Form
The form of “Root Cellar” is analogous to its own imagery. The lines are staggered and choppy. Without any contiguity, the lines creep out from the left side of the page to the right like the plants, roots, bulbs, and shoots breaking “out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark” (2). The poem is illustrates itself much like the perception of the individual. People see what they want to see.
Imagery: Sights
Imagery creeps from the poem beginning with the sights of the cellar where “Nothing would sleep” (1). The cellar is “dank” and the struggling plant life is personified when it is “hunting for chinks in the dark” (2). The reader is not forced to search for footholds because the roots dig in the hardened mud like medieval knights searching for “chinks” in their enemies’ armor (2). No matter the circumstances or the environment the plant life in the cellar is still reaching out to take root. The plants are undaunted by the lack of light and air, two elements required for them to survive.
Imagery: Smells
The cellar is a “congress of stinks!” (6). Lines 7-9 contain a litany of odors from “Roots ripe as old bait” to “manure…piled against slippery planks”. The mixture of unpleasant odors irritates the olfactory sense of the reader and causes an unpleasant sensation when combined with the aforementioned visual imagery. The reader is left with a film of filth covering their attitude towards a place typically associated with lost causes and discarded dreams.
Light in the Darkness
The voice of the poem seems unaffected by the seemingly negative sensuous imagery. Tonally, the poem is dark, monstrous, and debased, but the decrepit imagery and diction does not impede life. Cellars are known for being at the base of foundations, straddling the substrate in the depths of old, forgotten houses.
Archetypically, nightmares are often set in cellars because they are so low and dirty that nothing good can come from them. But the idea of a cellar being low and dirty is not always coupled with negativity. The writer and linguist J.R.R. Tolkien is quoted as having said, “that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense” (Cater). The sound of cellar door can be inspiring to artists as a springboard into the depths of their minds.
From the Bottom to the Top
Dismissing the perceived negative the reader could arrive at a positive, especially when they reach the ultimate couplet where the speaker switches tone and states that “Nothing would give up life: / Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.” (11). The voice recognizes that often times it is necessary to look beyond the outward appearance of images and symbols to realize the intrinsic good found in any situation. No matter how bad life can seem it is imperative to never give up even in the worst times because there is still light at the end of the tunnel or even at the bottom of a “Root Cellar”.
Cater, Bill (April 12, 2001). "We talked of love, death, and fairy tales". UK
Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2001/12/04/batolk04.xml
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