Robert Pack is an interesting poet that on the death bed of the professor Pagel worked together a small collection of poems. These poems are special because they were comprised from Professor Pagel's own research in the field of physics. In his collection I was drawn to one Titled; “Big Bang”; because it had a familiar topic. This poem power comes from the reference that the big bang is just another name for god. There is no relation to creationism or the bible but as the scientific phenomenon that is the universe. What this poem does really well is using transition in the speaker.
The speaker of the poem takes on different roles. In the first stanza the speaker could be anyone but it hints to be the author. This speaker wishes to take gods place and witness the big band or as quoted “To father a universe”. The speaker then changes to a deity or godlike figure. Description of our universe's formation is told through this voice. The setting is of divinity watching the universe able to see all at once. The tone overall was excited. The speaker was is a seat of power witnessing a phenomenon. The speaker was not excited because he/she was “all powerful” but was excited to witness, “To father” this phenomenon. The mood I perceived is of a child building with legos and looking for someone to appreciate what he built. The mood is quite related to the tone by the drive to create something amazing.
The poem is overall is easy to comprehend diction wise. The first made was time “irreversible, measure it out.” Time is an abstraction that effects concrete things and can also be measured. Yet nothing can alter time. Then nuclei, atoms, stars, planets, galaxies came about. Oxygen and Carbon are necessary for life. Life simplest form is a cell. Life then started out as a cell which will divide and evolve till humans who have consciousness. The speaker refers to the consciences' thoughts as “My thoughts”. This is a contradiction because a conscience means to think independently. The reasonable explanation is that the thoughts are in common or shared. This shared thought is the trill of watching; the universe as a whole or just a small part.
The one part of this poem that denotation is had to use is the description of watching something grow by noting the shifts of light. You need the connotation to know what the colors stated refer to. It makes sense with it just referring to plants but it can stand for anything that grows. “From Green to red, from green to gold.” The next section states that the beings desire to be immortal might ruin their feast on life, “their moment of abundance”. Then the speaker tells the reader to cherish something; whether it is the sun, the earth, or just a love one; because “she cannot remain”.
There are many images to describe this love one; a grazing cow, a pollinating bee, flowing wheat. The Image of an explosion and the remains cooling into matter is prevalent. The image of watching growth uses color changes. Life is described as a feast for the senses, and language is “like [a] soup, with zestful words, [That]… you savor with your tongue”. If there is an image, whether concrete or abstract, it is followed by the opposite type. It almost seems to bounce back and forth throughout the poem.
The sound scheme in this poem is quite bland. The most noticeable feature is the rhyme scheme of ABCB. Each stanza is its own quatrain. The amount of syllables in each line varies to the point where there is no recognizable pattern. A couple of lines have assonance and consonance: Explosion, allowed; favorite, entropy; fruitful, unfold; savor, songful; perhaps, pollinating; Lifting, wafting; loose, like, flowing; Professor Pagels; Big Bang; good, give; explosion, lo!; laughing, pass. These sounds may be few in the poem but they help it flow instead of being choppy and interrupted.
The poem's ideas flow from very wide and grand, to down to earth and narrow. The Beginning idea is creation, big bang, the beginning of time and space. Then it moves to sentient beings, beings with conscience that are thrilled with watching. These being have a problem, they wish to last forever and this ruins how great life is. Next is protection of either earth, our sun, or even as specific as a loved one. This love is disrupted by the fact that “she cannot remain”. Finally it comes down to earth with Professor Pagels being a representative of “god/the speaker” and that the term big bang is the new title “god/speaker” is given. The last idea is that the speaker wants to remind the author that laughing fathers pass away. This is to abstract for me to have one or two set explanations of this statement. These ideas are the basis of the story told and they are what begin to covey the morals implied.
The original lay out of the poem was very oddly spaced. There where odd indents and random spacing. These cause certain parts of words to line up. I don't remember if they did anything interesting or worth noting. There was no random capitalization except the words, My or Me, which referred to a sense of gander of the speaker who was emulating a deity, “god”. This emphasized whether the “My” was referring to the emulation or the speaker him/her-self.
I found this poem to not be very poetic in a standard sort of way. Its meaning were sown on it sleeve. Of course a poem that overall is quite easy to understand must have a slip somewhere. The last two lines were that slip, the line “And remind your rhyming friend even laughing fathers pass away” is ambiguous. I really enjoyed how it was about a scientific topic yet it went philosophical. It was not an average poem and I thank Robert Pack for preserving the works of Professor Pagels in such a unique and ingenious way.
