Kathy

By Kathy Qiu
 * “The Poet, Trying to Surprise God”: A Demonstration of God’s Power through Humor**

In the poem “The Poet, Trying to Surprise God,” Peter Meinke uses humor to illustrate that God knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen. Through Meinke’s use of dialogue, metaphors, and allusions, he successfully expresses God’s all-knowingness and power.

“The Poet, Trying to Surprise God” focuses on a conversation between a poet and God. In an attempt to surprise God, the poet tries composing creative new poems. God, however, isn’t surprised, explaining that He has seen everything since the beginning of time. Discouraged, the poet returns to writing his plain and simple sonnets.

The poem’s rhyme scheme follows the Petrarchan rhyme scene: ABBA ABBA CDE CDE. This shows that the poet within the poem is trying to be creative by emulating Shakespeare, whose sonnets follow the Petrarchan rhyme scheme. Shakespeare, after all, was one of the most creative literary geniuses of all time.

Meinke’s poem can be divided into three parts: a quatrain, a septet, and a tercet. Throughout these different sections, the poem’s tone changes from romantic to dramatic to ironic. Each part also carries a unique piece of the poem’s plot; thus, when all three sections are put together, the poem not only becomes meaningful, but also humorous.

For the first four lines of the poem, the tone is quite poetic and lyrical. For example, Meinke writes:

[The poet] composed new forms from secret harmonies, tore from his fiery vision galaxies of unrelated shapes, both even and odd. (lines 2-4)

The melodious quality of these lines conveys the poet's efforts to be imaginative and try to surpass God in creativity. The “secret harmonies” and “fiery vision galaxies of unrelated shapes” are both metaphors for the poet’s creative ideas and brainstorms.

Then in lines 5-11, Meinke uses more dramatic dialogue to depict God's all-knowingness. For instance, lines 6-8 read:

[God] saying, "There's no surprising One who sees the acorn, root, and branch of centuries; I swallow all things up, like Aaron's rod.

Here, God explains that He can't be surprised because He can see centuries ahead into the future. God further states that He can easily take away the power of Aaron’s rod, a staff carried by Moses’s brother Aaron. These dramatic claims illustrate God's absolute supremacy and power. In addition, God’s biblical references enforce His control over the world.

The final lines, lines 12-14, are more “down-to-earth,” and serve comical purposes. After realizing that God will never be surprised, the poet decides to return to writing his plain and simple sonnets. Meinke writes in the last line, “‘Is that right?’ said God. ‘I hadn’t realized…’” (line 14) Here, God is playfully making fun of the poet by ironically stating He hadn’t realized that the poet had been trying to surprise God.

On the other hand, there could be a different interpretation of line 14: God was indeed surprised when He heard the poet’s original intentions. This contrasting understanding would change the entire theme of the poem. If God was actually taken aback by the poet, the theme would be that through extreme creativity and imagination, it is possible to surprise God. However, this interpretation is not as convincing as the previous one, in which God was simply joking with the poet; therefore, it is more likely that God was only being playful,

Overall, Mienke’s poem, though relatively short, expresses a great deal. In terms of contemporary times, the poem can be compared to our modern society’s efforts to invent new technology and overcome God’s innate control. Meinke’s seemingly simple analogy of the poet trying to surprise God argues that no matter how much we strive to dominate nature, God will always have absolute power over everything.