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Cellar Door

 

I found love

behind a cellar door

cellar door

cellar door

You can find me

behind a cellar door

cellar door




Peter Able

levelheaded: Cellar Door

 

Including the title, there are only 21 words in this week’s poem. 12 are from the repeated phrase “cellar door.” Based on the number of times these two words appear, it’s obvious that they are central to the work. Let’s look at some of the ways they operate.

 

At the most basic, literal level, maybe this week’s poem is a simple retelling of a middle school makeout party, but as regular readers of poetry, the homophone “cellars” vs. “sellers” jumps out at us, causing us to dig a little deeper. Substitute the second word for the first and the poem causes us to ponder how love can be a transaction. The speaker discovers love when entering a “seller.” While this idea suggests prostitution, the more interesting read is to think of how any one of us might sell ourselves in a relationship.

 

During courtship, we present ourselves as more interesting, more loveable versions of ourselves. If a relationship forms, we sell ourselves throughout the course of it–I’ll do the dishes, you’ll take out the trash; I’ll hang out with your friends then you’ll hang out with mine; I’ll put my acting career on hold and get a 9-5, you’ll keep trying to like sushi. This idea that all of us in one way or another are sellers is manifested by the speaker’s admission that not only did he find love in the cellar/seller, he also can be found there.

 

While we could go on for hours considering the relationship between these sibling words, the poem becomes even more interesting when we ignore the homophone all together and think about the other things a cellar could mean. Why does the speaker find love in a basement and why does he choose to live there? Maybe it’s the solitude. Or maybe it’s the idea of being underground–hidden, undiscovered. Maybe love brings one closer to hell. Maybe love brings one down to earth, or connects us to the earth, or is a link to the past via all the old crap stored down there.

 

The tenor of the first half of the poem is upbeat, marked by the speaker who has found love. In the second half of the poem, however, the speaker is waiting to be found. Complementing this discrepancy is a subtle shift in the poem’s music. By repeating “cellar door” three times in the first half, the poem sounds as celebratory as Rihanna’s  “We Found Love,” but cutting that repetition short at the end of the poem causes an abrupt turn to melancholy, leaving us mysteriously wanting what’s not there.

 

 

– The Editors