"The Emperor of Ice-Cream" by Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens is was an American poet who also worked as a successful corporate executive. His poems were not widely recognized until he published Collected Poems in 1954, one year before his death. Apparently Stevens is quoted as saying that "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" is his favorite poem because it "wears a deliberately commonplace costume, and yet seems [to me] to contain something of the essential gaudiness of poetry".

Key terms: diction, metaphor, symbolism

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

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.

Stevens is a modernist poet, and much of his work express ideas that are clouded in imagination and dreamy, difficult to decipher images. His poems, much like this one, seem to express some element of reality, while still remaining quite firmly in the land of un-real. In this poem, it is said that Stevens is describing the death and wake of a woman: "show how cold she is, and dumb".  The narrator has some essential part in organizing the wake in the woman's home, and requests "concupiscent curds". It seems clear that these must be the ice-cream, and that the host plans to serve this dessert at the wake-- although using a word like "concupiscent" does not seem like an accident. Ice-cream seems to refer to life itself, or at least the happiness and spontaneity of life, in the midst of recognizing death. The narrator says "Let be be finale of seem" (let it be as it is, instead of what it seems in this moment) and then "Let the lamp affix its beam. / The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream" (focus the light on the happiness of ice-cream/life, rather than the disappointment of death).

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/174501