Wedding Poem

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2015

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Love and Witness

The fact that “Wedding Poem” is an epithalamion inherently suggests that love is a central theme to the poem. Other examples of the form, while not excluding love, focus more heavily on elements of union such as fidelity and strength—spiritual concerns. In this poem, while the spirit is by no means excluded, the focus is on the physical experience of love as it is observed and appreciated by an outside party.

It’s a given that a goldfinch cannot have actual sexual congress with a sunflower. However, the speaker describes the exchange between the two living beings as a portrait in intimacy, starting with the kisses of the goldfinch. Sex is invoked throughout the poem as the bird swoons, and as the sunflower leans “back / to admire” (Lines 17-18) the bird in the midst of their intercourse. There is no ambiguity of the nature of the event once the speaker describes the flower lifting “the food of its body / to the bird’s nuzzling mouth” (Lines 24-25), as well as the bird’s raucous “fervor” (Line 26), and “their / good racket” (Lines 30-31). The speaker may profess to “blush” (Line 33) at this activity but is “glad” (Line 37) to see it—to bear witness—as it is evidence that wild feeling is alive in the world and available to those who allow it into their lives.

While much of the fun of this poem is in the way the speaker describes the event between the bird and the flower, the love the speaker refers to is not limited to sex, per se. The speaker advocates for a love that is a kind of raw intimacy with the world. Like the work of the Persian poet Hafez, “Wedding Poem” offers an ecstatic lyric that promotes intense feeling. Unlike the work of the early ecstatic poets, Gay’s poem strives not for mysticism but for an earthly ecstasy, rooted in the natural world and earth-bound relationships. His is an effusive love unfolding in the present tense, right before one’s eyes.

The Garden as Microcosm

The garden—or in the case of “Wedding Poem,” the orchard—offers effective working metaphors for many of life’s experiences, including birth, growth, sex, decay, death, and renewal. It is also a study in interdependence. The flower propagates its seed through the bird, dead plants and fallen leaves feed the soil, the sun and rain provide nourishment, and the trees produce oxygen. No one element exists independently from the others. In this way, the garden serves as a microcosm for human society, despite the inclination of many people to believe that they operate independently as individuals.

The burdens of existence are many—living beings have to sustain themselves. Humans must eat, establish shelter, etc. Historically, marriage had little to do with love, and everything to do with necessity and/or creating the most advantageous union. Marriage was a practical way to share the labor and produce children. At the same time, it has long been common to celebrate the union of two people in marriage. What Gay suggests in “Wedding Poem” is that there are many opportunities to celebrate if one is open to recognizing them.

One may not only eat, but feast. One may not only move through the world, but swoon and swoop—or better yet, fly. Two beings, under the most ordinary circumstances and dirt-simple conditions, can revel in one another. Seasons will come and go, and the landscape will change. And yet there is spring, and luscious summer, and if you’re lucky and paying attention, someone with whom you may make some “good racket” (Line 31) while you go about the business of living and dying.

Food and Fervor

Food and sex are often associated with one another. Despite the fact that food and sex are essential to life, linguistically, both subjects can take on prohibitive or taboo qualities—when a dessert is described as “sinful,” for example, or a sexual practice is judged as “dirty.”

In “Wedding Poem,” the speaker elevates both elements—food and sex—through language and imagery that borders on the celestial. First, the speaker sets the mood with a formal address: “Friends” (Line 1). This is not some whispered gossip the reader is going to hear but a “[modest] report” (Line 1) in good fellowship. The description of the bird is playful. It dangles “upside down / by its tiny claws” (Lines 7-8); it’s unstable and tumbles, almost like an eager toddler, except for its glorious ability to fly “back to the very same perch” (Line 14). The tone is exuberant, not lewd.

The sunflower, on the other hand, possesses a “stately crown” (Line 21) and gracefully, “almost indiscernibly” (Line 23), offers itself—“the food of its body” (Line 24)—to sate the bird’s hunger. This language indicates languor and voluptuousness while inspiring a measure of reverence. This elegant and sensuous being commands respect.

The speaker tells of the couple’s “fervor” (Line 26), a term often associated with an intensity of religious feeling. Indeed, the flower’s “crown” (Line 21), together with the offering of its body, is reminiscent of the rite of the Eucharist, or the consuming of the body and blood of Christ. Here, however, while the tone is one of communion, there is no trace of pain and sacrifice. Worship in this poem is earthly and non-metaphorical; to hunger and to eat is divine; to feed and satisfy is also divine. Quotidian delight is its own form of devotion.