Smart and Final Iris (Poem Summary)

Poem Summary

Lines 1 – 5

Tate’s title, “Smart and Final Iris,” refers to the name of a warehouse grocery chain that operates over 214 stores in California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Florida, and Mexico. The name is derived from the company’s founders, Jim Smart and Hildane Final. Iris is the name of the company’s private brand label introduced in 1895. In 1953, after acquiring its leading competitor, Haas, Baruch, and Co., Smart and Final became Smart & Final Iris Co. The obscurity of the title makes it a code of sorts because readers have to figure out what it has to do with the poem. This tactic makes sense because the poem concerns itself with the idea of code names and what they represent.

The Pentagon is the building in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., that houses the United States Department of Defense and all four branches of the military — Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. It is also one of the world’s largest office buildings. But “Pentagon” is often used to refer to the U.S. military in general.

The first line refers to the Pentagon’s practice of giving code names to military operations and scenarios. For example, during the 1950s and 1960s, the United States Airborne Alert Program, which kept up to a dozen nuclear-armed bombers airborne 24 hours a day to deter a possible Soviet surprise attack, was variously called “Head Start,” “Round Robin,” and “Chrome Dome.” Tate satirizes this practice by imagining what the Pentagon’s code words would be for the end of the world, if Pentagon military plans for nuclear war fail. The phrase is ironic because there would be no paradise in the aftermath of a war. The word “rural” alludes to the fact that cities would be the primary targets and bombed first. By repeating the phrase “rural paradise,” clarifying it the second time, Tate delays the ironic effect, showing his adroitness with comic timing.

Lines 6 – 8

In this stanza, Tate again satirizes the Pentagon’s naming of horrific scenarios of mass destruction. Military bureaucracies are often criticized for using cost-benefit analysis to develop war strategies and to calculate acceptable numbers for the loss of human life. The phrase, “a trip on the wayward bus,” conjures up associations of carefree, serendipitous travel, and the image of Volkswagen buses of the 1960s.

Lines 9 – 12

In these stanzas, Tate first presents the image of a “future of mutants” resulting from a nuclear war. His code for such a scenario, “bridal parties collide,” is even more bizarre than his previous codes, and suggests the drama, comedy, and confusion at weddings, and the promise of children often resulting from them. Many of the children born to survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were deformed because of the radiation their mothers experienced from the atomic blasts. The phrase also calls up images of monsters and the walking dead, popularized in films such as Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead. The link between the code and what it signifies is comical in the next stanza because Tate plays with the idea of beatniks as impoverished artists who are frequently hungry. The word beatnik is often used as a derisive term for members of the Beat generation of the 1950s, a social and literary movement whose members abhorred conventional society and sought spiritual enlightenment through jazz, drugs, sex, and the practice of Eastern religion including Zen Buddhism. Beats were also the precursors to the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s, who shared many of the same beliefs. To have a “plague” of them is doubly derisive.

Lines 13 – 16

In this stanza, the absurdity of assigning code names for scenarios of nuclear holocaust and of Tate’s own poem comes to a head. “First strike” refers to the military strategy of initiating nuclear war. First strike was a viable option in the Pentagon during the cold war. The idea behind such a strategy is that by striking (bombing) the enemy first, you take away their ability to respond. By saving this military operation as the last to be named, Tate underscores its inherent absurdity, and the absurdity, in general, of planning for a nuclear war. The code here mimics song lyrics and underscores the continued deterioration of the logic that links the code to what it represents.

Lines 17 – 20

This is the only stanza in which there is no code. Yet the stanza itself needs interpreting and so can be seen as a code, as can much poetry. The madman here might be any tyrant with access to nuclear weapons, or maybe even someone at the Pentagon caught up in the image of himself as a hero or patriot. Popular culture is full of just such figures. By using the pronoun “it” to refer to “one of those babies,” Tate shows his contempt for such people. He dehumanizes those who treat others as numbers in a war game and can even imagine a world after nuclear war. These madmen “get bigger” because they get madder when “kicked” by their enemies. Tate uses these terms figuratively. “Getting bigger” suggests becoming more outlandish in one’s behavior, more self-righteous. The poem ends on this ominous note, creating a sense of imminent doom.

Topics for Further Study

• Tate has written other poems on the horrors of nuclear war. Compare his poem “Land of Little Sticks, 1945” from his collection Constant Defender with “Smart and Final Iris.” What are the differences and similarities in how they describe scenarios for nuclear annihilation?
• Conduct a survey of people over forty years old and under forty, asking them to what degree they believe a nuclear war is possible in their lifetime. Then, write an essay exploring what the answers have in common and how they differ. What conclusions can you draw from the responses?
• Research and report on the current strategy of the United States for nuclear defense. Do you agree with it? Why or why not?
• Assume you and a few classmates have been given the responsibility of drawing up a response and survival plan for your school in the event of a limited nuclear attack on a city fifty miles away. What would your priorities be? What does this tell you about your own values?
• Poll your class to see who believes that nuclear arms are a deterrent to war and who believes they are not. Then, research the positions and stage a debate.
• Compile a list of code names for military operations and projects for the twentieth century (for example, the 1991 war against Iraq was dubbed “Operation Desert Storm”), then write a poem using these names.
• Research the number of countries that either now possess or have the capability of making a nuclear bomb. Next, research which of these countries is currently involved in a conflict with another country or countries. Which country do you think might use the bomb first, and why?
• All of the following code words are related to projects associated with nuclear bombs and nuclear bomb testing by the U.S. government: “Operation Ranger”; “Fat Man”; “Operation Plumbob”; “Ranier.” Research what they refer to and report your findings to your class.
• Compare and contrast films about nuclear war released before and after 1980 and report on how the depiction of nuclear war has changed over time. Start with these films: On the Beach(1959);Dr. Strangelove; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963);Fail-Safe (1964);Mad Max II (1981); Threads(1984); and The Day After(1984).