Who would’ve thought? Wallace Stevens really was a sweet tooth in real life, and he may have given himself that title of the poem. The two stanzas were…bizarre, to say the least. From what I’ve read, I think it goes from calling a muscular scooper who smokes cigars to make ice cream, transitioning to a funeral for a dead woman. I had a bunch of questions that came into my head when reading this. Why was ice cream being juxtaposed with literal death? Who was the “only emperor of ice cream”? And is the author saying ice cream is a more fitting eulogy over flowers and paid respects?
Up until the last two lines, I was curious as to why it was written to have children get ice cream They’re (not the scooper) experiencing the joys of tasting a sweet treat. Then there’s other objects like “flowers in last month’s newspapers (6)” being brought in for something. How are they related to each other? I thought first stanza made no sense until the second stanza – I think all of them are being brought as eulogies to a deceased woman in a casket. The reason why ice cream is given more focus is that flowers and newspapers don’t provide the same kind of emotion – they’re nice to look at, but ice cream is not only nice to look at, but also tastes good. This also applied in the mid 1900s, where ice cream was used as comfort food during the Great Depression and immigrants also had ice cream as a meal. The quality of food was a way to compare people’s lifestyles.
The biggest thing I observed was the repetition of the last lines (and to an extent, the second-to-last) of both stanzas: “The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream (8, 16)”. I think a lot of the meaning is highlighted in the second stanza, where there’s justification as to why ice cream is being used as a juxtaposition between life and death. Ice cream is meant as a subtle metaphor for sweetness: it’s a positive moment in life. In this sense, the “emperor” of ice cream is death. All good things must come to an end. All the innocence, all the beauty, all the joys of our life will melt away. And the corpse is an example of a life that is spent. The “emperor” of ice cream is essentially watching people live and die. This is why the children brought ice cream to her: it was a way to remember all the good times in life. There will be people to share these moments, and there will be scoopers that will make these moments possible.
With this mind, I say that this poem was quite a treat to read.
