Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Fanny Howe’s "Basic Science" is a meditation on existence, love, and the interplay between life and death. It adopts a surreal, almost fable-like tone, using the imagery of cadavers speaking to one another to explore themes of resurrection, commodification, and the persistence of love in a world that both animates and consumes.

The opening lines—"One cadaver said to the other cadaver, ?You?re my cadaver.? / The conversation ended there but not its effects."—immediately establish an absurdist and existential framework. The dialogue is simultaneously simple and profound; it suggests recognition, ownership, and connection even in death. Yet the fact that the conversation "ended there" underscores the limitations of language in the face of mortality. Whatever meaning is exchanged between the cadavers does not reside in their words but in their continued presence.

The next lines—"Their souls had evaporated. / It was up to love to raise them from their litters and let them / arrive as the living poor / at the surface of the earth. It did."—introduce the idea of love as a force of animation, not in a sentimental sense, but in a quasi-mystical or scientific one. If the souls are gone, then it is not spirit but love—perhaps understood as biological necessity, human attachment, or social function—that brings them back to life. The phrase "arrive as the living poor" suggests that even if love animates, it does not elevate; these resurrected beings return not as exalted figures, but as part of the struggling masses, the dispossessed.

The next passage—"At first the maculate pair poked and picked through refuse. / Denials were their daily breads."—portrays these reanimated figures as scavengers, existing on the margins, surviving on scraps and rejection. The word "maculate", meaning stained or impure, reinforces their status as beings marked by death, outcasts in a world that values only the living. The line "Denials were their daily breads." carries religious overtones, inverting the Christian notion of daily bread as divine sustenance. Instead of nourishment, they consume rejection, sustaining themselves on negation.

Then, in a shift that is both unsettling and familiar, these cadavers become commodities—"Then they were sold to those who found their fertility a bonus. / Owned then by the living with names / and fortunes, with lovers who say, / ?Lover, I?m your lover,? cadavers were still the majority."—suggesting a cycle in which the dead, once revived, are exploited for their ability to reproduce. This recalls historical realities—enslavement, human trafficking, and economic systems that treat bodies as resources. The irony of "the living with names and fortunes" owning them suggests that identity and wealth provide the illusion of autonomy, while those without names are reduced to function.

Yet despite this commodification, love remains a fundamental force. The repetition of "Lover, I?m your lover," echoes the cadaver’s original statement—"You?re my cadaver."—drawing a parallel between the dead and the living, between relationships based on need and those based on emotional attachment. Love, in this world, is both an animating force and a form of possession. The phrase suggests that love, like death, renders one subject to another, whether through devotion or dependency.

The final lines—"Cadavers were still the majority. / They kept creation going and love / as well—like hands on a cold or sunburned back—a weight / with properties that animate."—emphasize the idea that the dead outnumber the living, but in doing so, they paradoxically sustain life. They "kept creation going and love as well," implying that history, memory, and even past suffering are what allow new generations to exist. The simile—"like hands on a cold or sunburned back"—suggests that love, like a touch, is both comforting and burdensome, a weight that "animates" without necessarily liberating.

"Basic Science" is both bleak and strangely tender, offering a vision of life as an ongoing cycle where the dead never truly disappear, where love exists but does not necessarily redeem, and where creation is sustained by bodies that, once animated, are inevitably consumed again. The title itself—Basic Science—suggests a fundamental principle at work: the transformation of death into life, not through miracle but through the mechanisms of desire, labor, and survival. In this way, the poem operates as both a critique of material existence and a meditation on the inescapable forces—love, death, and power—that shape human experience.

Copyright (c) 2025 PoetryExplorer

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...