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An ambulance rushes to the scene of an accident, and hurriedly gathers up the victims before rushing
them away.
The poet then explores the emotions felt by the spectators before finally raising the philosophical question
of why those particular people had died -- were they innocent, or were they guilty of something deserving
death?
ABOUT THE POET
Karl Jay Shapiro was born in Baltimore in November 1913. Although he studied at the University of
Virginia (1932-33) and later at Johns Hopkins University (1937-39), he nevertheless never earned a
college degree.
He served in the army for the duration of World War II and it was then that his poetry began to be
published. He would send poems home to his fiancé, who had them printed.
His first collection -- V-Letter and Other Poems -- was published in 1944. It portrayed the
feelings of soldiers who were fighting for their country during the war but whose letters were censored
before being delivered to their loved-ones back at home.
As early as 1945 Shapiro won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for this work. He was then only 32
years of age.
He was therefore already a noted man of letters by the time he returned from the war, enabling him to
become the American Poet Laureate in 1946 and 1947 -- a title which at the time meant "Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress".
Despite his lack of the usual academic credentials, Shapiro not only served as editor of two prestigious
journals -- Poetry: A Magazine Of Verse and Prairie Schooner -- but he also taught at
a number of campuses including Johns Hopkins University, the University of Nebraska and the University
of Chicago.
He was a professor at the University of California when he retired in the mid-1980s.
Shapiro was awarded several prizes for poetry, including the Shelley Memorial Prize (1945), two
Guggenheim Fellowships (1945-46 and 1962-63), and the Bollingen Prize (1968).
He was also elected to a number of prestigious organizations, such as the National Institute of Arts &
Letters, the National Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the Library of Congress's Fellows in American
Letters.
Contrary to a statement in a prescribed anthology, Shapiro was NOT "married and divorced" to
several "young students". Indeed, he was married only three times.
The first was in 1945 and it was to his editor and agent, Evelyn Katz, with whom he had two children. This
marriage lasted 22 years but ended in divorce in 1967.
That very year he married to Teri Kovach but she died in 1982, leaving him free to marry once again. He
would, however, wait another three years before doing so, this time to Sophie Wilkens.
She would survive him when he himself died in New York in May 2000. He was then 86 years of age.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"Our throats were tight as tourniquets,
Our feet were bound with splints."
- Identify a SIMILE and a METAPHOR in these lines. Comment on their apt usage. (6)
[Need help?]
"Our throats were tight as tourniquets" is a SIMILE.
"Our feet were bound with splints" is a METAPHOR.
Both the simile and the metaphor are medical terms, terms used to describe serious injury where one has
to stop the bleeding or mend a broken bone.
The poet uses this imagery to compare the spirit of the bystanders who were psychologically injured,
unable to breath properly from fright as if they had a tourniquet round their throats, their feet unable to
move out of shock as if they were tied up with splints.
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"Like convalescents intimate and gauche,
We speak through sickly smiles and warn
With the stubborn saw of common sense,
The grim joke and the banal resolution."
- Contrast the poet's use of the word "convalescents" with the overall scene at the auto
wreck. (2)
[Need help?]
The victims of the auto wreck have all died, whereas the bystanders are able slowly to convalesce from
the shock of what they have seen.
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- Why would these "convalescents" be both "intimate" and
"gauche"? (4)
[Need help?]
Accidents bring people together, making them "intimate". At the same time, however, they make
people callous ("gauche") and lacking in sensitivity, making sick jokes about what they have seen.
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- Why has the poet chosen the word "saw" in the line "with the stubborn saw of common
sense"? (2)
[Need help?]
A "saw" means "an old saying" or "an old proverb" or "an old belief". The poet
is saying that commonsense is a good way of doing things.
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- There is a grim truth behind the poet's words "the grim joke". What is it? (2)
[Need help?]
Isn't it strange that, every time there is a catastrophe, jokes quickly start to be told about it. These are
"the grim jokes".
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"Already old, the question, Who shall die?
Becomes unspoken, Who is innocent?"
- Explain fully the meaning of this "question". (4)
[Need help?]
Many people believe that sickness or accident is caused by something that the afflicted person has done.
A person is not just sick without deserving to be sick.
The novelist Thornton Wilder raised the question in his book Bridge of San Luis Rey: if a number
of people are crossing a bridge and it breaks, are they all guilty of having done something to deserve
death?
This is the question which the poet asks: if a number of people are killed in a car crash, are all guilty of
something? Does somebody have to die, even if that person is innocent.
What do you think?
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- Why should the auto wreck raise this question, whereas other forms of death do
not? (2)
[Need help?]
Somehow other forms of death are understandable: a person dies in a war, a person dies of cancer. But,
if a number of people die in an accident, were they all deserving of this death?
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"But this invites the occult mind,
Cancels our physics with a sneer,
And spatters all we knew of dénouement
Across the expedient and wicked stones."
- What is an "occult mind"? (2)
[Need help?]
And "occult mind" is one which looks to the spiritual world for explanations for everything which
happens in this world.
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- Why should the auto wreck "cancel our physics with a sneer"? (4)
[Need help?]
Physics -- Science -- looks for a natural cause for everything. The "occult mind", on the other
hand, looks for a spiritual cause for everything.
The "occult mind" therefore is the opposite of Physics. It is derisive of Physics. It "cancels our
physics derisively".
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- What is the meaning of "dénouement"? Why is this word particularly useful as a
conclusion for this poem? (4)
[Need help?]
A "dénouement" is the final resolution in a plot. It does not mean simply an
"ending", as one poetry anthology claims.
The poet has attempted to portray this auto wreck as an intricate plot. First, there is the accident, and the
ambulance arriving to carry away the dead. Second, the poet speaks about the reaction amongst the
bystanders.
Finally, he asks questions about the innocence or guilt of those who died in the accident. This latter is the
conclusion to the plot.
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