The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Though Smith doesn’t really touch on this theme until the end of the poem, most any poem about the universe is thematically concerned with the vastness of the cosmos. Smith presents the universe and all of time as a surreal musical composition with no known author, purpose, or true meaning. There simply exists titanic sounds and natural harmonies that drown out all life and render those who hear the music small and insignificant.

Smith makes an interesting move in the first stanza that sort of sets up this idea of the grand universe. She shifts from the universe’s first track to the power of the universe’s music without drawing attention to the shift: “High hat and snare, even / A few bars of sax the stratosphere will singe-out soon enough” (Lines 1-2). The second line contains the most blatant alliteration in the poem, and it also features the only instance of inaccurate syntax. The movement from “sax” to “the stratosphere” is a run-on sentence, and it sticks out in a poem that is otherwise so governed by grammatical rules. The movement here can imply many things, but its placement in the first stanza and the attention Smith draws to it with heavy alliteration suggests the image has a unique kind of power. It’s as if the image has the power to eradicate the poem itself—even grammar itself. And considering the first image is the sound of the Big Bang, this kind of power makes sense. The energy from the Big Bang continues to cause universal expansion, which most physicists believe will lead to the eventual death of the universe. This bit of linguistic modification foreshadows the inevitable destruction (the stratosphere singing out).

In this sense, Smith’s poem focuses on the universe’s vast power more so than its size. The universe is the ultimate power in the universe. It is unconquerable. And Smith touches on the universe’s invulnerability in the next theme when she introduces life into the universe.