Poet's Corner

Explanation: "The Creation"

Lines 1-4

This version of the story of creation offers an image of God who is more like humans than traditional Old Testament portrayals of Him. God is sometimes referred to as "the uncaused cause" or "the prime mover," indicating that the actions of God cannot be traced to any previous reason, as part of the definition of God. But Johnson gives God human qualities — he speaks in a Southern dialect, He "steps" with feet, and He creates the universe because He is "lonely." To the reader not trained in theology, the study of religion, these humanistic qualities are familiar and make sense.
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Lines 5-13

Line 5 refers to the "eye of God," drawing attention to a physical characteristic that this God shares with humans. Cypress trees are trees with dense, hanging foliage that grow in the southern United States, which is also the geographic location of most swamps. The South is also where most Negroes lived in the early part of the century, having descended from slave families, and these references would have been familiar to them. Lines 10-13 repeat the words "And the" at the beginning of each line. This stylistic trait mimics the Biblical story of creation, in which the phrase "And God said" is repeated consistently throughout the passage. This rhetorical technique is often used in oral text, in speeches and especially in sermons: the repetition helps those audience members whose attention has drifted off reconnect with that the speaker is saying.
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Lines 14-25

In the Old Testament, the separation of light from darkness occurs in a manner similar to the process described here, except that the language is of course more formal: God does not "roll" light into the form of a sun or "fling" the remaining light into the darkness to create the moon and stars. Adding this language is Johnson's contribution, making the story more active and therefore more interesting to the reader/listener. This sort of concrete imagery is also used in the Bible, to a lesser degree, turning philosophical concepts into experiences. In this section of the poem the technique of repetition is again brought into play, with the word "and" beginning five lines out of twelve, and God's refrain "that's good!" is repeated. This phrase expresses the same idea as the familiar phrase "It is good" that is said by God in the Bible, but while the biblical God makes a dispassionate observation, Johnson's God exclaims his approval with enthusiasm, perhaps even with a little surprise.
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Line 17

Using the vernacular "a-blazing" helps personalize the sermon.
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Lines 26-33

This section details the body of God, placing the sun, moon and stars around His head and the earth beneath His feet. The shape of the earth's surface is formed by God's movements, and not simply because of His will, as the Old Testament version describes it.
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Lines 34-41

God creates the atmospheric conditions through the actions of His body — spitting, clapping, batting His eyes. As in the rest of the poem, God's physical presence is central to His power of creation. In Line 48, the author breaks from the story of the creation to linger for a moment on the significance of it, adding the idea of "cooling waters" to what Line 46 has already said about rain.
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Lines 42-50

In this section, nature is anthropomorphized, a term that means to give human characteristics to non-human entities. Pine trees are said to have fingers, oaks have arms, lakes cuddle, and the rivers run. The creation of humans is approaching and God approves of these human-like traits. His smile creates a rainbow, recognized as a sign of nature's beauty. The intimacy between God and nature is made clear as the rainbow curls like a pet about him.
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Lines 51-60

In the Revised Standard Version of the Old Testament, God says, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let the birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens," and three lines later He says, "Let the earth bring forth creatures according to their kinds. . . ." In shortening this to "Bring forth! Bring forth!" Johnson does away with some of the details of the creation, but he captures a sense of God's power and His excitement about what He is doing. The pace at which God has been creating things has accelerated to a point where He can hardly speak or move His hand quickly enough to keep up with His thoughts. For the third time, the phrase "That's good!" is uttered, completing a cycle: storytelling is often paced in thirds, representing a beginning, a middle, and an end. As the next stanza shows, God expected, upon saying "That's good!" a third time, to be finished with the task of creation.
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Lines 61-69

This is a tranquil passage in the poem, following a frenzy of creation, as God looks over the things He has made. The reader or listener knows that the creation is not complete until humans have arrived, and that the quiet passage here is a lull, not an end. This passage ends with God's observation that, "I'm lonely still," which negates the wonders of earth and sky that have just been presented, putting God back in the same predicament he had in the first line.
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Lines 70-75

God thinks in this stanza, and decides to make a man. In the first stanza, upon realizing himself lonely, God did not think, but decided without consideration to create the world. This structure emphasizes how special humans are: as the answer to a perplexing problem, mankind could almost be called the answer to God's prayer. It is significant that Line 72 is very specific about the fact that God sat beside a river, describing it as "deep" and "wide": in African American mythology, the river is a central image, especially the deep, wide Mississippi river, which ran from the free states of the North to the slave states of the South. This idea is also referred to in Langston Hughes's poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers."
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Lines 76-88

As in the previous stanza, the river is emphasized. The reader is given a view of God being humble: in the dust, molding clay, bending "like a mammy" (an archaic African American word for "mother"). At the same time, though, the author mixes in a reminder, in lines 80-84, of the overwhelming powers of God. Saying that God could create the universe effortlessly but that he takes such loving care in the creation of humans should be a source of pride for the human race. Man's self-esteem is raised by the close association to God. Line 88 stresses the relationship between God and humans more clearly. For an oppressed people, as the American Negroes were during segregation, the importance of this story would be that all people are God-like and were created to God's intent. Since God in this poem speaks with an African American dialect, it is fair to assume that the person He made is African American.
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Lines 89-91

The actual creation of life, mentioned briefly in lines 89-90, is given much less attention than the structuring of the human body. This poem makes no explicit points about what conclusions its readers should draw from all of this, but ends abruptly with the traditional words for closing a sermon.
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Source: Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997.