteration infuse the verse with rhythm and give the impression of a homily.