Zimmer, Paul : The Explanation

Literature Annotations

Genre	Poem
Keywords	Death and Dying, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Human Worth, Suffering, Technology
Summary	This is a two-verse, ten-line poem about the narrator's father, who is obviously being kept alive against his own will (he "stormed against equivocation, / Heaving against tubes and wires"). He wants no part of these life-sustaining gadgets; in fact, "they" have to "bind him down." Finally, the doctors ask him why he's acting this way and, unable to speak, the old man asks for a pencil and paper and angrily scribbles in his "clearest, / Most commanding hand, 'I am dead.'"
Commentary	The poem presents end-of-life decisions and dilemmas from the point of view of a dying man. The adult child of the man is the observer, who doesn't tell readers his own feelings on the matter (how was he involved in the life-sustaining measures?), but reports on the dramatic message his father sends to all those who seek to keep him alive, for whatever reason.
Source	Crossing to Sunlight
Publisher	Univ. of Georgia Press
Edition	1996
Place Published	Athens, Ga.
Alternate Source	On Doctoring
Alternate Publisher	Somon & Schuster
Alternate Edition	2001 (3rd ed.)
Alternate Editors	Richard Reynolds, John Stone, Lois LaCivita Nixon, & Delese Wear
Place Published	New York
Annotated by	Wear, Delese
Date of Entry	02/11/97
Last Revised	08/22/01