#jv cunningham

The meter and visual structure of “History of Ideas” establish both its mathematical pulse and the subject matters of math and sex. The poem is written in trochaic tetrameter with only one variation:

God is love. Then by conversion Love is God, and sex conversion.

After the meter is established by the first three words, the word “then” can potentially interrupt that meter by being stressed, turning the second foot into a spondee and the third into a pyrrhic substitution. This reading is not definitive, as the already-established trochaic pulse may create a singsong pattern that maintains the meter. However, when read most naturally, the poem suggests a caesura after “love,” which allows for “then” to be easily stressed. This reading, which more closely mimics natural speech, highlights the word “sex” in the second line, as the poem moves from relative metrical chaos to organization. The perfect trochaic tetrameter contrasts with the preceding line, and the stressed “sex” stands out by maintaining the meter where previously “then by” did not.

This poem is a treat visually if it’s in the right typeface, lining up like a balanced equation. The two lines are mirrors of each other, each with six words, and four of those six repeated. Again, “sex” becomes very obvious as it breaks the pattern of repeated words, and unlike “then,” “by,” or “and,” it carries heavy connotations. The poem may further be divided into four equal segments of three words each. These segments are all separated from one another by punctuation or a line break, and Cunningham actually forgoes grammar to maintain these equal parts. There should be a comma following “sex” because of the implied “is” from the previous clause. A comma would interrupt the visual harmony of four equal segments, while a third “is” would change the meter, the three-word segments, and the pattern of repeating a word only once. The resulting twelve-word poem looks like a balanced equation, structured so intentionally that the rules of grammar are broken.

Y’all. The grammar nerd in me is freaking out that Cunningham manages to break grammar and have it help his poem. And I’m also pretty sure “then” could use a comma after it, as it is technically an adverbial clause… but don’t quote me on that. If that’s the case, Cunningham’s broken grammar seems doubly intentional!

“God is Love” is a familiar sentiment. It comes from 1 John 4:8, which reads, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (ESV). Though not quoted, the allusion offered by the 1 John verse may allow for a biblical reading of the word “sex,” as in “two [becoming] one flesh” seen in Mark 10:8. This verse follows with Cunningham’s ideas of “conversion” and math. Math, sex, and religion become deeply connected.

The use of a mathematical structure and the word “conversion” alludes to logic. A converse statement asserts that if p = q, then q = p. The poem clearly follows this pattern by stating the God is love and love is God, but it also breaks the rule by using two kinds of love. The “love” from 1 John is agape, unconditional love, while the second “love” is likely the passionate eros as it closely connected with sex. This poem is actually saying that if p = q, then Q = p, but q and Q are, though similar, not the same. It is also uncertain if the two different uses of “God” have the same meaning. The first “God” is clearly the Judeo-Christian personal God, but the second “God” can be read as an abstract, driving force rather than a sentient being. (Think “Our Love is God” from Heathers. If you’re not listening to Heathers--go do that!) In using different meanings of the same words in his argument, Cunningham both appeals to and rejects the rules of logic. Reducing religious and philosophical statements to simple mathematics requires one to bend the rules of logic.

...And now the title, the part of the poem I totally skipped when I wrote my paper. I’m still wrestling with it a bit. In a way, this poem is its own “history,” a timeline or flowchart showing the evolution of Christian fundamentalism into a sort of pagan, “free love” ideology. Or maybe the title refers to the various time periods from which its themes come: first-century early Church, Aristotelian logic rules, the 20th century sexual revolution, the primitive drive for sex. I’m not sure what exactly I think of the title, except that Cunningham likes poking holes in things. If the poem is meant to be a timeline of sorts, the history if out of order; “God is Love” comes from the first century whereas converse statements in logic predate by a few centuries. Then, he jumps back to the Christian sense of “conversion.” These big ideas just won’t fit into the tiny boxes he’s putting them in--and I think that’s the point.