Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "Elms," Louise Gluck delves into the often elusive distinction between need and desire, a philosophical query set against the backdrop of an intimate observation of nature, specifically elms. The poem becomes a tapestry where emotional complexities are interwoven with nature's manifestations, allowing the reader to explore not just the speaker's internal world, but the often tumultuous process of creation itself.

The poem commences with the speaker's admission of an all-day preoccupation: the attempt to "distinguish / need from desire." This admission lends itself to multiple layers of interpretation. On one level, it could be an existential rumination about the fundamental motives that drive human actions-what we truly require for survival as opposed to what we crave for emotional or psychological satisfaction. On another, it may be seen as a moment of introspection, a personal struggle to differentiate between essential and frivolous wants.

The setting is significant; the speaker's reflections occur "in the dark," which could be both literal night and metaphorical darkness-an emotional or psychological state. Darkness often suggests obscurity, confusion, or uncertainty, which serves as a fertile ground for the speaker's "bitter sadness."

The poem then transitions to focus on "us, / the builders, the planers of wood." The words "builders" and "planers" immediately summon images of human construction, of shaping raw material to fit human needs or desires. This sets up an implicit parallel with nature, as represented by the elms. Like humans, the trees are also builders of sorts, but their building is instinctual, an outgrowth of their natural biology.

The elms emerge as a central metaphor, a way for the speaker to externalize her internal grappling with the ideas of need and desire. She states she has been looking "steadily at these elms" and concludes that the "process that creates / the writhing, stationary tree / is torment." The imagery of the "writhing, stationary tree" is richly paradoxical. The tree is both stationary, rooted in place, and writhing, as if in motion or in some kind of agony. It's a dual state that could be a metaphor for the human condition-both fixed in our circumstances (stationary) and writhing with our ever-changing needs and desires.

Finally, the speaker "understood / it will make no forms but twisted forms." The 'it' could refer to both the natural process that shapes the elms and the emotional or existential process that shapes human beings. The "twisted forms" suggest that both processes-whether of trees or humans-are inherently fraught with difficulties, complexities, and perhaps even agonies.

In a brief span, "Elms" manages to provide a layered exploration of human existence, linking the speaker's personal dilemma to wider themes of human desire, natural process, and the inevitable complexity and 'twistedness' of all forms of life. In its succinct way, the poem becomes a profound commentary on the sometimes painful, sometimes beautiful, but always complicated processes that shape both nature and human beings.

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...