The Egg Boiler
The Egg Boiler - meaning Summary
Art in Humble Ritual
Brooks contrasts two artistic approaches: one poet practices art through humble, physical ritual—the careful boiling and eating of an egg—treating ordinary acts as substantial creation. The speaker and peers make airy, insubstantial poems that the concrete poet dismisses as "Not Enough." The poem highlights respect for practical, lived art over abstract or ornamental language, closing on the image of the worldly artist amused by the others' ethereal efforts.
Read Complete AnalysesBeing you, you cut your poetry from wood. The boiling of an egg is heavy art. You come upon it as an artist should, With rich-eyed passion, and with straining heart. We fools, we cut our poems out of air. Night color, wind soprano, and such stuff. And sometimes weightlessness is much to bear. You mock it, though, you name it Not Enough. The egg, spooned gently to the avid pan, And left the strick three minute, or the four, Is your Enough and art for any man. We fools give courteous ear----then cut some more, Shaping a gorgeous Nothingness from cloud. You watch us, eat your egg, and laugh aloud.
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