A Garden in Chicago
In this poem, Shapiro describes a garden in Chicago that he passed the day in once. He describes the greenness of the garden, the lilac, and the flowers that were there. It is clear that being in this garden was a significant experience to the poet.
Manhole Covers
Shapiro's poem "Manhole Covers" functions as an ode to manhole covers, glorifying them and comparing them to medals and "Mayan calendar stones." Here Shapiro takes something typically ugly like a manhole cover and instead praises them, making them beautiful.
The Conscientious Objector
This poem focuses on war and is about the imprisonment of a conscientious objector, someone who refuses to go to war even though they have been drafted to serve in the military. Shapiro portrays the titular objector with a sense of dignity while showing how the patriotism of the outside world offends the objector.
Going to the War
The poem, published in 1941 in an anthology, suggests that 'Going to the War' itself is America's entry into World War 2 and that the war is against Japan, which attacked American Pearl Harbor on the same year.
With an autobiographical poem in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each, Karl Shapiro, the soldier-poet and the speaker of the poem writes to his wife Evelyn while on his journey to The East. The speaker asks his wife not to tell him that he failed her "soft and shadowed soul", although he leaves her, to the "embittered" East for the war, to satisfy his anger. The image of his wife's soul is a sexual one.
In the second stanza, the speaker finds no beauty among the fighters since "youthful Cornford fell". John Cornford was a poet who was killed in Spanish Civil War. Finally, he epitomizes his journey: that it is "great.. deep and slow". At the end, the speaker admits being unaware of the consequences awaiting him. Thus he says that he goes with "neither joy nor grief" to meet his life or death.
