Love Poem With Toast

Many of the lines in “Love Poem with Toast” touch on the inevitability of aging and death. This major theme is at the heart of the poem, despite a seemingly upbeat title that conjures images of spending time with loved ones, everyday breakfast occurrences, the power of love, and love poetry. The Inevitability of Aging also appears in both form and in function throughout the text: The speaker talks about aging and the slide forward toward death in all of us, while the text itself literally moves forward toward the theme of aging and death encapsulated in the poem’s ending. The poem also culminates in what can be described as an apotheosis—love that transcends the personal and outlives worry. Yet each read and reread of the poem underscores aging and death’s insistence and questions humanity’s attempt to break free from one of our greatest certainties: the inevitability of death and aging.

Williams disarms readers early on with the title of the poem: “Love Poem with Toast.” The title suggests that the poem might follow suit with traditional/stereotypical examples of love poetry. Readers might even think that the current exercise of reading William’s so-called love poem will inevitably include flowery, lovey-dovey language, especially since Williams characteristically employs simple language and everyday objects to aid in his poetics.