PIETA by LOUISE GLUCK By the title alone, one image is already brought to mind: Michelangelos masterpiece the Piet.

Here, Mary is holding the dead body of Jesus after his crucifixion. This would, then, be the main imagery which we would use to get one interpretation of this poem. Piet, generally, means pity or compassion, but, used in a religious context, it could also mean piety, or the act of being religious, as a Google search of the word piety would show. In the first two lines, the image of a mothers pregnant belly is presented. This assumption holds due to what was being described in lines 6 and 7 wherein we are told of the baby who does not want to go out into the world. And we can be sure that the baby is, indeed, a baby because of line 9. But how could we show that this is a poem that could be connected to the Michelangelo masterpiece? In lines 11 until the end, line 18, there is a mention of a crowd awaiting the childs birth. Aside from that, there is a specific mention that a star is shining on the spot where the baby is to be born. To connect this poem to the masterpiece, I think the idea of pity must be put into the limelight. In the masterpiece, pity is the general feeling as the Jesus lies there, lifeless. As for the poem, the feeling of pity is shown by the mother to her unborn child as she knows the hardships that he will face upon his birth. And, I think, that this is what this interpretation is. This is the pieta before the birth. A precursor of sorts. But I would like to propose another reading. In this second reading, I would say that the poem could be interpreted as being about a single mother living in poverty, under the stars. Taking away the religious ideas behind the word PIETA, this poem takes on a whole different light. Inside a mothers stretched skin lies a baby. As mentioned in line 4, this child has no father. It could be said that this child was conceived out of wedlock. The mother, who pities the child, thinks of all the roughhousing the world would give to the child. But how could this reading fulfill the imagery presented in the last 8 lines? In the last 8 lines, the image of men gathered to see the child born under starlight greatly resembles that of the nativity scene with the shepherds. Knowing that the nativity scene happened in a manger, this gives the nativity scene an imagery that lends itself well to that of a poor family welcoming life into the world. This rounds out the entirety of the poem to show that it could also be describing a poor mother, and her family, awaiting the birth of a child who was conceived out of wedlock.