The Emperor of Ice-Cream
by Wallace Stevens
Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers. Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. Take from the dresser of deal, Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet On which she embroidered fantails once And spread it so as to cover her face. If her horny feet protrude, they come To show how cold she is, and dumb. Let the lamp affix its beam. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
When Poems Ancient and Modern offered William Blake’s “The Sick Rose” last week, we struggled against the 20th-century reading of the poem as all about sex. With Today’s Poem, “The Emperor of Ice-Cream,” we switch sides — to argue that the 1922 poem by Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) is actually about sex. Well, mostly. Sex and death. The heat of sensuous life and the cold of death, and since death is the one end of it, only the cold has weight and substance: “Let be be finale of seem,” as Stevens writes. “The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.”
Possibly referencing the poet’s experiences on a visit to Cuba, the first stanza presents a party, replete with sensual images of ice cream being whipped up in a kitchen. The second stanza reveals that the party is a wake in a poor woman’s apartment, her cheap wood dresser opened to find the sheet with which to cover her corpse — “how cold she is, and dumb” — from which, in a cruel detail, her callused feet protrude. Both stanzas end with a rhyme and the same conclusion: “The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.” The only thing that’s real is cold, a sign of life in a cup of ice cream and a sign of death in a corpse.
Ive read that in the Southern states 100 years ago ice cream was traditional at working class wakes. So the presence of death in the first stanza would have been more apparent when the poem was written. One of my favourite poems I almost know it by heart. Only the abstraction of "let be be finale of seem" doesn't quite work for me among all the vivid images. Though triumphantly trumped by the stanza's final line.
Stevens was his own man.
My colleague's significant other was Peter Brazeau who published an oral biography of Wallace. Peter even borrowed my tape recorder to use in Cuba. His daughter was Holly. She often visited Peter and Jim in Manchester, CT, so I spent several hours with her at dinners. We celebrated Peter's book publishing with a dinner I helped Jim prepare. Holly took out a teaspoon and walked to the huge silver bowl, chocolate mousse, for a sample. Jim held one end of the spoon and Holly the other as he stopped her!.
Stevens was a man of mystery.
Those were the days!