embracing modernism: a review of tender buttons

by Aleia Nagle

It is extremely easy to be critical of Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, as the poems are tangles of words and jargon that intend to describe everyday items. Is there even a deeper meaning to these poems? And how does a reader make sense of this if there is? I realized throughout reading this work that Stein's intention is to embrace modernism and make the readers read descriptions of objects in a way they have never seen before. Perhaps Stein wants to challenge the reader's thinking and the way they traditionally view poetry by reading poems where the experience of struggling to understand the words seems to be more important than the words themselves.

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The word choices are complex, as Stein is creating her own world within the three sections of this collection: Objects, Food, and Rooms. But food can be objects and objects can be food, so why is there a distinction made for these sections? Not all of the items in ‘Objects’ are objects, such as “COLD CLIMATE,” and not all of the items in ‘Food’ are food, such as “DINING” or “EATING.” It completely contradicts expectations. The change in writing style is also difficult to understand as both the first two sections, ‘Objects’ and ‘Food,’ follow the same form of one or multiple stanzas while ‘Rooms’ is long, extending over ten pages. I got used to reading her one style for ‘Objects’ and ‘Food,’ only to be confused when I started to read Rooms. This work is supposed to be a collection of poems, but they are more like prose, breaking the conventional mold of what poetry is stylistically. 

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The three section titles and the items in the sections are entirely domestic and within the home. Each of the poems revolves around the interactions that these subjects have with outside things such as the person viewing it. Stein usually does not focus on the subject as it fits within the room; she discusses how it is used, what it does when it is used, how the item was made, how other things affect it, or how time affects it. When Stein writes, the words she uses usually do not describe the subject from the title. For instance, in the section ‘Objects,’ the entry called “A LONG DRESS” makes readers think that the poem is about a long dress. Instead, Stein goes on to ask questions about electricity in relation to the dress: “What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist” (Stein 17). The title seems to only be there as the basis of where Stein’s ideas or questions stem. There is a disconnect between the title and the content of the poem, causing readers to not know what the subject truly is.

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Modernist works are characterized by their difficulty, and “Tender Buttons” is difficult. It is frustrating not being able to completely understand what the poems are about but understanding that it is a modernist work provides some relief that the meaning within the work might not need to be decoded, if there even is one. It is impressive that Stein was able to write these poems, completely rebelling against modernity to provide a slightly uncomfortable and unorthodox reading experience. The last line of `Rooms,’ “The care with which there is incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and a fountain” (Stein 78), perfectly represents all the poems. The poems are hard to understand but at the same time, also hard to forget.