Cooking with Tender Buttons Food: Sugar. Stanzas 9-18. Discussion 2

 THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           FOOD

THE SUBPOEM ...................-           Sugar

WORD COUNT (Total)……...-          333

STANZA(S)............................-            18

—Stanzas 1-8                                      170

—Stanzas 9-18                                    163

THE LEADER........................-          THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS.............-           MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

The second half of “Sugar.” also proved to be a slippery sets of stanzas to discuss and required the Steiny Road Poet to interpret comments and choose how to present what was said. While both stanzas 1 through 8 and stanzas 9 through 18 of “Sugar.” deal with sexual topics, the emphasis in the second half is less judgmental and more matter of fact. Additionally, part 2 stanzas seem more evocative relative to Steinian semantics and visual art while part 1 stanzas seem more narrative.

The last ten stanzas of “Sugar.” has a 163-word count in contrast to the 170 words of the first eight stanzas. Among the topics addressed in this post are: myths, monsters & games; comfort food versus forbidden edibles; ill effects of sugar; the chemistry of sugar; sexual panic; sex as seen through water and fire; sexual abstractions; the art of the gas jet; crosstalk between “Sugar.” & “Roastbeef.”. Here are stanzas 9 through 18:

A puzzle, a monster puzzle, a heavy choking, a neglected Tuesday.

Wet crossing and a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters, it has that and teeth, it has the staggering blindly and a little green, any little green is ordinary.

One, two and one, two, nine, second and five and that.

A blaze, a search in between, a cow, only any wet place, only this tune.

Cut a gas jet uglier and then pierce pierce in between the next and negligence. Choose the rate to pay and pet pet very much. A collection of all around, a signal poison, a lack of languor and more hurts at ease.

A white bird, a colored mine, a mixed orange, a dog.

Cuddling comes in continuing a change.

A piece of separate outstanding rushing is so blind with open delicacy.

A canoe is orderly. A period is solemn. A cow is accepted.

A nice old chain is widening, it is absent, it is laid by.

“And for Stein, food has also to do with taboos, what will make you ill or sinful, what is forbidden. What is coded as sexual: a cow for orgasm, a wet place, a blaze. What has onomatopoeic force of echo and reiteration: a a a a, ca-cu-ca-cu. ‘Cuddling comes in continuing a change.’" Mary Armour

In order to discuss stanzas 9 through 18, the Buttons often drew their impressions from several non-contiguous stanzas, so Steiny is listing stanzas addressed in the subtitles of each section of this post.

MYTHS, MONSTERS & GAMES [9, 10, 16]

Karren Alenier began the discussion with stanza 9 and said:

A puzzle, a monster puzzle, a heavy choking, a neglected Tuesday.

“This stanza seems to be consumed by a perplexing puzzle that has caused the neglect of the Norse war god Tiw or Týr, his victory and his heroic glory.

“I base this on Stein’s use of the word Tuesday which Wikipedia says:”

The English name is derived from Old English Tiwesdægand Middle English Tewesday, meaning "Tīw's Day", the day of Tiw or Týr, the god of single combat, victory and heroic glory in Norse mythology. Tiw was equated with Mars in the interpretatio germanica, and the name of the day is a translation of Latin dies Martis.

“Perhaps this why the sugar is causing so much choking as well as other problems that we saw in the first half of this subpoem.

“I suspect Stein is talking about herself and now sugar is something other than Alice.”

Teri Rife approached stanza 9 by looking at other subpoems of Tender Buttons:

“Here's the monster again, and this time a monster puzzle.  We've had monstrous in 1) ‘A red hat.’ and monster in 2) ‘Mutton.’.

1)A dark grey, a very dark grey, a quite dark grey is monstrous ordinarily, it is so monstrous because there is no red in it. [‘A red hat.’]

      2)Mud and water were not present and not any more of either. Silk and stockings were not present and not any more of either. A receptacle and a symbol and no monster were present and no more. This made a piece show and was it a kindness, it can be asked was it a kindness to have it warmer, was it a kindness and does gliding mean more. Does it. [stanza 9 of ‘Mutton.’]

“Karren's comment in ‘Mutton.’:

I think Stein is doing two things here simultaneously. First of all she is invoking the creation myth with all the mud and water and that monster which is likely to be the golem, a man-like creature created from mud. Except her invocation comes from a negative stance. The actual creation is some kind of sculpture. So Stein is pointing to the making of art.

“So, it would appear that the golem is back in this subpoem.  Consider Stanza #10 of ‘Sugar.’:

Wet crossing and a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters, it has that and teeth, it has the staggering blindly and a little green, any little green is ordinary.

“Sounds golem-like, but for the green.

“Also, consider Stanza #16 of ‘Sugar.’:

A piece of separate outstanding rushing is so blind with open delicacy.

“This seems to echo This made a piece show and was it a kindness.. [excerpt from stanza 9 of ‘Mutton.’]  

So there's kindness in Mutton and blind-ness in ‘Sugar.’.

“A puzzle is a game, and we saw a game in green and, again, a piece in ‘A plate.’:

A kind of green a game in green and nothing flat nothing quite flat and more round, nothing a particular color strangely, nothing breaking the losing of no little piece. [excerpt from stanza 3 of ‘A plate.’]”

Alenier responded:

“The green seems a logical outgrowth from the mud! Brilliant! It does seem we have the golem here with its blisters and teeth!

Alenier also liked Rife’s “blind-kind” association. She said,

“My theory is that wherever Stein mentions kind we are talking gender identity. Blind logically connects to kind and it seems also to connect us to the golem. Maybe something like the elephant in the room? The prohibition on same sex relationships?

To wrap up thoughts about what Rife wrote, Alenier made this observation punctuated with a question:

“So here Teri connects the object—plate—with the food—sugar—which has become this game in green. Not sure where this line of thinking goes. Any thoughts?”

COMFORT FOOD VERSUS FORBIDDEN EDIBLES [TOC, 10, 12, 15]

Mary Armour responded to what Teri Rife had to say by looking at the big picture. She said:

“I want to look at “Sugar.” from a few different angles. Right at the beginning of the Food section in TB, Stein gives a list of headings or topics:

ROASTBEEF; MUTTON; BREAKFAST; SUGAR; CRANBERRIES; MILK; EGGS; APPLE; TAILS; LUNCH; CUPS; RHUBARB; SINGLE; FISH; CAKE; CUSTARD; POTATOES; ASPARAGUS; BUTTER; END OF SUMMER; SAUSAGES; CELERY; VEAL; VEGETABLE; COOKING; CHICKEN; PASTRY; CREAM; CUCUMBER; DINNER; DINING; EATING; SALAD; SAUCE; SALMON; ORANGE; COCOA; AND CLEAR SOUP AND ORANGES AND OAT-MEAL; SALAD DRESSING AND AN ARTICHOKE; A CENTRE IN A TABLE.

“It's all about comfort food and where food is eaten and at what time of the year and the centrality of food as structuring a togetherness and a work of art. But it is also about more than food and about the dangers or what is hidden behind food, what food stands for. In this, we go back to Stein as an etymologist, separating words from context and having them stand alone, apart, the word in itself, the ding an sich we have seen elsewhere.

“And for Stein, food has also to do with taboos, what will make you ill or sinful, what is forbidden. What is coded as sexual: a cow for orgasm, a wet place, a blaze. What has onomatopoeic force of echo and reiteration: a a a a, ca-cu-ca-cu. ‘Cuddling comes in continuing a change.’"

SEXUAL PANIC [10]

“But when I hear this sentence, my projection perhaps, I hear something akin to sexual panic:

Wet crossing and a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters, it has that and teeth, it has the staggering blindly and a little green, any little green is ordinary.

“A wet crossing as slippery and dangerous? Some kind of treacherous glissade, of loss of meaning, loss of footing, uncertainty?

“a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters—some kind of contagious infection, reflections of selves that dissolve identity? What is separate and what is a piece of and what is merging or spilling over in a mirrored identity? Blisters indicate burns, infection, contagion, some open sores or repulsion in what is reflected

“it has that and teeth—this is chilling for me, as if it recalls what Virginia Woolf describes in The Years, the child Rose exposed to the gibbering man in the street who exposes himself to her kind of allergy. A reflected face that is a likeness but has blisters and teeth, something not quite human, the vagina dentata, the loathsome consequence of the broken taboo

“The same likeness has this too: the staggering blindly and a little green. Which makes me wonder if our Green Fairy absinthe is making a reappearance, the loss of control and disorder of drunkenness. [e.g., the Buttons discussed the Green Fairy absinthe in ‘Glazed glitter.’]

“And then a change, recovery of the everyday, a return to another kind of green: any little green is ordinary. A village green, a green ribbon, a salad green. The green of asparagus, celery, cucumber.”

Cooking with Tender Buttons Food: Breakfast. Stanzas 10-16. Discussion 2

THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           FOOD

THE SUBPOEM ...................-           Breakfast

WORD COUNT (Total)……...-           840

STANZA(S)............................-            22

—Stanzas 1-9                                       312

—Stanzas 10-16                                   224

THE LEADER........................-           THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS.............-            MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

The middle stanzas of “Breakfast.” seem to indicate a problem between two opposing forces and strong advice about resolving whatever the issue might be. Poetically, Stein uses rhyme and other devices to catch the reader’s attention.

Among the topics addressed in this post are: losing sound in a bell jar—an argument between Gertrude and Leo Stein; poetic fantasia; romancing of the dinner—roast (beef?) and cake; the ups and downs of relationship; imperative statements and sacramental language.

A breeze in a jar and even then silence, a special anticipation in a rack, a gurgle a whole gurgle and more cheese than almost anything, is this an astonishment, does this incline more than the original division between a tray and a talking arrangement and even then a calling into another room gently with some chicken in any way.

A bent way that is a way to declare that the best is all together, a bent way shows no result, it shows a slight restraint, it shows a necessity for retraction.

Suspect a single buttered flower, suspect it certainly, suspect it and then glide, does that not alter a counting.

A hurt mended stick, a hurt mended cup, a hurt mended article of exceptional relaxation and annoyance, a hurt mended, hurt and mended is so necessary that no mistake is intended.

What is more likely than a roast, nothing really and yet it is never disappointed singularly.

A steady cake, any steady cake is perfect and not plain, any steady cake has a mounting reason and more than that it has singular crusts. A season of more is a season that is instead. A season of many is not more a season than most.

Take no remedy lightly, take no urging intently, take no separation leniently, beware of no lake and no larder.

“It’s interesting that roast is on its own wanting to rhyme so much with toast, and toast is there but its name being suggested with the rack and the crusts.” Peter Treanor

 “And the point, this time, is in the word ‘disappointing.’” Teri Rife

LOSING SOUND IN A BELL JAR

Karren Alenier opened the discussion experiencing a bell jar:

A breeze in a jar and even then silence, a special anticipation in a rack, a gurgle a whole gurgle and more cheese than almost anything, is this an astonishment, does this incline more than the original division between a tray and a talking arrangement and even then a calling into another room gently with some chicken in any way.

“I believe Stein is talking about a bell jar where it is possible create a vacuum. Stein would have been familiar with bell jars as a scientist. The vacuum inside a bell jar is partial and has to do with atmospheric pressure related to gas. This might be associated with a breeze. Here is an example:”

An example of a classroom science experiment involving a bell jar is to place a ringing alarm clock under the bell jar. As the air is pumped out of the sealed bell jar, the noise of the alarm clock fades, thus demonstrating that the propagation of sound is mediated by the air. In the absence of their medium, the sound waves cannot travel.[2]

“The example may account for ‘a talking arrangement and even then a calling into another room’ and given some chicken, Stein might be pointing to an argument she had with her brother during the period when she was writing Tender Buttons. In Roastbeef. stanza 9 and 30, Stein gives us room to comb chickens and a slender chicken, which by way of Plato’s featherless biped as human, may represent Leo Stein, the brother with whom she initially shared the apartment 27 rue de Fleurus. Here, the chicken (Leo) seems to be in the way. If this is an argument between the sister and brother, then cheese seems to pejorative.

“However, bell-shaped jars were used also as covers for cheese—a cheese dome.”

Emily W asked, “Was GS a scientist too?”

Claudia Schumann answered, “Yes, GS studying medicine in college.”

Alenier added:

“Emily, she was doing scientific research at Harvard. She also went to a summer program at the famous Woods Hole marine biology center in Massachusetts.”

Emily W replied:

“I studied Chemistry down the street from Harvard. When the vacuum is broken, air will rush in, equalizing the pressure. It's the same thing that happens in our lungs when we inhale. Which makes me think of the spongy, ‘cheesy’ if you will, texture of them. Maybe she had some sitting in specimen jars around the lab. Maybe the lungs or the exhale or gurgle has something to do with the talking and calling.”

peter treanor· 5 months ago 

A breeze in a jar and even then silence,

“I can see and hear the cheesy wheezy lungs inflating (in the rack of the rib cage, also ribs of lamb called a rack).

“There's a feel of some sort of experiment going on—tubes, jars, heat rising, steam, a breeze created, a test tube rack, all that gurgling as the liquids boil and bubbles bubble, like some kind of distillation. Anticipation and astonishment at the results and transformations in the process

“But I also thought of this when reading breeze in a jar then silence, this seemed to suggest the breeze made a noise and then all was quiet, maybe when the breeze stopped.”

Launching an extended analysis, Alenier replied:

“Emily and Pete, I'm thinking about the broken vacuum and the pressure being equalized. Maybe Gertrude felt she was living in a fishbowl as the metaphor goes and by breaking that jar, that bell jar, the social pressure on her diminished. And as a consequence she could breathe better.

STEIN’S POETIC FANTASIA

“With stanzas ten and eleven, Stein is creating a poetic fantasia.

“The last line of stanza one flows poetically into the first line of stanza two, keying on the word way:”

…even then a calling into another room gently with some chicken in any way.

A bent way that is a way to declare that the best is all together, a bent way shows no 

“Stanza 12 image-wise seems the most fantasia like to me with its single buttered flower and how Stein is advising the reader to regard it suspiciously as it glides. It makes me think of the animated film Fantasia.”

Suspect a single buttered flower, suspect it certainly, suspect it and then glide, does that not alter a counting.

“Stanza 13 repeats the word hurt but it seems to me more poetic than negative given the repetition of the word mended:

A hurt mended stick,

a hurt mended cup,

a hurt mended article of exceptional relaxation and annoyance,

a hurt mended,

hurt and mended is so necessary that no mistake is intended.

Emily W interjected:

“Mending—another job for women, an important one since new clothes weren't quite so cheap. A family member told me that when he was in school it was alright to go to school with clothes that had been mended, but not that were torn or had a hole.”

ROMANCING OF THE DINNER

Alenier continuing said,

“In stanzas 14 and 15, Stein moves to what I'm going to call a romancing of the dinner with the roast and cake:

What is more likely than a roast, nothing really and yet it is never disappointed singularly.

A steady cake, any steady cake is perfect and not plain, any steady cake has a mounting reason and more than that it has singular crusts. A season of more is a season that is instead. A season of many is not more a season than most.

“Also notice the alliteration steady steady steady singular season season inStead season season moSt.

“Stanza 16 also plays with alliteration but of L:”

Take no remedy lightly, take no urging intently, take no separation leniently, beware of no lake and no larder.

“lightly intently leniently lake larder.”

Picking up on stanza 15, Teri Rife said,

“I think that steady cake could be a cheesecake, which is a cake that may have crusts. Cheesecake is ancient, generally believed to have been first made by the Greeks. From pappaspost.com:”

‘Greek brides and grooms were also known to use cheesecake as a wedding cake. It also became a custom for a Greek bride to bake and serve cheesecakes to her new husband’s friends as a gesture of hospitality. Incidentally, this concept eventually paved the way for wedding cakes to become a tradition that continues today.’

“When the Romans conquered Greece, the recipe came to them. They modified it adding eggs, and sometimes put it into pastry.

LANGUAGE THAT SINGS

“We've seen the ‘s’ alliteration over and over. It's so singing. And, look, the word ‘sing’ is actually right there in the middle of the stanza, contained in the word ‘singular.’ And, look again, there are 4 ‘seasons!’ Another instance of the repetition of a word 4x, Emily, and this time with a noun—unless, of course, it's a verb (to season our breakfast).”

Emily W asked:

“I was thinking about what you said about ‘a Rose is rose...’ how Stein said she was doing something different with every repeat, but I have to wonder, how is the reader supposed to know what she is doing with the repeats? Is it even important?”

Rife answered:

“The way I look at it is that it's important to me to figure out everything I can about this remarkably spare, yet very rich text. It's become all about the journey, not the destination. Even though I will never know what Stein is doing, I do know that it enriches my life to try, especially in the company of others.

“‘...steady...steady...steady...’ is like what we say when we're trying to balance something that's precarious, and the tension in the situation seems to increase as time goes along—a ‘mounting reason’ for carefulness. The ‘steady-ness in the first line pops up in the second, too, in the form of ‘instead.’ more...more...many...most’ This is building.”

Alenier commented:

“Teri, I also think your discussion about steady—mounting reason—falls in line with ‘the difference is spreading’ (“A carafe, that is a blind glass.”).

RELATIONSHIP ROLLERCOASTER

Moving in a different direction, Treanor asked answered:

“Is there something being said about relationships?

“There's division and arrangement in stanza 10.

“The best is all together in stanza 11.

“Stanza 12, A single buttered flower (a buttercup? any yellow flower? Or butter and flour?) which we are told to suspect and does not alter in a counting, which seems to emphasize it always stays as one, on it's own no matter how often we count it.

“Stanza 13, we have the series of things (objects) that are hurt and mended. Hurt is a recurring theme in TBs, it’s a strange word to use for an object as hurt requires consciousness, it is a feeling, how can an object be hurt? Does she mean some kind of damage? But hurt and mending seems to suggest repair or healing. Repair or re-pairing or pairing suggests relationship. Healing as relationship?

“Stanza 14, never disappointed singularly. Singularly can be singular or exceptional.

“Stanza 15, singular again, singular crusts.

“Stanza 16, take no separation leniently.

“Woven in with whatever else is woven in there, there does seem to be some sort of suggestion about being single, hurt and mending (healing), disappointment and an urge to not accept separation.

“And a steady state (I want to say steady state not steady cake when I read this), a steady cake seems to be perfect and not plain. Is a cake a mixture of ingredients? A mixture of many, not a single ingredient but a relationship of ingredients. An elaborate (not plain) cake that has a reason for mounting does sound like a wedding cake, mounted in tiers.”

Circling back to her question on Stein’s use of repetition, Emily W commented:

“I don't mean to be stuck on the repeating, well at least not too stuck. I am really just curious about it, since there are so many things one might try to convey through repetition, and spoken repetition is much easier to make sense of than written! It's like little mental puzzles to sort out, but maybe it doesn't even matter what she was thinking when she wrote it, but as you suggest, Teri, maybe it's more about what we as readers make of it.

“Anyway, the hurt, could be anything, feelings, something torn or broken, but whatever it is, it's been fixed. hurt and mended is so necessary that no mistake is intended.

To me this sounds like advice, of sorts—make sure to fix things so it doesn't get worse.”

Answering Emily W, Rife said:

“I think Gertrude fully intends for us to be stuck on the repeating, maybe not just because the word or idea being repeated is somehow important but also because repeating is part of the natural human speech pattern. We just sort of go on and on, filling up any silence.

Cooking with Tender Buttons Food: Roastbeef. Stanzas 1-37. Discussion 8

THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           FOOD

THE SUBPOEM ..................-            Roastbeef

WORD COUNT (Total)……..-           1757

STANZA(S)............................-           37

—Stanzas 1-3

—Stanzas 4-8

—Stanzas 9-17

—Stanzas 18-21

— Stanzas 22 through 29

—Stanzas 30 through 37

THE LEADER........................-           THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS.............-            MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

Among all the subpoems of the first two sections of Tender Buttons, “Roastbeef.” is the longest. Addressing the major themes of the entire work: existence, appearance, gender, sexuality, morality, and union, “Roastbeef.” is a critical subpoem. This post will be a broad-brush summary of the six separate discussions.

BACKGROUND & METHOD OF APPROACH

Starting in the fall of 2013, the Steiny Road Poet, working with international students signed up for the Coursera Modern & Contemporary American Poetry massive open online course (ModPo MOOC), has been slowly working through Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons using The Corrected Centennial Edition edited by Seth Perlow. The study takes place in the ModPo discussion forums. University of Pennsylvania professor Al Filreis, the ModPo developer, says this study is a MOOC inside a MOOC. The depth and duration of this study is unlike anything that has ever been done before with Tender Buttons.

Because “Roastbeef.” contains 1757 words (including the title) spread among 37 stanzas, Steiny divided the subpoem into six parts so that the Buttons Collective, as those ModPo students are known who participate in this study group, could more easily focus and stayed focus on individual stanzas. The results of those six separate discussions have been documented here on this blog. Additionally, there is a separate blog post for the title of this subpoem.

At the beginning of 2014 after spending several months studying subpoems of section 1 Objects, Steiny created a list of lessons learned. She is pleased to say that these lessons learned continue to apply to section 2 Food where “Roastbeef.” is the first subpoem. Additional lessons learned are accruing and so this summation of “Roastbeef.” may be useful in reading other subpoems of Food as well as rereading the subpoems of Objects. Nevertheless, Steiny still says that a reader can start anywhere in Tender Buttons and be able to appreciate what Stein has written at a basic level of “understanding.”

Tips to keep in mind while reading Tender Buttons are:

• Approach each subpoem as if it were an abstract painting and allow yourself room to appreciate what thoughts come to you.
• Stein often implants suggestions for how to read her texts within the text of Tender Buttons.
•  Key words in a subpoem merit looking up the possible meanings and origin of the word in a dictionary. Often the best dictionary for looking up word origination is the Oxford English Dictionary.
•   Repeated words signal that Stein is emphasizing something important in this text.
• Strings of words that don’t make grammatical sense may be associated with some kind of process that might involve for example: gaming, musicality, or grammatical shakeup.
• Expect the unexpected and allow for contradiction. Stein was a polymath who studied philosophy at Harvard with William James. Tender Buttons reaches into science, mathematics, physics, psychology, religion, superstition, nursery rhymes, classic literature (especially the plays of William Shakespeare), American literature, philosophy (including logic), and more.
• Stein points at texts by other writers rather than quoting them. Stein also suggests without employing strong literary allusion. This makes scholars says that her work is without literary allusion.
• American subjects play an important role in Tender Buttons. Stein was intent on being known as an American writer, despite living in Paris for most of her life.
• Knowing Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas’s biographies and world wide historic events help illuminate a great deal of Tender Buttons. This knowledge might help a reader buy into this premise: Tender Buttons is Stein’s love poem to her wife Alice Toklas as well as the covenant as to how they will live with each other and what they will leave as their legacy.
• For optimum reward, reading Stein requires participation by the reader. Stein believed in talking and listening, which Steiny says is about coming to the texts ready to work.

SO WHERE’S THE BEEF?

There is little mention of beef in the 37 stanzas of “Roastbeef.”. Only three stanzas use the word beef. Stanza 3 has no beefsteak and stanza 14 has never beef. Only stanza 25 employs the word beef without negation:

Please be the beef, please beef, pleasure is not wailing. Please beef, please be carved clear, please be a case of consideration.

The use of the word beef in stanza 25 seems more an exercise in wielding language than informing the reader about why the title of this subpoem is Roastbeef. The poet seems to be exhorting someone to take responsibility for some complaint (the beef) and then to let go and complain (to beef).

 “Roastbeef.” opens the Food section of Tender Buttons, but no mention of eating takes place. Stein only provides the furniture—stove, chairs and tables—accessories—plates and spoons—and verbs associated with eating meat—cuts and cutting. While disparaging the cow (…it does mean that a meadow is useful and a cow absurd—stanza 3), Stein perversely mentions chicken twice (Room to comb chickens and feathers—stanza 9 and To bury a slender chicken to raise an old feather—stanza 30) and other animals like lambs, goats, and colts (Why should ancient lambs be goats and young colts and never beef—stanza 14).

THE STORY OF BROTHER-SISTER-LOVER

Generally speaking across the stanzas of “Roastbeef.”, the most compelling continuity is a biographical narrative subtly sculpted into the words of this subpoem. That narrative begins with introduction to the love story of Stein and Toklas (stanzas 1-3) with emphasis on relationship. Stein plays with ship making it seem as the subpoem opens that the principal characters (those in this relation) are waking up on a riverboat steamer. The opening three stanzas are much more lyrical than what we have encountered in section 1 Objects which are generally shorter. Also contributing to this sense of lyricism is that Stein may be taking her poetic lead from William Shakespeare’s play As You Like It as well as from Genesis (the King James version).

Stanza 4 with words like reduction, reparation, no restraint seem to point to the riff between Gertrude and her brother Leo which occurred at the time Gertrude was writing Tender Buttons. Stanzas 9 through 17 beginning with the word room, which is repeated six times in stanza 9, seems to indicate that Leo’s departure from their common living space at 27 rue de Fleurus will give her room to do what she pleases. The following stanzas (10-17), starting with a barely polite breakfast scene, chronicle the sister-brother relationship including their philosophic exchanges, the Saturday night salons in their living room, and how the slightly older brother lorded his authority over his sister. Meanwhile in the background, Stein shows Toklas as a shadow in the kitchen.

Stanza 18 juxtaposes bone and bones (7 occurrences) with time (2 times), choice(s) (3 times), difference (1 time), kind (5 times). “Roastbeef.” includes these words in this count: bone and bones (7 occurrences), time (10 times), choice(s) (6 times), difference (6 times), kind (9 times). One way of reading stanza 18 is that Stein is showing us the bone of contention between her and Leo. The contention involves Gertrude choosing to be a writer instead of a doctor, and in the face of the time she lived in, that did not allow for difference in gender identity (the kind of person she was who identified as male versus female) and for Gertrude choosing a lifetime partner of the same sex.

Stanzas 22 through 29 could be read as Gertrude acknowledging the loss of her brother despite the beef he has with her over Alice. These stanzas also return to the passion (as embodied in the words furnace and blanket) Gertrude has for her chosen one.

The concluding stanzas 30 through 37 gather together all aspects of brother-sister-lover triangle, which Stein boils down to a matter of preserving her union with Toklas. By pointing in stanza 37 to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (and by inference the jeopardy that exacted in preserving the Union, the United States of America, after a bloody civil war): All the stain is tender and lilacs really lilacs are disturbed, Stein invokes Walt Whitman’s elegy for Lincoln “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” as well as the broader concern that her American union (with California-born Toklas) must and will survive despite there being no delight (referring to the sadness of losing the relationship with her brother) and no mathematics (money) in it. The fact that the stain (bloodstain) is tender puts additional weight on Tender Buttons, the title of the entire work. Union might also be a plausible explanation why Stein makes “Roastbeef.”, this subpoem’s title one word instead of two.

THE LITERARY POINTERS

Unlike the shorter subpoems of section 1 Objects, “Roastbeef.” is full of literary pointers, some of which have already been mentioned. However, for the sake of seeing these literary references together, Steiny will repeat them: Shakespeare (particularly As You Like It but also Macbeth in stanza 34), the Bible (most likely the Saint James version, especially Genesis), Walt Whitman (“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”), and William Blake (“The Tyger”). Stein’s pointing to “The Tyger” appears in stanza 6, an unusually rhymed-filled stanza. Instead of a tiger, Stein gives us a snipe, which could be the long-billed bird, a (gun)shot from a concealed location, a contemptible person, or an anagram of penis.

As mentioned, “Roastbeef.” addresses the six major themes present in Tender Buttons. It occurs to Steiny that these themes— existence, appearance, gender, sexuality, morality, and union—are interrelated with existence as the first priority. Stein usually signals these themes through her word choices and by insistent repetition though the union theme seems subtler. Yes, Stein uses words like altogether in stanza 3, sets in stanza 9, collecting in stanza 22, collection in stanza 26, together in stanza 31, but predominately in “Roastbeef.” she communicates the idea of union through literary pointing. As You Like It is a play about warring family members who come to peace and marry. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” deals with the American Civil War that broke the country apart into Union and Confederacy a state of affairs that often pitted brother against brother and resulted in the assassination of the 16^th U. S. president.

By inclusion in the first and last stanzas, “The Tyger” emphasizes the word symmetry (two similar parts along a divide which work together in some way) as does Stein’s Lovely snipe and tender turn which ends on the word symmetry and exhibits the symmetry of two possible birds (snipe and tern/turn) in the first phrase marked by a comma. Stein uses punctuation—seven commas and a period—to create a symmetry (the punctuation functions as a line break might) between her prose poem and Blake’s quatrains, which have a regular rhyme scheme (AABB  CCDD, etc.). The question arises why would Stein choose Blake from whom to take inspiration over other English writers? Steiny suspect she did so because Blake wrote a series of poems called America a Prophecy that concerns the American revolution and because Blake was a multi-disciplinarian who was an accomplished visual artist using this talent to illustrate his books of poetry.

TO BE TO BE SEEN TO BE JUDGED WHO I AM WHO WE ARE

Steiny notes that Stein uses the word is, one of the markers of the existence theme, 172 times in “Roastbeef.”, not to mention lesser counts of the words are and be. More exciting to Steiny’s way of thinking is Stein’s use of the word birthday in stanza 5. Stein’s backstory is that her sister Bertha taunted her that she and Leo were replacement children after two babies preceding them died. The presumption was she would not have existed had these siblings lived. Like the good scientist and philosopher she was trained to be, Stein also examines the flip side and has substantial counts of such words as no, not, and nothing. However, overall Stein always seems to weight her words toward the positive.

Among the words that indicate appearance, Stein uses show five times in “Roastbeef.” but this is a big subject with lots of categories, such as color, dimension, clothing, quality, quantity, etc., not to mention what Stein is hiding (the sexual relationship with Toklas) which falls into the realm of keeping up appearances. For example, in stanza 19 she expresses no hope in daintiness and determination.

The theme of morality comes across strongly in the first few stanzas with words like standards, pinching, resignation, discrimination, and dirt. For example in stanza 1: All the standards have steamers and all the curtains have bed linen and all the yellow has discrimination and in stanza 3: The change the dirt, not to change dirt means that there is no beefsteak and not to have that is no obstruction, it is so easy to exchange meaning. What’s interesting is how this language of judging is mixed with joy because as this subpoem opens immense feeling associated with awakening dominates stanza 1: In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is resting, in feeling anything is mounting, in feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is recognition, in feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken there is pinching.

While the theme of gender (one’s sense of self—Stein identified herself in relation to Toklas as male) is harder to detect because Stein had so much to hide, Steiny asserts that Stein’s use of the word kind is a signpost of gender. Stanza 18 runs riot with the word kind, asserting four times (in keeping with the opening premise of the stanza about four choices) there is a kind. What follows is an assertion about bone and bones (these words are repeated seven times), which could in theory refer to the male sexual organ. The text says: There are bones and there is that consuming. The kindly way to feel separating is to have a space between. This shows a likeness. Gender identity sets one apart such that one needs space to choose it but there in resides the likeness or resemblance.

Sexuality pervades “Roastbeef.” and can be seen in the examples provided for the other major themes. A standing sexual joke between Stein and Toklas was having a cow meant having an orgasm. Where does roast beef come from? Cattle, of course. However, on a more serious note, “Roastbeef.” is Stein’s attempt to address Hamlet’s question—to be or not to be.

STEINIAN GRAMMAR AND WORD GAMES

One of Stein’s goals in writing Tender Buttons, was to revitalize the English language, such that over used words would be born anew. She placed emphasis on articles, prepositions, and conjunctions and said in "Poetry and Grammar" [from Lectures in America] articles are interesting just as nouns and adjectives are not. “She noted that articles please—‘Articles please, a and an and the please as the name that follows cannot please.’ As “Roastbeef.” opens, she uses the preposition in (10 times in stanza 1) to provide an immediacy and a lyrical intimacy that is backed up by the repetition of the article the. But this is not to say that she has written text devoid of meaning. Steiny argues here that Stein’s use of articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, which seem mostly like connecting words to the casual reader, echo what Shakespeare does throughout As You Like It. It also speaks to the way philosophers argue the essential points of their knowledge.

Word play also abounds in “Roastbeef.”. It is an interactive sport between Stein and her reader as the possibility of finding p-e-n-i-s in snipe (stanza 6) or the seabird tern versus sound-alike turn (also stanza 6). Excessive use of the “er” sound might point to the word her, as in Alice Toklas since Stein cannot name her lover. Excessive use of the article a might also point to Alice, because again Stein cannot name her partner.

GERTRUDE STEIN, AN AMERICAN WRITER

While Stein like most Americans came from immigrant stock, she set herself a task to be an American writer but one who would distinguish herself from others. In “Roastbeef.”, the characteristic turkey (stanza 28) is a North American bird and in this one sentence stanza, the turkey may be a stand-in for Stein: Bargaining for a little, bargain for a touch, a liberty, an estrangement, a characteristic turkey.

For more details and deeper understanding of this summary, read the individual blog posts on “Roastbeef.”.