The Bagel

“The Bagel” is a written in free verse with 13 non-metrical and nonrhyming lines. The line lengths and beats vary and do not employ a consistent pattern. This was common for Ignatow, who modeled his work after the work of Imagist William Carlos Williams, famous for writing meditations on everyday objects using colloquial diction. Writing in formal diction or strict form would not have served the poem since its subject is really about the speaker’s flexibility through identification with the bagel. The absurdity of the rolling action might have been diminished by the use of evenly metered lines or predictable rhyme which could have created a sing-song quality. In turn, this may have pushed the scenario from its meditative quality of assimilating qualities of the bagel and blunted the surprise ending.

That surprise ending is also well served by Ignatow’s clear tonal division of the first five lines in contrast to the second eight. Lines 1-5 comprise a realistic and negative description of the speaker’s problem—the loss of the bagel by accidentally dropping it into the street and the speaker’s subsequent annoyance. The dropped bagel becomes a “portent” (Line 5), creating a bleak outlook for the future.