Halley's Comet

Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on July 29, 1905. He attended Harvard College and received his bachelors degree in 1926. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1974 and again in 2000. After serving in the Army in WWII, he began teaching. His first book of poetry was Intellectual Things, and was published in 1930. He has recieved honors such as the Bollingen Prize, a Ford Foundation grant, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, Harvard's Centennial Medal, the Levinson Prize, the Harriet Monroe Poetry Award, a senior fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Medal of the Arts, and the Shelley Memorial Award.He died at the age of 100 on May 14, 2006.

Attitude/Tone

The narrator is wise, but also seems confused. The student does not know whethe to be dejected or excited.

Connotation

• Stanely Kunitz uses imagery such as, "I’m the boy in the white flannel gown sprawled on this coarse gravel bed" to describe a young, naive child, and help the reader understand the feelings of the child. The usage of the color white could symbolize the child's innocence or death.
• Also the imagery of "A red-bearded preacher from the hills with a wild look in his eyes" allows the reader to grasp the insanity the coming of this comet has caused.
• The diction of "smashed" depicts a more violent scene then if the author wrote a simpler word such as hit.
• The comet could symbolize destruction.
• The poem is in free verse.

Shifts

The narrator shifts from being upset to being eager about the possibility of the world's destruction. The poem follows the student throughout his or her day as the child first hears about the comet, to when he hears a preacher explaining how he was chosen to save all the people, to supper with the child's family, and finally as the narrator waits for the world to end. By shifting to different moments in the child's day the reader can understand how the narrator's feeling about Halley's Comet changed throughout the day.

Paraphrase

The narrator, a young child, explains how his first grade teacher describes Halley's comet and what would happen should the comet go off course. A preacher stands in town square declaring he is sent from God to save the Earth. When the child goes home to have dinner with his family, he becomes upset as he realizes that should Halley's comet strike the Earth, he might not eat another meal with his family. When the rest of the household falls asleep, the child sneaks to his roof in his pajamas to wait to see the world end.

"Halley's Comet"

by Stanley Kunitz

Title

This poem could be about a description of the comet or the advent of something.

Miss Murphy in first grade

wrote its name in chalk

across the board and told us

it was roaring down the stormtracks

of the Milky Way at frightful speed

and if it wandered off its course

and smashed into the earth

there’d be no school tomorrow.

A red-bearded preacher from the hills

with a wild look in his eyes

stood in the public square

at the playground’s edge

proclaiming he was sent by God

to save every one of us,

even the little children.

“Repent, ye sinners!” he shouted,

waving his hand-lettered sign.

At supper I felt sad to think

that it was probably

the last meal I’d share

with my mother and my sisters;

but I felt excited too

and scarcely touched my plate.

So mother scolded me

and sent me early to my room.

The whole family’s asleep

except for me. They never heard me steal

into the stairwell hall and climb

the ladder to the fresh night air.

Look for me, Father, on the roof

of the red brick building

at the foot of Green Street—

that’s where we live, you know, on the top floor.

I’m the boy in the white flannel gown

sprawled on this coarse gravel bed

searching the starry sky,

waiting for the world to end.

"Halley's Comet" is about the conflicting emotions one feels when considering the destruction of the globe.

Date and Time

Theme

Stanley Kunitz saw Halley's Comet in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1910 when he was five years old. "Halley's Comet" was published in The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz in 2000.

The end of the world does not have to be bleak.

Halley's Comet