My favorite of the poems from the book was titled "Soap Bubble Set" and was based on Cornell's "Soap Bubble Set" box. The box itself is beautiful, the baby blue and the worn-paper yellow. The carefully placed egg and baby doll head. The map of the moon, and the beautiful shining soap bubble pipe. All of this is brought together so beautifully and peacefully.
In my high school art class we studied Cornell, and his boxes, and even created Cornell-esque boxes. I thought it was a very fun exercise. I think one of the great joys in life is finding beautiful objects in places you wouldn't expect. That is why I feel I have a connection to Cornell, and through him, a connection to Simic.
Simic's poetry is fragmented, heartfelt and beautiful, my favorites of his poems are typically the short wonderful pieces based on Cornell's work. "Untitled; Soap Bubble Set" is one of these pieces. Through his poetry Cornell's seemingly unrelated objects are given context and deep meaning. Within this particular poem the metaphor of a soap bubble is given in relationship to the other objects within the box. "The heavenly bodies are soap bubbles." Simic writes, "They float into the empyrean, cradling the dreamer." Simic goes on to give us the beautiful phrase "The leap of the ballet dancer is a soap bubble, too." The poem rounds out, as many of Simic's poems do, with a deep, somewhat unrelated thought, in this case "The world is beautiful, but not sayable. That's why we need art." This line affects me deeply, as if vibrating on the same wave link as my own thoughts and beliefs. Simic is right, the world is beautiful, but not sayable, not fully expressible, which is why Cornell's work such as "Untitled; Soap Bubble Set" is so wonderful. It expresses the random, seemingly unconnected, and beautiful things that life gives us as readily and unexpectedly as Cornell finds these objects.
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